Question for Instrument Pilots

[Dbriggs 0]

I have a question for all instrument rated pilots. How soon after getting your private did you begin inst. training?? I am looking at starting in the next month or two. What is your advice?? thanks David

[quade 3]

If you're a casual pilot out for a $100 hamburger every weekend or so and don't mind getting grounded by the weather every now and then and since you just got your Private Certificate, go enjoy yourself on some cross countries and learn a little bit more about pilotage. Learn how to read a sectional and learn how to rely less on instruments in general. Meanwhile, you can start to rebuild your training war chest for when you do want to tackle it.

The instrument rating is one of the most mentally challenging things you'll ever do. It's a real thinking man's game and you'll have a LOT to learn. When you throw yourself into instrument training, you'll want to be 100 percent focused on it. The simulated and actual flying isn't all that difficult, but it's all the other stuff, the planning, radio work, new charts, about a jillion other things . . . that's what is so difficult about the instrument rating.

A hot summer day, in a light aircraft, is pretty horrible for instrument training. You might consider scheduling later flights -- maybe make them night flights. There's less traffic to deal with and the thermals don't screw your attitude quite so much. It's not like you're ever going to be looking out of the airplane anyway.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[kallend 1,647]

I got mine before the rules were changed - I think you needed 150 hours or so before you could do it back then, which discouraged new PPs from doing instrument training. Then FAA wised up and realized that instrument training for low time pilots was GOOD, not bad.

Anyhow, I had about 120 hours before I started my training.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[VectorBoy 0]

I recommend you get it as soon as you get yankin and bankin out of your system, assuming that it ever was in yours. Most of my friends enjoyed a little unusual attitude, others lived on the edge. But I know at least a couple that dreaded even doing a spin.

The rating is said to be the hardest to get, I just think its the hardest to stay current on. If your heart is really there, you prepare, study and get a good instructor it can be as easy as you make it. Its a lot of precision flying. Nailing altitudes and headings instead of boring holes and cruzing places. Know the aircraft you are most often to fly's numbers and how to make it fly those numbers you want without too much input and constant tweaking from you.

Then there is the "system". If you were the kind of PVT pilot that hated to talk to ATC, avoided class B used corridors and flew low all the time between non tower airports. Don't laugh there are a lot of pvt pilots that are scared of high traffic and complex cockpit multi-tasking. All of this will be harder for you and I recommend some time getting aquainted with all of the services available to you ( IFR or VFR ) from getting good and friendly with the ATC "system".

IF you have to stop training for what ever reason it is not like riding a bicycle, and you can't just resume with a little review. Its more like waking from a long coma and you have to learn to walk again. Try to have the resources to keep flowing thru this mostly more so than all of the other ratings.

Good luck buddy!

[VectorBoy 0]

You might consider scheduling later flights -- maybe make them night flights. There's less traffic to deal with and the thermals don't screw your attitude quite so much. It's not like you're ever going to be looking out of the airplane anyway.

[larsrulz 0]

Haven't finished my Instrument rating yet but close. I basically made my PPL and IPL one training schedule. Given Instrument is just cross-country and instrument flying time, I had my CFI begin the instrument training as soon as I had done my first solo cross country. That way I didn't get to 20 hours and basically have nothing new left to learn in the air between then and my check ride; I was learning new stuff while perfecting that which I already knew. As has been said, if you aren't so good at cockpit management, then getting into instrument flying a little more slowly is a good thing, cause there can be a lot to do at any one time. But there is no reason to "practice" VFR for a long time before you start your instrument rating.

I'm not sure if I agree with Paul's issue of hot summer days in a GA aircraft though. There is certainly a reason that I fly all my routes above 6K'. Always do my descents at 1200+ fpm, which even gets my CFI a little queasy. I'm too cheap to turn on my AC until the temperature is over 100, so instead I just go flying where it is 40 degrees colder! Which one flight ends up costing twice what my monthly power bill is!

I got a strong urge to fly, but I got no where to fly to. -PF

[VectorBoy 0]

I'm not sure if I agree with Paul's issue of hot summer days in a GA aircraft though.

[gmanpilot 0]

Sooner the better, IMHO.

_________________________________________
-There's always free cheese in a mouse trap.

[skipro101 0]

I got my private a few weeks ago and started working on instrument 1 week later.

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[uncaged 0]

Pretty good advice from everyone here, however you can save a lot of time and money with these new software IFR training programs, use it as a procedures trainer and stay organized...

"Its not how well you fly, its how cool you sound on the radio"

When the going gets weird, The weird turn pro...

[calphoto 0]

All of the following pre-supposes that you can afford it...
Air Force pilot training had us going into instruments directly from the contact/aerobatic phase. When I finished the instrument section and advanced to contact/formation, I was amazed at how much more precisely I flew the plane even when I was looking outside. As a new Private pilot you should be budgeting at least an hour a week flying anyway. Go directly into instruments, and you will keep all that hard earned knowledge that you acquired for the PPL. Keep slugging away at it till you are ready to go for the check ride, then get an intensive week of flying an hour and ground work with an instructor for an hour each day.
THEN move on to your commercial! You need 250 hours to earn your Commercial certificate, at which point you will be employable. Obviously you may not get hired just then, most places wanting at least 500 hours before they let you fly their planes. But you will be ready when that DZ you have been jumping at suddenly needs a part-time 182 pilot. All of my flying jobs have been "right-place/right-time" openings.
Bottom line is to make someone ELSE pay for your time as soon as you possibly can. Fly Safe and Blue Skies!

Hartwood Paracenter - The closest DZ to DC!

[Beerlight 0]

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I have a question for all instrument rated pilots. How soon after getting your private did you begin inst. training?? I am looking at starting in the next month or two. What is your advice?? thanks David

Pulled this off Avweb:

If you're working on your instrument rating or you need an Instrument Proficiency Check (IPC), your world is about to change, and not entirely for the better, according to at least one training expert. The FAA has revised its instrument rating practical test standards. The 48 pages of new rules go into effect on Oct. 1, and one clause in particular will have widespread consequences, Richard Kaplan, a principal and instructor at Flight Level Aviation, told AVweb. He said the new rules require that a circling approach be demonstrated during the IPC. Not only does the requirement send the wrong message to pilots (that circling approaches are SOP) and decrease flexibility (the ability to adapt training to address the pilot's weaknesses), Kaplan claims, it will also increase costs to trainers, and, ultimately, pilots. Kaplan said the vast majority of IPCs are done on simulators and, more recently, on a sophisticated but relatively inexpensive PC-based system called an Advanced ATD. Under current rules, the PC system is approved for the entire IPC but the systems are not approved to check circling approaches. Also, said Kaplan, many of the hugely expensive simulators that a lot of schools use will no longer be approved for IPCs because they lack the wrap-around view needed for circling approaches. The wrap-around screens cost tens of thousands of dollars. The new rule might mean that parts of the IPC will have to be done in actual airplanes. Kaplan said the new rules also lay out the specific tasks to be demonstrated in the tests and checks and that inhibits the instructor's ability to individualize the check and turn it into a learning experience. "The FAA has removed the CFII's discretion and turned the IPC into just another hurdle to overcome," he said.

[Dutchboy 0]

I would recommend that you do some cross-crounty trips and enjoy your license. You will need 50 hours PIC cross-country time to get the rating. Normally, you will get 10 hours of this during the training. You don't have to make long trips, but it isn't hard to make every trip 50nm or more.

[Dutchboy 0]

[reply
Pulled this off Avweb:

If you're working on your instrument rating or you need an Instrument Proficiency Check (IPC), your world is about to change, and not entirely for the better, according to at least one training expert.

[calphoto 0]

Pulled this off Avweb:

If you're working on your instrument rating or you need an Instrument Proficiency Check (IPC), your world is about to change, and not entirely for the better, according to at least one training expert.
_______________________________________________
Not pertinent to the original thread, but I'll go for it too. I rather like the idea that circling approaches should at least be LOOKED at every couple of years. The only time you will need them will be when the chips are down - low ceilings, non-precision approach, poor visibility, flying just below the clouds and just above the ground at half the normal pattern altitude, high stress, high risk. Much better to practice them when conditions are good and the pucker factor isn't high.
Then again I think we should also practice spins on a BFR.

Hartwood Paracenter - The closest DZ to DC!