Thanks
IO540-C4D5D, interesting comments. I like the idea of flying in real IMC but so far am discovering that, just as good VMC was sometimes hard to come by doing the PPL, "good" IMC can sometimes be hard to come by when you want it too
! I've been thinking about my instructor and aircraft choices in light of what you've said:
Certainly my instructor is a
real IMC kinda-guy, willing to teach in real IMC and he flies commercial jet airliners for a living so meets your other criteria of regularly flying IFR for real.
The aircraft I am training in is a C152, not what I'm used to but seems very stable and easy to fly, and the DI seems pretty good (doesn't precess too quicly) on first acquaintance. What it lacks is DME, so I guess I can't learn DME arc-ing and ILS/DME approaches, but it does have a Marker beacon receiver so can still do ILS, and it has a single VOR.
I first thought that single VOR and no DME would be a handicap as I'll obviously need to see two intersecting radials from two different beacons in order to figure out where I am, hence much twiddling of frequency and OBS knobs whilst aviating, communicating, rubbing my stomach and patting my head! But as the VOR receiver fitted to the aircraft is a
KX-155A life in this regard is a lot easier than it might have otherwise been.
This device gives a sort of "instant digital read out" of bearing to/from the beacon, without having to twiddle the OBS, so you can quickly with one button flip/flop between two VOR's and see displayed eg: "270 from" and "090 to" and then figure out where you are, so hopefully this will help - time will tell
Andy
