New IFR Currency requirements...!

On Feb 25, 6:14 am, Roy Smith wrote:

Pointless? No. I do agree with you that's it's a little vague....

My point here was that if I can control the plane by reference to
instruments while doing approaches, I sure as heck must be able to do
it while remaining straight and level. What additional experience am
I gaining by simply being in cruise flight for that long?

On a somewhat unrelated note, how are professional pilots going to
stay current? Their normal flying probably takes care of that today,
but I don't know of many airlines that still use non-precision
approaches.

--Dan

In a previous article, Roy Smith said:
The way the rules are written today, you can maintain currency by getting
vectors to the same ILS at your home drome 6 times and doing one hold.
Repeat every six months. By this time, you should have the fixes and
altitudes memorized and can probably read back the vectors in your sleep.

All the real world IFR flying I've done since getting my ticket has
involved flying in or over clouds en-route, and maybe once in a while
doing an ILS where I break out soon after crossing the FAF. I've never
done a real circle to land (and I hope I never have to), and I've only
once done a LOC-BC approach in the clouds (which with a HSI was pretty
much a non-event). So if all I did for currency was fly 6 ILSes at my
home airport, I would be pretty well prepared for what I'm going to
encounter in real life. I've been trying to mix it up a bit, however, but
there's only so much a safety pilot will put up with, especially since
they decommissioned our NDB approach.

--
Paul Tomblin http://blog.xcski.com/
"I'm starting to suspect she has a part-time job in one of the circles of
Hell and is telecommuting."

"Roy Smith" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Jose wrote:


A full stop landing damn well is part of instrument flying. The whole
point of an instrument flight is to get to another airport when the
weather
is bad.


I suppose 50 miles is somewhat arbitrary, but it seems to me that the
whole
point here is to get people away from their familiar home environment. If
taking two 50 mile flights twice a year is a hardship, I don't understand
what people are doing with their ratings.

Yeah, right. And it's kind of hard to do that in much less than 50 miles.
On any kind of real IFR flight with weather that's at all marginal, one of
the first things I do once I get settled into cruise is call up flight
watch and get an update on weather along my route. There's neither time
nor reason to do that on a 25 mile hop to the next airport over.


This is for currency. If one doesn't fly any real IFR over a six-month
period, then requiring a little enroute flying with the appropriate
transitions at the ends seems reasonable. It is the wording that bothers me.
It seems to imply that currency would include a single flight that entails
all the transitions and enroute time. What if I had an hour of real IFR and
an approach or two and just needed to fill in the gaps?


-------------------------------
Travis
Lake N3094P
PWK

"Jim Macklin" wrote in message
...
An instrument take-off can be done under the hood, but the
FAA practice has been to put the hood on at 100-200 feet.
And then fail an engine on a twin.


"Don Poitras" wrote in message
...
| Dan wrote:
| So what does everyone think about the proposed new IFR
currency
| requirements? The major changes seem to be that 1 hour
of cross-
| country time will be required, along with six
approaches, consisting
| of BOTH precision and non-precision, and two types of
holds.
|
| Some of this can be completed in a PCATD, but an
instructor must be
| present. (I wonder if a remote MSFS console via the
Internet counts..)
|
| Most of it sounds OK to me, however I think the 1 hour
of cross-
| country time is pointless. What would be considered
cross-country? It
| is a little vague...
|
| Here is the link:
|
|
http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2...df/E7-1467.pdf
|
| The interesting bit starts on page 31 of the PDF.
|
| I've never done a takeoff under the hood. I wonder if it
would be ok if
| I did that just before rotating or if it needs to be done
for the
| entire roll. I'm glad my home airport runway is 100 feet
wide...
|
| Yes, I know we can legally take off zero zero. It's just
not something
| I think I need to practice every six months.
|
| With a /G plane, the hold over the radio station and
intersection are
| no different. I wonder where these requirements are coming
from? Has
| someone been complaining that pilots aren't doing holds
very well and
| should practice more? An hour cross country? My last
currency ride actually
| did last more than an hour. We didn't cross much country
though. We
| did a GPS at Chapel Hill and from the hold at the missed
went to the
| nearby IAP for the GPS at my home airport at Sanford.
They're 21 miles
| apart.
|
|
| --Dan
|
|
| --
| Don Poitras


That's nice with an instructor. I'm not sure that I would trust that flight
scenario with the typical safety pilots I recruit. Most are non-instrument
rated and maybe even unfamiliar with my plane. Transitioning to the hood
just after rotation (which I find more difficult than transition to IMC),
close to the ground, in a climb, following a departure procedure, in a busy
airspace sounds like a tough scenario to require every six months.

-------------------------------
Travis
Lake N3094P
PWK

In article .com,
"Dan" wrote:

On Feb 25, 6:14 am, Roy Smith wrote:

Pointless? No. I do agree with you that's it's a little vague....

My point here was that if I can control the plane by reference to
instruments while doing approaches, I sure as heck must be able to do
it while remaining straight and level. What additional experience am
I gaining by simply being in cruise flight for that long?

You get the experience of going someplace that's outside of your familiar
area, where you actually have to think about how to get where you're going,
look things up because you don't already have them memorized.

You can spend the cruise time (if you can count 15 minutes as "cruise
time") doing things like getting a weather update, reviewing your fuel
status, planning your descent profile, etc. These are all things you
should be doing on normal IFR flights anyway.

Even better, put your safety pilot to good use and have him give you a
diversion to someplace you haven't planned. Pull out the charts, figure
out a route, air-file a flight plan, pick up your clearance, and program
the GPS with the new route. That'll keep you busy during the en-route
segment.

Anybody who's flying real IFR on a regular basis will meet these
requirements as part of his or her normal flying. Even if you need to go
out and fly a bunch of approaches just to get current, going to someplace
that's 50 miles away just shouldn't be a hardship. Most places, there's
enough approaches around that without much effort, you can put together a
loop where the missed approach from one puts you to the general vicinity of
the IAF of the next.

In article ,
Jose wrote:

I can't tell you how many approaches I watch people make where they
couldn't possible land at the end.

Ok, fair enough (though in the example you cite it seems like he could
have circled to land). I'd have to ask what you think the purpose of
currency requirements is. If it is to repeatedly prove that you can
still do =all= aspects of instrument flying by actually =doing= all
aspects of instrument flying, I'd say that's overkill.

Jose

Proving that you can land the airplane at the end of the flight doesn't
seem like a lot to ask.

BTW, if you're reached the straight-in MDA and find you can't land, it's
too late to be planning a circling maneuver.

Even if you need to go
out and fly a bunch of approaches just to get current, going to someplace
that's 50 miles away just shouldn't be a hardship.

It's an added expense which may well be pointless. That same time and
money could be better spent doing more approaches under different
circumstances (including failed instruments)

Jose
--
Humans are pack animals. Above all things, they have a deep need to
follow something, be it a leader, a creed, or a mob. Whosoever fully
understands this holds the world in his hands.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Proving that you can land the airplane at the end of the flight doesn't
seem like a lot to ask.

Well, I'm not sure I agree. There are lots of things that pilots need
to be able to do that they don't have to prove repeatedly.

BTW, if you're reached the straight-in MDA and find you can't land, it's
too late to be planning a circling maneuver.

True. But in that case (and your example) I'd say the approach was
botched, and the pilot's evaluation of his own approach is flawed.

Jose
--
Humans are pack animals. Above all things, they have a deep need to
follow something, be it a leader, a creed, or a mob. Whosoever fully
understands this holds the world in his hands.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

On Sun, 25 Feb 2007 08:49:03 -0500, Roy Smith wrote:

I suppose 50 miles is somewhat arbitrary, but it seems to me that the whole
point here is to get people away from their familiar home environment. If
taking two 50 mile flights twice a year is a hardship, I don't understand
what people are doing with their ratings.

You'd think actually using the rating would at least meet the minimum
currency requirements.

I'm not so sure I'd want to fly with someone who continually was
worried about flying just enough to stay legally current.

On 02/25/07 08:52, Travis Marlatte wrote:
"Roy Smith" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Jose wrote:


A full stop landing damn well is part of instrument flying. The whole
point of an instrument flight is to get to another airport when the
weather
is bad.


I suppose 50 miles is somewhat arbitrary, but it seems to me that the
whole
point here is to get people away from their familiar home environment. If
taking two 50 mile flights twice a year is a hardship, I don't understand
what people are doing with their ratings.

Yeah, right. And it's kind of hard to do that in much less than 50 miles.
On any kind of real IFR flight with weather that's at all marginal, one of
the first things I do once I get settled into cruise is call up flight
watch and get an update on weather along my route. There's neither time
nor reason to do that on a 25 mile hop to the next airport over.


This is for currency. If one doesn't fly any real IFR over a six-month

Uhhh, let's not get IFR and IMC confused. You can fly all the IFR you
want over the six month period, including approaches, holding, etc.
yet still need to do the currency.

period, then requiring a little enroute flying with the appropriate
transitions at the ends seems reasonable. It is the wording that bothers me.
It seems to imply that currency would include a single flight that entails
all the transitions and enroute time. What if I had an hour of real IFR and
an approach or two and just needed to fill in the gaps?


-------------------------------
Travis
Lake N3094P
PWK





--
Mark Hansen, PP-ASEL, Instrument Airplane
Cal Aggie Flying Farmers
Sacramento, CA