What's the point of the IMC rating?

[Wrong Stuff]

I'm getting near my IMC test, which is concentrating the mind wonderfully, and starting to look beyond the point where I one day (hopefully!) pass. Now I've got a better idea how very difficult this stuff really can be, I'm starting to wonder what the point of the IMC rating is.

Before starting the course I had no idea how useful I'd find it. I've kept an eye on the various threads on the IMC - some PPRuNers seem to use it as a proxy IR to it's fullest extent - others seem to think it lunacy to set off on any flight where you plan to actually use the privileges of the rating. Having got to the point where I might be able to pass the flight test I seem to have hit the following dilemma:

Flying in IMC is really rather difficult (a bit of understatement there) and the 15 hours of the IMC gives you very little experience. If you ever need to use the rating you'd better be current or you're in trouble. But if you never plan flights where you need to use the rating:

1) you'll very quickly be un-current

2) you will never build up any further experience - especially of real IMC without a safety net sitting to your right

3) if ever you do hit unplanned IMC conditions then you won't be well prepared - and the one thing I have learnt about IMC conditions is that pre-flight planning pays off in spades

4) with the little experience I have, if ever I'm to use it I need to plan gentle introductions to flying in IMC - the last thing I need is to spend 18 months getting rusty before accidentally blundering into IMC with no prior escape plan.

Maybe the answer is to plan every flight like you're going to meet IMC conditions - but unless you're going to start to fly closer to the edge then you're unlikely to do so - and inevitably, after a few months, you're not honestly going to put as much effort into the IMC planning if you don't think there's at least an outside chance of really hitting IMC.

So I guess the question I'm asking is, for the people who consider this a get you out of trouble rating, how would you suggest using the IMC? Obviously the ideal is to fly a refresher with an instructor - or perhaps a friend as a safety pilot - once a month, but is that practical? Are you really going to undertake a regimen of training for a rating you intend never using? Or should you bite the bullet, do at least a US IR and get a rating which is worth the ongoing refresher training (and you naturally stay more current in anyway) because you're actually using it.

Wrong Stuff

Edited to add...

1) I'm not looking to reignite the argument about whether the IMC rating is or isn't a "get you out of trouble rating" - that's been done to death in numerous other threads. There are two opinions on this point and they can't be reconciled.

2) Despite the title and the dilemma, undoubtedly the training has been very useful and improved the standard and accuracy of my flying no end. Worth doing from that point of view alone.

[Evo7]

The challenge of doing it and your reason 2 are why I'm planning on doing it post-PPL. Not planning on using it in anger. Longer term I'm looking at the FAA IR, but to be honest the reasons for that are similar.

[Crowe]

Wrong stuff - use it!

I was in your position a year or so - passed the IMC and wondered what I could do with it. I think you're right in building up to it gradually - for my first couple of flights after getting the rating, I would get a radar service and just duck into a nearby cumulus to check I could hold a heading and altitude.

Once I convinced myself that I could fly the thing solo in IMC, I started doing over-the-top flights, where most of the flight is VMC, except for a short climb and then descent through the cumulus/stratus.

Now I'm happy to file and fly an IFR flight plan, as long as it avoids airways etc. I don't feel I need a "safety net" in the RHS. you're right though - keep it current, or else go back to really short periods of IMC.

I still intend getting an IR, and think that this kind of experience will make the process a lot less painful.

Good luck in the test!

[RotorHorn]

Think there's a discussion on this in one of this months Pilot/Flyer magazines. Not that I stand in WHSmiths reading for half an hour to save me buying the thing obviously, but the author was advocating what Crowe has said. Build up your confidence slowly in controlled conditions and get your money's worth out of it.

As an aside, there's no such thing as an IMC rating for fling-wing pilots (unless its an acronym for Impending Mutilated Corpse).

If an R22 goes in a cloud its game over time. :eek:

[englishal]

The IMC is a very useful rating, if you've got it, use it. The other day I was bumbling around in IMC, great fun it was too. As Crowe rightly points out in this and another thread, currency is the key. If the weather is good, take a mate up and stick the foggles on and fly around for an hour, next start off with stratus layers, smooth IMC, then gradually progress to bad weather. Before you know it you'll be one of these psycho's that go looking for heavy IMC just for fun ! :eek:

Good luck

EA;)

[QNH 1013]

Practice is the key. Its not too difficult to practice IMC flight in the UK because there are many days with broken cloud at 4000' or so. Check the map for controlled airspace, plan a route, remember the quadrantals, check the freezing level, and go and practice. With the cloud base that high, you can decend into VMC if you feel you've had enough at any time. I hope you will have remembered to write down the MSA for all the route sectors.
Planning a route well away from controlled airspace and high ground will reduce the stress.
Keep in practice or you will start to make silly mistakes.
Don't underestimate the benefit of using a PC based IFR simulator to keep up to speed on the proceedures and what the instruments should be showing.

[Aussie Andy]

Very interesting thread! I am hoping to do IMC course before long myself.

There's a very good article on this exact subject in the current Summer 2002 edition of GASCo Flight Safety (Vol 38, no.2), from page 31 onwards entitled I'MCRaP by Paul Rowell. He lays out a 5 point plan detailing how to stay current, in line with the ideas above here. Strongly recommend you read it.

Yo uhave to subscribe to get the magazine (£12/year I think, but just 4 editions). Gasco contact details are given on Flyer website as:

General Aviation Safety Council (GASCO)
Rochester Airport
Chatham
Kent. ME5 9SD
tel. 01634-816620
email [email protected]

[Fujiflyer]

I must emphasise QNH 1013's point about using a PC simulator. I think you need to be flying, probably weekly in IMC in order to stay properly current so the simulator is invaluable to make up for not doing this, in practice. As in real IFR flying it gives no useable sensory feedback so you have to scan the appropiate instruments as if for real. I use a package called OnTop and IPTrainer which are excellent for the purpose.

Wrong Stuff: As you said the course has helped you realise how difficult of flight in IMC can be, especially when not experienced. Thats one of its several aims. As the other people have said - use it with great caution to begin with and gradually take on more whilst at all times ensuring you are comfortable with your performance & workload. Going up a few times with someone experienced is useful and sensible but as usual in flying the most is gained by self achievement - ie by doing it all by yourself. Carefully review the flight afterwards and check that you were as safe as you thought you were.

Only now, 2yrs after my IMC and with 270hrs flying do I feel able to safely undertake a true end to end IFR flight. This is assuming the flight planning is second to none, that I've practiced within the last few days on the sim and that I'm fresh. Its all about reducing stress so that you can concentrate on the core workload and not have to worry about how you would go about a diversion etc, if you had to. Do every last bit of preparation on the ground. During the flight make sure you know where you are at all times (situational awareness) and your height above terrain.


Fujiflyer:)

[sennadog]

How do you go about practising IMC in a sim? Is it possible to book a sim session for "just" doing IMC as opposed to IFR?

[GRP]

I'm in a slight quandary about this as well. I did my IMC last year and have had it since November but have not yet had any real IMC conditions without an instructor in the right hand seat. Given the sort of weather we get here the intention in having it is to allow me to fly more days of the year and stop cancelling trips but I am not too keen in getting into habitual 'hard IMC' flying.

What I have done without an instructor on board is to fly 90 miles across country and back on a day where there were no clouds but the vis. was only 3km. This was an eye opener - once I got up to 5000 feet I may as well have been in the clouds since I could barely see the ground below me, had no horizon worth talking about (in fact I had a sort of false horizon which had I levelled the wings against would have had me going round in circles in a 20 degree bank!). I also took off into a 1500 foot BKN cloudbase one day in the knowledge that I was chasing the clearer weather which had been upon me an hour earlier. I climbed through holes in the cloud and popped out on top at 5000 feet and sat there quite happily until the clouds receded and I was in perfectly good VMC again. Neither of the above would have been legal without the IMC but were not that hard.

With an instructor on board I have flown a short IMC flight of 15 minutes each way (to Bembridge) where we popped up into the cloud and sat in it each way for most of the trip across. On the way back to Goodwood a layer at 800 feet had descended over the airfield so we descended below over the sea and then flew back to do a bad weather circuit to land - this one I would not be happy about doing on my own!! I have also been up for a few local flights to pop above the cloud and do some VOR tracking in the sunshine and have flown across to Farnborough to do their ILS (which was free at the time as long as you didn't land) which was in cloud from about 1500 feet AMSL (so 1350 feet AGL at F'Boro). These have been hugely useful experiences.

I read the GASCO article. I got to the end of it feeling ready to go and try some of the suggestions and then read the editors note where it says that "some instructors advise against seeking out cloud in which to practice instrument flying" which confused me totally! The article is saying you should get up there on your own and start building up your confidence. Then the editor comes along and says moreorless "you can try this but some instructors would advise against it! Great!!

Anyway, I plan to continue to push my boundaries little by little. I have also dug out my copy of FS2002 and am using that to simulate instrument approaches into airports I already know. This gives me some way of visualising where in the world I am rather than just knowing where the airport is - I use Southampton a lot. I find it quite useful if I can imagine where I am on the chart! I set up the simulator to have a cloudbase of 700 feet and tops above 10000 so I go into cloud a short time after take off and can't see any ground until quite late in the approach. This is really helpful.

I now intend to follow some of the advice in the GASCO article - but I have this strange hankering to invest in an electric backup AI before going too much further!

[Fujiflyer]

Sennadog: I'm slightly confused in respect of your question as far as how to book a sim session - I was primarily referring to using a PC based simulator in order to practice. However I understand that many flying schools (particularly those which are instrument training orientated) have more advanced simulators which they hire out to students, an instructor normally being priced separately. I guess you book these two entities as required, simultaneously.

One "trick" I sometimes do when I want to push myself a little on the sim is to set moderate turb' on the wx setup. The result is that if your scan is not up to scratch then you tend to do terribly, particularly on the ILS. It really does make you realise the need for the radial scan with constant checking of the AI.

A further point which I don't think can be over emphasised is the need to appreciate that if for a given power setting you select a certain attitude then you will obtain a rate of climb / descent + IAS, accordingly. This appreciation will make IFR flyiing much easier. Always ensure that the A/C is in trim and balance. Being out of balance (skidding or slipping) in IMC does some horrible things to your vestibular senses - reminds me of the rotating tunnels you would go through in ghost train rides,


Take Care


Fujiflyer :) :)

[sennadog]

Fujiflyer . Oops, doh! I missed the bit where you mentioned "PC" simulator. For a moment, I was getting all excited thinking that a real sim was available for IMC practice.:)

I've got 2002 Flight Sim on this pooter, so I supposed I'll have to dust it off and have a go.:)

[GRP]

I'm still working up to setting 'moderate turb.' on the sim. You have now shamed me into doing so... so I am going to do it right now!

[Fujiflyer]

Cool, you two (Sennadog & GRP). The PC sims are first class for IFR practice, let me know if you want any help, etc,

Fujiflyer :) ;)

[Troy McClure]

To quote John Gillespie Magee:

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
and danced the skies on laughter silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split cloud and done a hundred things
you have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
high in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along and flung
my eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
where never lark, or even eagle flew;
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
the high untrespassed sanctity of space,
put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

Get an IMC and get up there. Makes it all worthwhile.

And it'll get you out the sh!t occasionally too....

:)

TMC

[GRP]

OK. Tried the moderate turbulence with FS2002. Sharpens the old mind eh! Strangely I did ok! I tried it again with a 50 foot cloudbase and missed the runway by about 100 yards - I'm not sure we all walked away! All good fun!

Maybe that *is* the point of the IMC rating - helps with PC flight sims!

[Them thar hills]

Something no-one has mentioned (?) ......if you haven't yet tried it you'll be glad of the IMC discipline when you tackle a sea crossing on a typical hazy "summer" day. !
It may technically be VMC but be assured its B hard work to proceed in an orderly fashion when the sky blends into the sea with NO discernible horizon. Only good thing, its usually quite smooth and no mountains have yet been known to drift out to sea !
TTH

[Wrong Stuff]

Many thanks for all the reassuring replies. Definately a common theme there that the IMC is a rating which should be used, although with great caution at first and must be kept current to be useful.

Regarding the sims, I've already got a copy of MS Flight Sim 2002 which I've found very useful for getting more familiar with ADF etc. Are there any others which give significant advantages for keeping current, or is that what everyone else uses as well?

[RotorHorn]

RANT 2000 is a 'proper' IR trainer... teaches you radial intercepts, etc. .etc...

[FormationFlyer]

RANT 2000 is a 'proper' IR trainer... teaches you radial intercepts, etc. .etc...

Would that be 'proper IR' radial intercepts as opposed to the precisely identical intercepts now taught for JAR PPL under Ex18c!!?

:D Sorry - Couldnt resist! ;)

[Wrong Stuff]

Many thanks again to all for their help on this. Managed to pass this morning (:D) so I guess I'll have to start planning those flights.

If anyone wants to read the "I'M CRaP" article mentioned by Aussie Andy, it also appears in a newsletter on the net
http://www.eghd.com/springp.pdf

Cheers,
Wrong Stuff