BFR yesterday; first instrument approaches!

Cautionary note: When you begin instrument training in earnest, don't go
right into approaches, no matter how much you enjoyed this experience. Your
instructor should give you a solid basis in flight by instrument reference
(maybe five hours of very boring stuff for him) so that when you do get into
approaches you will have the muscle memory down cold and will be able to
transition between level and climb, climb and level, etc etc without really
thinking about it.

Having said that, I always tried to end an hour of practicing "control
solely by instrument reference" by shooting an approach. Sometimes I let the
student do it under the hood, sometimes we did it VFR so that the student
could relate needle position to the proximity of terrain and obstacles.

Bob Gardner

"Michael Ware" wrote in message
. ..
My BFR was due in June, so I figured I'd get it out of the way a little
early so I wouldn't have to possibly ground myself. I scheduled for
Saturday, but the weather was looking marginal (I'm VFR only). Saturday
morning rolled around, TAF called for IMC. So I called my instructor to
get
his thoughts. He asked me if I was instrument rated (no), I asked him if
it
was possible to incorporate some simulated IFR into the flight portion of
the review. That's what we did.
After some ground discussion and Q&A, we filed IFR from OSU (Ohio state
University, Columbus OH), to CYO (Circleville OH), to TZR (Bolton) and
back
to OSU. Prior to this, the only instrument training I had was the hood
time
for the private, and an hour here and there for aircraft checkouts,
unusual
attitude etc. I have to tell you, I am quite excited about persuing my
instrument rating now. It is one thing to read about it or watch a video
on
the topic, quite another to actually do it. Being vectored around for
traffic, given clearance for the approach, etc. was a great experience and
lots of fun. Wirh the weather as it is right now in Ohio, at 4000 feet it
was absolutely the smoothest ride I can remember.
So, I got to do some IFR approaches, Bill (the instructor) got to evaluate
my flying skills and I got myself current for another 2 years. Worked out
well.

Mike