Instrument training

"xxx" wrote in message
ups.com...
I've got about 6 hours now and find it not the slightest bit
fun.

Who said training had to be fun? Instrument training is damned hard work,
not least because just as you got the hang of this flying lark and started
to be able to relax a little bit, some idiot came along, stopped you looking
out of the windows, gave you a shedload of knobs and dials to understand,
stuffed the aircraft into a ridiculous attitude, and said: "Get out of that
without killing us both". The point is your next question.

Can anyone remind me why I'm inflicting this on myself?

Because once you're certificated to do it, you can do proper flying, and in
fact most of it won't happen in cloud. There's nothing worse than bumbling
about in the clouds, and you'll want to do it as little as possible.
Instrument certification gives you the ability to go and play on top where
the sun always shines, to be confident on days when the weather report says
something other than CAVOK, to navigate without having to constantly look
out of the window, try to identify what you're flying over and see if you've
been blown off track, and so on. Who cares if you never have to do an ILS
approach down to minima - it's just great being able to potter back home
from somewhere at 5000' in almost empty sky, then amble down through the
clouds and pop out at 2,000 feet for a conventional visual approach.

D.

"Mark Hansen" wrote in message
...
On 5/19/2005 6:53 AM, xxx wrote:



Now ... if you want to talk about the knowledge test - I'm at that
"this is just not fun" stage ;-)

KNowledge test is teh ugliest part of instrument training.
Especially because IT IS NOT flying.

Flying in the clouds is fun. Instrument training sucks, I don't think
anyone likes it. You're paying to fly but you can't even see outside.

-Robert, CFI

Casey Wilson wrote:

"xxx" wrote in message
ups.com...

I've got about 6 hours now and find it not the slightest bit
fun.

Can anyone remind me why I'm inflicting this on myself?


So quit.... I doubt anyone is holding a gun to your head.


The early part is basics and not as much fun. But as you learn to keep
the plane level, climbing and decending turns, timed turns, approaches,
all without ever looking out can be rewarding. Flying a couple of hours
and when you get to the airport it is right where it should be. You have
to know where you are at all times. I always have this mental picture of
me looking down at my plane all in the scheme of things.

--
Regards, Ross
C-172F 180HP
KSWI

I got mine 2 years ago and found it sheer hard work all the way. The
payoff finally came when I made my first IFR flight on my own in actual
IMC and saw that runway appear over the nose and realized that it was a
trip that would otherwise have left me at home because of weather.

In article .com,
"Robert M. Gary" wrote:

Flying in the clouds is fun. Instrument training sucks, I don't think
anyone likes it. You're paying to fly but you can't even see outside.

Yeah. I had this epiphany while doing my IFR cross country up to Arcata
(KACV) some time ago: there I was, 8,000' over the redwoods, the ranges,
the fog-shrouded coast (apparently) in sight, etc., and I'm *paying* to
block all this out under the hood and concentrate on the instruments.
Ditto for the NEUVO 5 approach out of Oakland -- people pay large
amounts of money to see the City and the Golden Gate, etc., from up here
and here I am paying vast sums *not* to see it. Bah humbug! :-).

Hamish (who did of course end up with the rating...)

David Cartwright wrote:


Can anyone remind me why I'm inflicting this on myself?

Because once you're certificated to do it, you can do proper flying,
and in
fact most of it won't happen in cloud. There's nothing worse than
bumbling
about in the clouds, and you'll want to do it as little as possible.
Instrument certification gives you the ability to go and play on top
where
the sun always shines, to be confident on days when the weather
report says
something other than CAVOK, to navigate without having to constantly
look
out of the window, try to identify what you're flying over and see if
you've
been blown off track, and so on. Who cares if you never have to do an
ILS
approach down to minima - it's just great being able to potter back
home
from somewhere at 5000' in almost empty sky, then amble down through
the
clouds and pop out at 2,000 feet for a conventional visual approach.

Thanks, that's a pretty good answer.

I've got no professional aviation aspirations buy might buy my own
airplane in the reasonably-near future. I can see that I'd get more
utility out of it with the legal right to punch a layer when it's
convenient.

I've got about 6 hours now and find it not the slightest bit
fun.

Can anyone remind me why I'm inflicting this on myself?

I assume your question is (only) partly in jest, and looking for
support. What kind of flying do you want to do? If all you want is to
poke holes in the sky and go for a $150 hamburger, then maybe you don't
need to do this. Ditto if you live in Arizona, where I don't think they
even have a =word= for cloud. OTOH if you want to get transportation
value out of the aircraft, or live where puffy white things would get in
the way of your aviation, =and= don't already have a (bad) habit of
looking at the cockpit instead of out the window(*), then an instrument
rating will allow you to fly when you otherwise could not, even if you
end up staying out of the clouds most of the time.

A perfect example came up a little while ago - I was going from Florida
to Cleveland, with a gas stop in Shelby (EHO - a great airport and FBO
BTW). After waiting out a thunderstorm that would send Thor to his
dugout, it was a little wispy (scattered to broken at 500 feet, nothing
above). I could depart IFR and then cancel if I wanted to. As it
turned out, the field went to 700 scattered while I was getting the
flight plan filed, so I abandoned that plan and departed VFR, flying
most of the way visually, climbing ultimately to 12,000 to avoid some
hills and the building clouds below, and navigating visually around a
few big thunderclouds as the sun was going down over the mountains. I
preferred to remain visual so I could see the thunderbumpers before I
bumped into them, and got flight following so that I could get a
clearance if I needed to. Most of the way I didn't. But descending
into Cleveland, it was overcast with tops at 4000, so I was going to
have to file. A quick call to Approach got me an ILS into CGF, which I
took down to minimums before breaking out. After about eight hours of
flying, it wasn't my best approach, but if I didn't have the rating, I
would not have been able to make the trip at all. Being stuck on top
with no rating would not be very comfortable.

Jose
r.a.s retained, though I don't follow that group
--
Money: what you need when you run out of brains.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

On 5/19/2005 9:46 AM, Robert M. Gary wrote:

Flying in the clouds is fun. Instrument training sucks, I don't think
anyone likes it. You're paying to fly but you can't even see outside.

-Robert, CFI


Instrument Training Sucks? I don't know about that. Perhaps I just
have a hard time separating the "what I have to do now to get there"
from the "what I'll be able to do once I get there" ... but I'm enjoying
the training.

.... of course, I'm only at the beginning (10.4 hours). I'm reasonably
proficient at Attitude Instrument Flying and have just started on
VOR/NDB nav, so we'll see how I feel when things really start popping.

I think my instructor is at least a part of what is making the
training fun.

--
Mark Hansen, PP-ASEL, Instrument Student
Sacramento, CA

xxx wrote:
I've got about 6 hours now and find it not the slightest bit
fun.

Can anyone remind me why I'm inflicting this on myself?


To get where you're going with a fair certainty of success. Without an
instrument rating, traveling more than than one day is a crap shoot.



--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN

VE