Flying ILSs in minimum visibility conditions really has very little to do with “being below the clouds or not”.
Okay, we have to distinguish between “minimum ceiling” and “minimum visibility”, right? I can understand that you’d rather concentrate on the landing if you see next to nothing, but i have no experience with that. To me a normal landing, VFR or IFR is full flaps. I guess with 50 flaps (have not tried) there’s no big risk with a tailstrike and really nobody would make a normal landing wih no flaps. With 0 flaps the risk of a tailstrike is real though.
Most accidents on landings do not occur in the air but after touchdown. It is easier to lose control touching down faster and with a higher AOA, and that’s why I am for full flaps. What’s also true is that the lighter the plane the slower it lands anyway, and it’s really not rocket science to land a 172 or even SR22 with falsp 50. I’d be more careful in a Seneca, Malibu etc. though …
Thread drift, but neverthless, I like the Cessna PoH which advises flaps as required for their crosswind technique. Flaps do reduce lateral stability, and on high wing Cessnas they also increase downwash reducing control effectiveness in a side slip. I would be surprised if the majority of Cessna instructors recommended crosswind landings with full flaps, although the PoH does not prohibit it.
Okay, we have to distinguish between “minimum ceiling” and “minimum visibility”, right? I can understand that you’d rather concentrate on the landing if you see next to nothing, but i have no experience with that.
This is the point I was trying to make – if you haven’t seen those conditions you won’t understand what it actually looks like and how high the potential for disorientation is. I slightly disagree with boscomantico as I don’t think simulators represent min vis that well – it’s too “perfect” and mechanical rather than the far more ephemeral view you get in the real world.
You also need to be aware of the possibility of losing all visual reference again, especially on runways with CAT I lighting described by Jason as that requires one to be very sharp indeed.
Well, you want to do what the “majority” does? ;-)
Face it: the “average” flight instructor knows little about these secrets, he will only teach what he was told or learned in his FI course 30 years agon without ever reflecting on that stuff again.
But philosophies change, and sometimes within hours:
When I did my IFR i used to to fly power-on approaches in the 172RG after every mission. My personal style, back then, was a shallow approach with power (i changed that) but my CFII was ok with that since I always landed safely and short. Then one day he started screaming at me, on final approach: “You will never get it, your approach is shit” … On the ground I learned that the owner of the school had briefed the instructors the day before and told them that “from now on only gliding approach with idle” power were allowed. They did not bother to tell the students, of course :-)
That was also the moment when I lost it and told the CFII that if he ever dared to speak with me (the customer) in that tone I’d change the school or quit the course altogether.
I still prefer to approach power on, I don’t like gliding approaches in the Cirrus.
I share your confusion Flyer59. I still don’t see how it’s possible to do a glide approach when following an instrument procedure?
Sorry, my mistake.
Our airport is uncontrolled and has no IAP, those were all VVR approaches coming back from IFR training. Still, I never flew like that before and I still don’t do it.
OK I understand now, I thought you were doing approaches for your IR training. To be fair you never actually said that, it was my mistaken assumption. Sorry.
Flyer59 wrote:
That was also the moment when I lost it and told the CFII that if he ever dared to speak with me (the customer) in that tone I’d change the school or quit the course altogether
If I’d have quit every time my instructors spoke with me in a rough way, I’d have been done so several times 
europaxs wrote:
If I’d have quit every time my instructors spoke with me in a rough way, I’d have been done so several times
I’ve fired two instructors because of their behaviours. Both in the US. No reason to put up with any screaming in the airplane. Especially if it is for chewing me out for checking ATIS before taxiing to the fuel pump on the other side of the KOAK airport which involves quite a long taxi with runway crossing and potentially closed taxiways.
If I’d have quit every time my instructors spoke with me in a rough way, I’d have been done so several times
Me too. The GA scene is full of “big character” bar-propper types who tell great (mostly fake) stories. I’d say 50% of the types I flew with should not be instructing at all. If I ran a school I would not employ them, due to the risk of an action for sexual harrassment of female students.
In fact I did walk out of one school, partly due to that sort of thing, but it cost me dearly. Wasted maybe 20hrs of training, and some exam passes got lost so I had to re-do them.
Damn… off topic
