Instrument Flying

[WorkingHard]

For those of you who teach the GA pilot instrument flying. How much time do you get to really fly IFR and how different do you think this is to the "instrument flying" you teach? I perceive a great deal of difference when with an instructor under the hood and when I am actually solid IFR (apart from the obvious). Do you find the same and is it simply a heightened awareness that you cannot lift the hood and have a good look? How many hours a year actual instrument flying does the average GA instructor manage?

[juggernaut]

IFR

Its my view that PPL students need to go real IFR occasionally to realise the difficulty of staying the right way up. I have noticed that a student wearing foggles will fly perfectly well while simulating IFR conditions but the minute they go into real cloud (even with foggles on) then things go to pieces. The only real way of keeping your hand in is to teach the IMC rating in real conditions, even then its normally the student doing the flying with the instructor only monitoring what is going on, so not of too much benefit to the instructor. Unfortunately JAR CPL no longer requires the IMC rating so fewer people are doing it. Also there are fewer IMC instructors because under JAR an unrestricted FI can do everything a QFI can bar teach IMC. The end result being less IMC students and less IMC instructors. In my club no-one has done the instructors IMC upgrade for a number of years. The expense does not justify the amount of money you are likely to earn back. I foresee a shortage of IMC instructors as a result of these regulations.

[destructor]

I agree that once the student has done a couple of hours on the IMC course, he/she should be taken into full IMC. I have seen good students and renewal pilots who when taken full IMC start to get the leans. if the brain gets the input from outside by what ever means we are OK. So full IMC is the only true option to tell if the student is really up to scratch.

[Julian]

Definitely agree with Juggernaut, you can fly your nice patterns with your foggels on but its a lot different in real IMC when the aircraft is getting tossed about and you are trying to hold a heading or the ILS. My old instructor tried to do as much as he could in actual IMC conditions so definitely helped when it came to doing it for real as you werent suddenly plunged into it. Its also quite a strange feeling the first time you enter IMC and the outside just mists over leaving you with just the instruments.

[Another_CFI]

I agree with all of the above. I have had students who can fly competently using foggles or screens but who lose it when faced with real IMC, even when there was no turbulence.

Is there a case for requiring that a specified minimum number of hours of the IMC rating MUST take place in actual IMC?

[FlyingForFun]

Hope you don't mind a non-instructor sticking his nose in here.

It's my opinion that any student who can fly perfectly well with foggles on, but looses it when taken into real IMC, has been cheating, and peaking around the foggles.

I base this on my personal experience. I refuse to cheat - the only person I'd be cheating is myself. When I put the foggles on, I don't look up. Simple.

During my PPL training, I did the obligatory 180-degree turn, and a couple of other simple manoevres, under the foggles. I then got a chance to fly in real IMC briefly during a later lesson, and found it no harder than flying in VMC wearing foggles.

Around 150 hours later, I did a cross-channel checkout, which happened to be in IMC for about 1/2 the trip. I had done no instrument flying since my PPL training, and was a little nervous about doing a flight of this length in IMC. The instructor gave me the chance to cancel, but I decided to go for it. I flew the whole way, and I let the instructor navigate during the portion of the flight which was in IMC. I did lose control once... that was when I looked away from the instruments to look up some morse code on my knee-board. Apart from that, I had no problem keeping straight+level and making rate 1 turns.

I'm not an exceptional pilot. If I can manage to fly from White Waltham to the south coast on instruments, in real IMC, having had no training except for the tiny amount that's required for the PPL, then anyone can do it - especially after compleating an IMC course. The only difference between me and other students is that I didn't look out of the window when I had the foggles on. In fact, on that trip to France, at one point my instructor commented that it had started raining. I glanced up at the windscreen and saw that she was right, it was raining - I simply hadn't noticed because my eyes had been glued to the instruments.

FFF
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[Julian]

FFF,

Bit harsh - everyone cheating!! From chatting to the instructors round the school I use it seems that some people just simply cannot cope with real IMC. Maybe they able to fly in foggles as they take comfort in the fact they can take them off if it all goes pear shaped and recover the aircraft, in the real thing you have no get out clause.

It is probably more a case of some pilots may be suited to VMC only, as in the same way some people refuse to drive a car at night as they dont like it. If you get chance chance they try and tag along on an IMC flight, nothing like spending the last 30 mins of approach in clouds and turbulence kicking to make sure you are still awake It is certainly a different experience to foggels.

[martinidoc]

I think it is sensible for some of the PPL four hours of instruments to be undertaken in IMC and I try and do this.

I dont think most people deliberately cheat, but probably get clues round the side of foggles.

Furthermore the visual sensation of seeing cloud in IMC helps disorientate, as does the increased turbulence which occurs.

In response to a previous post, if you are on your own it may only take one momentary lapse of concentraition to lose it into a unrecoverable unusual attitude!