IFR training...

For what it is worth, I recently re validated my IMC. I have held this for some four years. I thought I was quite competent. Shock and awe......My instructor, prior to the exam, took me for some IFR ambles. I was shocked at how little I knew, and how, at times, I frankly did not have a clue about what I was doing. It literally took three hours of pretty hard, VOR tracking and holds, NDB tracking and holds, and then it began to click again. My flying has always been pretty accurate, but to 'get the picture', again, I found difficult. This issue regarding 'recency', is very, very, valid.

I moved along thinking everything is ok, I can fly an ILS pretty accurately, therefore I do not need much instrument instructor coaching. Wrong, I need a lot, and I have now booked my instructor in for a few hours every quarter..I think it may be the best few hours I will spend in the coming months.

I've just seen that AOPA article.

It's good, though I would not assign a lot of importance to training in planes with different avionics unless that is what you do for real, and in that case you need a whole lot more practice. A bit like the old US joke about the man who owns only one gun: beware, for he probably knows how to use it

Currency on type is what really matters.

I don't think there is any magic formula for being able to fly IFR. IMHO the best thing is to grab every opportunity to drill some holes in clouds, flying headings, tracking VORs etc, and throwing a bit of money to some local airport to fly down its ILS (I throw £20 to Lydd every few weeks, but have not landed there for years). And of course fly the procedure at your local, if there is one. In most cases there is no charge if you land off it. That way one is never going to be brilliant but one builds up a basic level of situational awareness and ability to fly in IMC.

As private pilots we rarely get a chance to fly in real IMC, because going for a flight in say OVC005 weather carries a real risk of not getting back home the same day, which is basically useless. And if flying "somewhere nice" one isn't going to be going there if the weather is crap! On a recent trip to Greece I logged > 20hrs but only ~ 10mins instrument time, and that is fairly typical of those trips and especially if one has an IR.

And flying under a hood is very artificial - very different to flying for real in IMC which is IMHO easier.

Understanding the avionics systems is also vital. Many pilots frankly don't know what some of the knobs do, and almost no instructors do (which is itself a huge problem in GA). I didn't know how to set up a GPS/RNAV approach until I started flying them, recently. If something bad happens (e.g. a sick passenger, or ATC throw something at you) and the stress level goes up, the automatics will be the way to go, 100%. You absolutely don't hand-fly in that situation. So practicing and testing stuff like an autopilot-coupled ILS is vital. On my JAA IR revalidation the other day we flew a coupled GPS/RNAV approach and that is a real move into the 21st century and the reality. An ILS is always hand-flown however, on a test.

Peter's advice to use a flight sim may be good for some but it certainly wouldn't have been good for me when I did the IR.

A bit of background: I did the IMCR about a year after my PPL in 1994: I found it quite difficult initially as I was low hours post PPL but still managed to polish it off in a week with Jim Hilton at Turdy.

Ten years ago I did the FAA/IR in two weeks of concentrated flying in Florida: while hard work I enjoyed it and got a first time pass the day before I was due to fly home.

However the FAA was not much use to me (I fly a G reg) except when I went to USA to rent.

So when a group of PPLs in 2008 decided to do the JAA/IR, I think at that time spurred on by the uncertainty of the IMCr, I signed up.The exams were a doddle.

My big mistake was to assume that Sim work would be also a doddle and would save me money. However I had had absolutely no experience of any kind of flight simulators and had a struggle to find an outfit with a FNPT2 certified for single engine use.

I did find an outfit hundreds of miles from home with such a Sim: Bad move: the outfit was heavily geared to CPL/IR and I had to squeeze my sessions in at 7.30 am then kick my heels till the next day: How I hated that sim: it was faulty (no brakes so taxying virtually impossible: sorties started at 2000ft) Then the sim caught fire and I was sent home (more hotel bills).

I could never let myself believe I was 'flying' in the sim and to cut a long story short after I had blown my entire IR budget on trying to get to grips with the s*dding FNPT2 and still not passed the SIM 170A test which the FTO insisted on, we parted company.

My confidence was seriously shaken by this experience and when I finally went to an FTO to do the flying hours I effectively in terms of hours had done the IR de novo instead of what should have been a swift conversion.

So in my experience the sim was a total waste of time/money and had a negative effect on my IR learning capacity which it took a long time to overcome.

But overcome it I did and have just passed my first annual revalidation.

Of course much of my problems were probably due to my advancing years (I have had a bus Pass for 7 years) : the training was much harder than my FAA/IR ten years previously, but I still blame the SIM.

Peter

Peter for me it looks complete different, the sim ist "only" a procedures trainer and save a lot of time to learn and understand it. After any approch we make a break a debriefing and jump back to the next approch with no wating time for ATC and the backtrack. You can change the wind at the holding und see what happens. And when you dont't understand it make a break and lets explain it. Is boring agree flying is better but you can learn a lot. Sry for my englisch

Yes, I should have made my "sim" comments clearer.

The FNPT2 sims are popular because despite outrageous hourly rates they are (usually) cheaper than flying an FTO owned SEP and are a lot cheaper than flying an FTO owned twin, and you can log a % of the total hours in them which makes them even more popular (even more €€€ saved). Most of the customers are ATPL cadets, do not fly GA and thus have no interest in building currency on type.

Also most have near-zero IFR experience. For a totally an initio instrument pilot who knows nothing about IFR procedures, a sim saves a lot of money to learn how the procedures work. The sim also helps to learn some peculiar stuff e.g. how to fly the "gates" in NDB holds (but you need a sim which simulates the ADF dip for that).

But if you know nothing about IFR, just playing with a sim on your own isn't going to teach you. You need somebody to show you. But you don't need an FNPT2 sim with an instructor at €200/hour plus. FSX on a PC, and a friend who knows IFR, is plenty good enough and vastly cheaper.

If however you "know IFR" and have a plane and just need to get good enough to pass the CAA IR test, an FNPT2 is likely to cost more than flying your own plane, so why bother? There is no point. I could fly my TB20 for less than an FNPT2.

The FNPT2 will fly nothing like your plane (or, as many would say, including many IR instructors I know) it will fly nothing like any plane So you are building no currency on type. If I was a private pilot and flying something not outrageously expensive to fly (e.g. not a TBM or a Cessna 421, etc) I would not spend any time in an FNPT2 sim.

For IR conversion people, who are trying to do it in something not too far over the 15 hours, an FNPT2 is even worse because you badly need the currency on the type in which the IR test will be done. Actually very few people do it in 15hrs anyway.

Perhaps there is a middle ground which is somebody with IFR experience, but no ICAO IR (e.g. a pilot with the UK IMC Rating and who uses it for real) so zero credit towards the 50/55hrs requirement, and then there will be a need to just "burn hours" at the cheapest / easiest rate. And you can burn 20-30hrs (?) in the FNPT2 no matter what the weather. These people are the most poorly served by the JAA IR, which is why so many went the FAA route.

Also certain FTOs are especially well known for milking the "170A test"...

Your English is fine, Cheshunt

Speaking of simulators, I have just learned from a friend of mine that a few schools in Czech Republic train their IR students on an ATR-72 simulator at LKPR, charging as little as 85-100 euros per hour (depending on the school), which is roughly the same as FNPT II rates around here. Not bad.

Congratulations!

Besides an IR I have CPL and FI - getting the IR was clearly the hardest training and toughest test I have done.

Sightseeing VFR and stalls at 1300 ft? A somewhat different experience from my IR test !

Don't forget to update your profile!

Henrik

I found the FNPT II to be extremely valuable and did the maximum possible time on it. I did my IR at a very busy airport which means that one wastes a lot of time until takeoff and then in the procedure while never getting the the standard SID or approaches (5NM straight on runway heading is impossible in a PA28 during the day, shuts down the whole airport for a long time).

Basically I learned all IFR techniques on the FNPT II and the airplane flying was for getting used to IMC and radio as well as showing me that real life IFR in a small airplane has nothing to do with what's in the books. The teacher made sure my FNPT experience was worthwhile with strict adherence to ATC protocol and simulated weather conditions.

If a Seneca flies like my FNPT II did, I never want to fly a Seneca And the airplane portion showed me that I never want to a own a PA28, especially one that smells like a caravan brothel.

I think the situation with sims is hugely unsatisfactory, for many private pilots.

Here in the UK, the CAA charges so much money for the approvals, and the FTOs milk the sim option so hard, that you can fly your own TB20 for less than it costs to hire an FNPT2 sim.

I have flown the FNPT2 and it is crap in flying behaviour. It is similar to FSX in that the pitch behaviour is totally unrealistic and it is good only for learning the procedures, which one could do with FSX and a £10 joystick.

But you would not be able to log the FSX time which is what supports the FNPT2 revenue stream.

What is badly needed is a competence based IR, so you could learn "somewhere" informally (unlogged) and then do the really required stuff in a real plane.

I reckon that the CBM IR (if it does arrive) will significantly reduce the demand for sims, because any ATPL cadet who has the brains to do the smallest amount of research will find he can get private lessons with somebody who knows about IFR (e.g. quite a few people on this forum) and then go to his FTO for type specific training (which will then be in a twin).

A lot of what goes on on the FTO scene is supported by the need to pack the logbook with 55hrs for the MEIR.

There is probably also a difference between UK pilots and non-UK pilots, with the former often having instrument experience via the IMC Rating so needing a lot less time learning the basic IFR stuff. The traditional IR is an especially bad deal for UK private pilots.