:ok::}:E

Sorry couldn't resist

Back to serious business... I think our colleague Max has a point here about avoiding "home-made" stuff, but to be honest it's a major fault of the FTO where the training is being performed to not have a clear policy regarding this kind of stuff and a proper syllabus where the training program is carefully detailed.

Same applies from the very basics of ABC flight skills up to advanced training. There must be a standard workmethod that instructors must follow within an FTO.

Rant mode off, sorry fellas I had a bad hair day!

Cheers / Pablo

Just wandering
 

What's the issue with practising NDB approaches/tracking at a radio station in IMC so long as you're above MSA?! You can keep an eye on where you are using a legitimate nav aid...

Alternatively, use an NDB located at an airfield outside controlled airspace (adding a few thousand feet to stay outside the ATZ)... Just phone ATC to ask before you go.

Hi,

I think tracking/intercepting practice is a different thing to imitating an approach.

In any case everyone is entitled to his/her opinion and workmethod as far as it's within the rules.
If you fly VFR with the student under the hood and you keep a look out I guess you can do anything that is compliant with VFR. But then again, there are many things that are within regs. that I think are not very sensitive or efficient to do.

In my last FTO they used to have a "home-made" procedure but it was "official" (ATC and CAA approved, and it was standard/official for all instructors).

And final word of advice... in my short instructing career I have already seen many unprofessional attitudes/predispositions in students (as far as watching youtube in class, with a laptop that was supposedly use to take notes and follow-up the slides, dodgy flying, having mp3 with earbuds while taxiing, etc...). I think sometimes we gotta try and stay on the "stiff upper lip" side and overdo the show a little bit, so they get serious about it.
In fact I used to be a bit more laid back and friendly, and always trying to be flexible (like some of you guys mention here, going the extra mile so the guys save a few bucks) but I realized it was a mistake.

I'm don't mean that we all become "self-important jerks", just a bit on the "stiff upper lip" side.


Just my $0.02 (simulated, of course)

Cheers / Pablo

I’m with Big Pistons Forever they are a potentially useful teaching aid.

Also bare in mind that two of the three “international regional airports” with official approaches that are within 30 mins flying from where I am based and you have to book a training slot. So if they say no then the flights cancelled - not good for the student and not a good way to stay in business. Plus an hour flying there and back again isn’t ideal

Also most GA airports that do have an NDB none of them have an official NDB approach. So training from these places is going to be largely unofficial approaches aswell.

I’ve also yet to fly from a school with an approved procedures trainer. There is a school close to my that use to have an approved “procedures trainer” but it was costing 10 grand (allegedly) so its no longer approved.

Yes it would be great to fly approved approaches for every lesson but in the hand to mouth existence of every flying school that I have flown from you can't. You simply have to deliver the best training you can within the constraints that you have to work with.

Hi MK,

I bear with you, and I understand your point, but in most places the same principle applies if you want to practice ILS or VOR approaches. One of the schools I worked at the only option to fly VOR or ILS was to fly for 30 mins to a nearby airbase, do the airwork, and come back home.

Cheers / Pablo

Hello!

Yes, sure. But don't forget that you, the instructor, are also a role model for your students. Everything that you do is "the right thing" for them, because they do not know better (yet). If you go flying with them on overloaded planes (as I have seen very often, especially in summer with big guys in C152s) then they will come to the conclusion that overloading an airplane is perfectly normal and acceptable. And if you train them using self-made instrument procedures, they will accept this as normal too. But it is not:

Within a radius of 100km around my home base I can recall at least six fatal accidents in the last 10 years or so, involving a bizjet, several turboprop and piston twins and a turboprop single, all consequences of "unofficial" instrument procedures. I personally knew some of the victims. Therefore, I am not going to show my students, that inventing one's own procedures is a perfectly normal thing to do. As I am not going to show them that you can fly an overweight aeroplane, bust minima, fly aerobatic manoeuvers with non-aerobatic aeroplaenes and all the other little tricks of the trade that go well 99 times but bite the poor guy who draws the lucky number 100.

Regards, max

And to Pablo: Thanks for your encouraging mail!

Whats next

There are lots of ways to kill your self flying a published approved instrument approach, like descending below minimums, loosing control during the transistion to the missed approach etc etc. This is a reflection of a lack of basic pilot decision making abilty, preofessionalism and judgement, just like what would be demonstrated by a pilot flying a made up approach in actual IMC.

If the student cannot comprehend that the purpose of utilizing a commercial radio beacon in good day VFR is to practice an instrument procedure and one is never to actually fly an unapproved approach for real, then I would suggest they are not competant to hold a pilots license.

I think we have beaten this topic to death and I do not intend to further comment on this as frankly I find your posts patronizing and and unconvincing

Well, making up your own approach plates does sound crazy...but...
 

In remote regions, where there are very little if anything published for landing strips, pilots have made up their own approach plates for obvious safety reasons. I've seen some pretty extensive and impressive hand drawn sets created. I attribute them to the ingenuity and professional survival skills of the working aviator. One particular set covering South Sudan, started I think by a fellow named Hugh Pryor, and, carried on with additions and up dating by other pilots over two decades, I wish I had for museum purposes. They are absolutely incredible in my opinion.