The hardest thing about the IR?

[six-sixty]

Getting a bit ahead of myself here as still finishing ATPLs but near enough to start thinking ahead. The fact that the IR is tough as nails is beyond doubt, and my feelings go out to people like pudknocker and all the others who've fallen down at it, but I am really curious to know what the real "gotchas" are with it? Is there a general area where people tend to have problems? I can imagine lots of general difficulties including:

- basic flying; coordination, keeping alt/heading etc
- situational awareness; where am I? where am I going?
- workload; dealing with ATC while tuning navaids, flying, s.a above etc
- mental gynmastics; working out optimum intercepts, ETAs etc

What can you do outside of the flying time to help and maximise chances of that first time pass? Is there anything at all? Practicing on RANT? Do PC sims help? Does everyone learn morse?

It'd be good to hear some views.

Best, SS

[CAT3C AUTOLAND]

six-sixty,

Its like anything mate, the more you do it the better you get at it. You will most likely find that your altitude, heading control will be second to none, as you are always scanning the instruments.

One thing I found tricky on the IR course was how to cope when things don't go according to plan. For example, when ATC keep you in the hold at FL80 and you are wanting to commence the NDB procedure which starts intially at 3000ft. Or, ATC change the runway at the last minute as you are commencing an approach and you have to re-plan, brief the new appproach, and fly the aeroplane. Its distractions that catch you out.

I think the key is to be ahead of the game, as I have been told many times. If you are sitting in the aircraft doing nothing, then you should be thinking about what you should be doing, i.e. identing beacons, doing checks, getting the ATIS, tuning in frequencies etc, etc. Try and make ATC work for you, for example, get your missed approach instructions while flying the hold, or out bound in a procedure, not while you are 400ft off the deck trying the fly an ILS. Its little things like that can distract you and you become unstuck.

You asked about morse, you don't have to learn it, however, if you don't you will be trying to ident beacons, whilst looking at your plog getting distracted, meanwhile the aircraft has gained 100ft and you have drifted off heading by 10 degrees. I would make the effort to learn it, it will reduce the workload for you.

Hope the above helps, its only my experiences, but the main thing is, enjoy it!

Good luck.

[High Wing Drifter]

Six-sixty,

Here is HWD's rapido morse in 1.5 hrs guide. As you have referred to, go to www.oddsoft.co.uk and download the demo for RANT XL. Install, go to excersises and choose morse. Lock the door, remove all destractions and just do the morse exercises until you have memorised them all. Took me about 1.5 hrs to get it all in. As Baz would say, it is balls breaking, but it works.

Buy Rant and get access to all the excersises for all the mental gymnastics stuff you are referring to. It really is rather good.

[flystudent]

Personally for me it was motivation when I couldnt fly.For various reasons weather, serviceability, sickness if you start getting delays in your training its pretty frustrating.

For me this occured due to various reasons and I started to get increasingly frustrated with my lack of progress due to events outside of my control.

It was a like a snowball and I started getting more and more uptight, in turn getting more and more tense. Didnt do me any good at all. I was told that I shouldnt worry about my rate of training and that it wouldnt affect my progresson the IR, something I personally feel is that's open to debate.

So try and stay calm in it and take what gets thrown at you. easier said than done.

FS:ok:

[six-sixty]

Thanks chaps, all very interesting. Where I am at the moment this all sounds about as achievable as the ATPLs did when the truck delivered the first kwt of notes all those months ago. (I trust you all got there in the end!)

Had any of you done the IMC beforehand and if so did it help much? I'm also wondering about the amount of sim hours vs hours in the crate. Obviously you save £££cough in the sim but do the savings make up for the relative unfamiliarity with the twin?

Flystudent's experience seem relevant to me particularly as I am going to be doing this in winter/spring.

HWD: Must confess I bought RANT already but haven't spent too much time on it yet due studying. I intend to follow your advice about locking myself up with it after I have spent at least a whole week after exams locked up with just the missus & a case of whiskey.

[VFE]

NDB approach is probably the toughest part. The individual elements are not beyond the grasp of your average PPL'er but getting them all right on the night is the tricky part. Two hours of maximum concentration. Some people prefer instrument flying to VFR flying - I know I do - more scientific and reliable than looking at ground features.

As for preparation I'd say read your Air Law for airspace etc and learn the airways and approach plates around where you'll be doing the test. Familiarise yourself with the DA's, inbound headings and other little bits.

You will be amazed at the errors you can achieve when under pressure on that soddin test!

G'luck!

VFE.

[Olof]

Hey guys!

I feel I must second CAT3C! Being ahead of the game is perhaps THE most essential thing in IFR flying. My last flight (route training) was just bloody awful. I just sat there looking at the instruments feeling more or less content with the situation. The result was obvious... :uhoh:
Anyhow, I've come to realize that being silent when performing an IFR flight is not the way to do it. The more you talk (plan ahead, think aloud) the better it goes. I find IFR much harder than VFR (no ****) but it's not at all impossible. You just can't afford to sit back relaxed thinking everything will be fine. Lose focus and you will quickly find yourself in a tricky position!

[Fuel Crossfeed]

Paying for it!!

[Jinkster]

The most difficult part....errrm








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[MEI]

Get as much sim as possible. You should be thrown nearly every situation you may encounter in the sim as you progress as you would in every day flying. If not then change schools the airplane is the worst class room.

The two most important things in IFR. the two things that are going to happen next.

[glider]

I felt the hardest part was to get the whole picture, realising when it was time to hurry up and knowing when there was time to relax. The IFR training is very fun and challenging, hence the satisfaction that comes with a succesful flight when you were "ahead of the game" is very rewarding.

Best of luck, and keep the blue side up! :ok:

Cheers,
Magnus

[PA-28 CLOUD SURFER]

As it has already been stated being ahead of the aircraft at all times is the most important part of the IR. If you are not thinking ahead then you can bet your life on it that when you do come to perform some part of the test that everything will pile up and it will go horribly wrong. By thinking ahead you are allowing your brain some room for the little distractions beit ATC/weather or failuires etc....

I found the best way to stay ahead of the aircraft was to say everything i was thinking out aloud as if i was telling the examiner. Seemed to work for me...

best of luck with the IR don't get too stressed it is hard work but it is definietly alot of fun.

enjoy

[Monitorverticalspeed]

I did an IMC before my IR, however have to admit that I don't really think it helped, the problem i faced was the way the IMC instructor taught me to fly was different to how my IR instructor taught me to fly. So your probably best to go into the IR with a clean slate and start with the basics. Continuity and the one to one instructing is also key.

You'll probably feel when you get towards the end of the course that your not ready, leave that for your instructor to decide. I found the whole experience hardwork but it is definately the best feeling when you are signed off!

Then all you have to do is find a job!

:rolleyes:

[witchdoctor]

Relaxing is the hardest thing. Too many pepole fail because of nerves and tension on a flight where they would pass under non-exam conditions. Knowing that this is the key flight for licence issue at most FTOs, and the enormous additional costs involved in reflying all or part of the test, puts a huge amount of additional stress on the student.

The IR isn't as hard as everybody makes out. Each section on its own is fairly simple and straightforward, with most students having little real difficulty in reaching the required standards. Even stringing them all together into a 2.5 hr flight doesn't raise the level of difficulty beyond most people at that stage in their flying, as long as they are well rested beforehand, as it can be a fairly intense period of concentration.

It is always the pressure that brings the problems, and the pressure is something you put on yourself. I would wager most failures are as a result of daft mistakes that the stude in question will kick themselves for afterwards, rather than something they genuinely couldn't do.

Strangely, although I was nervous on the day, I partialed my test by being a little too clever for my own good. Knowing the structure of the test, and knowing that my ILS was to be followed by a missed approach and engine failure requiring a diversion, I lost my concentration on the latter stage of the ILS whilst I was planning ahead for the go-around, engine failure and diversion and checking everything was set up ready for it. := The ILS should, arguably, have been the easiest part of the test, and instead it was the section I failed. :*

[Perry-oaks]

Just remember - a few years down the line - you'll think why the hell was I so worked up about my IR - two hours to do a SID/STAR airways/NBD etc. Try doing an LHR/MAN in 25mins and still finding time to eat breakfast, take a dump and chat up the crew.

Good luck with all the exams - the more practice you do the easier it gets - keep ahead of the aircraft and the best advice of all is relax - try to enjoy it!!

[BigAir]

I'd say once you get the basic components in a sim you are fine.... that is until you get in a real aircraft and have ATS and other traffic screw you up.

Once you have done a few routes, you really notice why people cutting the chatter on RT is important, particularly at big airfields, and you will find yourself cursing at ppl'ers who have got the "da" button stuck.

I had an ILS at Cambridge trip with a low approach go around enigne failure to cranfield. Not a lot of time to sort things out, a few airfields and restricted areas to make sure you avoid, given a free call to cranfield - so you are trying to call them before the 5min/15nm rule, there is no arrival atis so you need to get the controller to give it to you, before you can get your outbound and inbound headings wind compensated for the hold! And what do you get, but a fly in of motor gliders all over the place, not knowing where they are with rt like "I am near a forest, a lake on my left, no sorry right..... where's the airfield?" etc when you finally get on the RT you will be told to report beacon inbound or similar and you don't get a chance to call until you are approaching DA! It makes it really hard, as you just have 1 more thing to worry about!
Try Doing a trip to Bristol with a divert to Filton as well, the RT on that really sorts the men from the boys.

The flipside is you can go some places and get some cool sites, did a NDB at filton and when the screens came down after base turn, saw a C-17 going straight over the top of me outbound on the procedure....

BigAir

[Wrong Stuff]

Hiya six-sixty - I'd agree with CAT3C - it's having to adapt to the unexpected which is the hardest part and really tests whether you're on top of things. That was probably what surprised me most about IFR flying. However much you prepare on the ground, you never know what route you'll end up actually flying and you always find yourself re-planning in the air.

On my 170A, for example, I was briefed to plan the SID from Cranfield, joining controlled airspace on the climb to Daventry for a radar vectored ILS at Birmingham. In reality we were refused entry into controlled airspace. They instead passed us to Coventry who told us to take up the hold at Daventry, which I never even knew existed until that point so I had to quickly look it up on the chart and work out the correct entry. Of course all your fuel calcs go to pot at the same time, so you're desperately trying to recalc everything simultaneously.

With the EXAM callsign I thought I'd get a little immunity from these changes. The controllers were as helpful as they could be, but at the end of the day they've got traffic considerations and there's a limit to how flexible they can be. I was briefed to do a radar vectored NDB to runway 23 at Coventry then a hold and ILS back at Cranfield. The radar vectored NDB was a surprise - I didn't even know you could ask for radar vectors to an NDB - but the examiner suggested it as he thought it would be easier than the procedural approach.

Everything went smoothly right up to the takeoff when we got seriously delayed by a couple of PPL students ahead of us and a long wait for landing traffic, putting the estimates I'd given the examiner totally out, so they needed to be recalculated. Then on the SID you have to intercept a track to DTY and for the first time ever on that aircraft the VOR needle had jammed at full scale deflection and I few right through it. After it hadn't moved for a couple of minutes I gave the instrument a tap and the needle swung to almost full scale deflection the other way. Being outside IR limits I thought that'd be a fail, but the examiner didn't say anything so I just made a sensible correction to get back on track, told him what I was doing and carried on.

When it came to the approach at Coventry they'd not only changed runways, but they also couldn't offer an NDB approach so I ended up doing an ILS there to 05. Of course that meant I couldn't then do the ILS back at Cranfield, so that changed to an NDB approach. With all the chopping and changing as well as all the hassle at the beginning it was hard to settle down and concentrate on the flying, but it went ok in the end.

The one myth I didn't find to be true was that the examiners were out to fail you. Because of a weather cancellation I ended up being briefed by both the examiners on different occasions. I made sure I was well prepared and did my best to make it show, which I'm sure helped, but I found them both highly professional but still very pleasant and totally pragmatic.

Incidentally six-sixty, we know each other. Last saw you at a barbie back in the early summer. Glad to hear everything's going well with the ATPLs. Best of luck getting them out of the way, so you can get back to the flying.

Seeya...

[MEI]

wrong stuff,

you didn't know you could get a vectored NDB

hmmmm..........:hmm:

[Wrong Stuff]

Nope. I've still never done one. In fact I've never heard anyone else doing one either. I never realised they were that common - guess I just don't fly to places that have radar but can't offer an ILS or SRA.

Still learning...

[FlyingForFun]

Well, it's the norm over here at Blackpool. There's an ILS on runway 28, but not on 10, so with a wind from the east the NDB procedure is the one that's used. I promise you the RyanAir from Dublin certainly doesn't want to follow the whole procedure - they'll take radar vectors any day!

Having said that, though, it seems a little harsh for MEI to sound so critical of you for never having seen one. If your IR instructors prefer to have you do the full procedure, and you fly out of an airfield where the instrument procedure is rarely used except by IR schools, it's not your fault.

FFF
--------------

[MEI]

Sorry,

wasn't trying to be critical, thought that would be covered to death in the sim, especially since the beacons are used for situational awareness. You know the usual, where you at, what's next thing. That's the difference between piston pounder training and line flying. anyway good luck and happy vectors.

[Julian]

Hardest thing...paying £12,000+ for it :O

[six-sixty]

There is some very good advice here people, thanks very much.

I'm looking forward to being able to give some advice here one day rather than always asking!

In the meantime back to world of feedback I go.

S-S

PS WrongStuff - click! How the devil are you? Well done on the IR & hope you had a good wedding (which was easier?). We should do ale and talk about aeroplanes once my exams are over on a week or so.