Is there any real reason why learning IFR cannot be done 100% on simulator?
I would say that a good simulator (level C or D) could be used for 45 of the 50 training hours required (or whatever the numbers are in the variuos countries). What is does not teach is how to overcome anxiety, general fear of flying, fear of weather and spatial disorientation. I’ve seen a lot of that when flying in real weather, even with IR students who had hundreds of VFR flying hours. And also real-life ATC can only be practised in real life.
But this will never happen because an hour in such a simulator costs upwards of 1000Euros/Pouds/$ and the simulator itself costs as much as 100 rotten Pa28s.
The IR flight training syllabus is now just 10 hours mandatory at FTO.
The old JAA 50hrs mandatory at an FTO (55hrs for ME) is gone.
Plus you need 30hrs instrument time (IIRC – I find it hard to remember all this). But that can be done with a freelance IRI, totally outside the FTO system; obviously not many ATPL-type FTOs are going to advertise this fact, because if done cleverly it has the potential to substantially reduce the cost of getting an ab initio IR – even if the average IR student does need 40+hrs to reach the test standard.
But if they remove NDB training from the syllabus (has that really happened for ab initio, at any stage of the process including the IR test – I can’t believe it!) then 40hrs is much more achievable than it used to be.
Is there any real reason why learning IFR cannot be done 100% on simulator?
Probably the same reason you can’t train for a PPL 100% on the simulator. In the simulator, you at least subconciously know that if you botch it up, it won’t have consequences, in a real plane, it’s different.
There are a few impressive illusions which IMO are best experienced with someone else, first time. I found the leans (giant hand phenomenon) quite impressive, and rather hard to ignore.
Is there any real reason why learning IFR cannot be done 100% on simulator?
In 1999 when the 55 hour JAA IR replaced the 40 hour UK approved IR, the first time pass rate actually fell, so 15 hours more training and less passed! The reason may well have been that the 55 hour IR allowed 40 hours to be conducted in a FNPT, so coincident with the longer course came more simulator time. Those schools that did more aircraft training actually acheived a better first time pass rate.
Simulators are quite good at replicating the procedures but invariably don’t feel like an aeroplane and cannot replicate many of the external inputs like ATC, MET, and general buggeration.
Simulators are quite good at replicating the procedures
I think initially simulators are valuable, as you can easily repeat situations that you botched up, and they’re quite efficient, no need to fly long vectors to try another ILS, just re-set the simulator to slightly before the FAF. And you don’t need to clean the aircraft 
But after some time, for me after somewhere between 15 and 20 hours, you feel you don’t learn much anymore in the simulator, then you need to change to real aircraft.
Sims are great for learning about IFR procedures.
One should never fly an IFR procedure unless one can understand it on the ground and that usually means flying it on a sim, and a cheap PC sim is enough.
I saved £ thousands for the IMC Rating, by using FS2000 with a 10 quid joystick. But I never used a sim after that, because once you know how IFR works (which is hardly rocket science) then it’s a matter of getting current enough to pass the IR test, and this is even more true if you can fly your own plane, because you can fly your own plane for less than the cost of an FTO sim. Last time I looked, an FTO sim was almost 2x the DOC of my TB20.
Peter wrote:
So I think there would be a lot of value in having a place where you could learn this stuff in an organised environment.
Wouldn’t here or PPL/IR be two places where you could do that?
Even if this [class G IFR] will be allowed here in Germany sometime in the future, I will plainly refuse to do it and I don’t think it can be forced upon me as an instructor. Everybody has his own level of safety minima, and flying uncontrolled without being able to see and be seen is below my comfort level.
You better not fly the airlines to some of the smaller airports in Sweden and Norway, then…
Or quite a few in the UK, or fly a bizjet to Farnborough, Biggin Hill and lots of other places 
Wouldn’t here or PPL/IR be two places where you could do that?
EuroGA is a forum; there is a lot of info here and loads of people (500+ per day) read it. But it isn’t a structured and hands-on learning environment. And PPL/IR (not criticising it; I am a member too) has only a tiny forum, with about 50 readers in total. I guess one could organise training sessions but this is damn hard. Where would you advertise? The existing training industry would not support it at all.
EuroGA is a forum; there is a lot of info here and loads of people (500+ per day) read it. But it isn’t a structured and hands-on learning environment. And PPL/IR (not criticising it; I am a member too) has only a tiny forum, with about 50 readers in total.
In many (most?) scenarios, you don’t bump into experienced IFR pilots.
they can easily find out afterwards by talking to experienced pilots and using the internet
EuroGA and PPL/IR may not qualify as “structured environments”, but they are nevertheless the closest you get to a virtual aeroclub (which could be qualified as an “structured”), providing access to knowledge and experience sharing. Both forums/organisations organise fly-ins and other events (visit to Jeppesen, weather seminar) allowing the members to get together, learn, work together towards a common goal.
On both EuroGA and PPL/IR you may “bump into” experienced IFR pilots, and I think the level of “crap” served on these forums is lower than on other places on the internet.
In any event, you cannot expect to learn everything in school. This is just as true in aviation as it is in any other domain. You go to school to learn the basics and learn how to learn. Then you start gaining experience. You maintain and expand your knowledge by experience, self-study or by listening to people supposedly smarter than yourself. Of course you try to make sense of it all by comparing what you hear to what you already know from experience or from other reliable sources (critical mind). You then apply your new knowledge and gain experience.
As private pilots we do not have a God sitting next to us in the left seat who knows the answer to everything in the universe. So we need to user other strategies. And we are responsible for making sure that we have the appropriate skills for the flight.
The last couple of years I have spent lots of time reading G1000 manuals, playing with the G1000 simulator, reading weather radar manuals, autopilot manuals, Avidyne TIS manuals, EuroGA, PPL/IR, Peter2000… applying the new knowledge, gone back to the manuals to re-read some finer points etc. I have also sought to get recurrent IFR training (simulator) every 6-12 months.
That’s about as structured an environment we can realistically hope for short of working in an MCC environment.
