Advice for a newby IFR Instructor
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Strategic hamlet
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Get an old copy of Microsoft's Flight Simulator for ~$40, and fly it on zero visibility. It's an incredibly cheap and useful tool for you and your students to practice IFR flying.
Make sure the students get some night exposure at an aerodrome with not a lot of lighting nearby and no T-Vasis or Papi and with something like a basic NDB or VOR approach which involves a circling approach to land, and then actually land not do the overshoot from the minima.
Likewise it always amazes me on IFR navex's they go and do the ILS, and then the overshoot. How is the student going to experience the transition from instrument flying to landing from a low minima.
I always remember my IFR instructor going on about flying the holding pattern +/-100 feet and +/-5 degrees etc, but no one actually showed me how to fly the circling approach from the minima to touchdown!
Make sure they have a very good understanding of the requirements for circling and when you can descend.
Traffic and seperation from both other IFR and VFR aircraft is probably the haredst thing to grasp and apply. On a recent VOR approach at night time and aircraft taxied out and lined up on the runway and was more than happy to depart towards us while we were at 3 dme approaching 700 feet in IMC. The pilot of the other aircraft stated that he was happy to make an early turn if that helped, I replied that it might be easier if you waited back on the taxiway while we land.
The other most important thing to remember is that a lot people think that the IFR rating is something that comes easy and doesn't involve a lot of work. They really have to get into the books and know a lot of stuff to cover flightplanning, weather etc a pass in the IFR theory exam is nice but you have to put it all together to make it work in the real world of IFR flying.
The student has to be made aware that an IFR rating still has a lot of limitations when it comes to weather and conditions you are exposed to.
The trusty Duchess, Seminole and most GA ****eboxes etc are really pretty basic IFR aircraft with limited IFR equipment, basic autopliots, no deicing capability and therefore need to be treated with respect. Your mighty Seminole great bit of fun to fly down to Cowes for and NDB, but try taking it to Canberra on a winters night with a low freezing level and see how much fun it is!
Somebody mentioned IFR tolerances of +/- 50 feet, somedays that can be achieved on a nice sunny day, but somedays in the real world that can't be achieved due to turbulence, windshear, mechanical turbulence etc!
The autopilot make sure the student can use it correctly and knows all the limitations associated with it, but more importantly the student can fly the aeroplane in imc without it, because one day they will have the pleasure of flying a leg and then do an approach without a serviceable autopilot.
Likewise it always amazes me on IFR navex's they go and do the ILS, and then the overshoot. How is the student going to experience the transition from instrument flying to landing from a low minima.
I always remember my IFR instructor going on about flying the holding pattern +/-100 feet and +/-5 degrees etc, but no one actually showed me how to fly the circling approach from the minima to touchdown!
Make sure they have a very good understanding of the requirements for circling and when you can descend.
Traffic and seperation from both other IFR and VFR aircraft is probably the haredst thing to grasp and apply. On a recent VOR approach at night time and aircraft taxied out and lined up on the runway and was more than happy to depart towards us while we were at 3 dme approaching 700 feet in IMC. The pilot of the other aircraft stated that he was happy to make an early turn if that helped, I replied that it might be easier if you waited back on the taxiway while we land.
The other most important thing to remember is that a lot people think that the IFR rating is something that comes easy and doesn't involve a lot of work. They really have to get into the books and know a lot of stuff to cover flightplanning, weather etc a pass in the IFR theory exam is nice but you have to put it all together to make it work in the real world of IFR flying.
The student has to be made aware that an IFR rating still has a lot of limitations when it comes to weather and conditions you are exposed to.
The trusty Duchess, Seminole and most GA ****eboxes etc are really pretty basic IFR aircraft with limited IFR equipment, basic autopliots, no deicing capability and therefore need to be treated with respect. Your mighty Seminole great bit of fun to fly down to Cowes for and NDB, but try taking it to Canberra on a winters night with a low freezing level and see how much fun it is!
Somebody mentioned IFR tolerances of +/- 50 feet, somedays that can be achieved on a nice sunny day, but somedays in the real world that can't be achieved due to turbulence, windshear, mechanical turbulence etc!
The autopilot make sure the student can use it correctly and knows all the limitations associated with it, but more importantly the student can fly the aeroplane in imc without it, because one day they will have the pleasure of flying a leg and then do an approach without a serviceable autopilot.
Join Date: May 2003
Location: Cote d'Azur
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Excellent posts, guys, proud to be sharing the air with you.
Adding another $0.01 to the mix:
The students will most times respond to, or at least hear, ATC messages addressed to our a/c but will often be deaf to other messages which don't seem to 'apply to us'. Especially when they are focusing on their scan/navigation in IMC.
However as we all know, those messages can carry vital information pertaining to our own safe passage. So, quiz the student every so often on 'what was the last thing ATC said?', 'How high above you, what range and in what direction is Nxxxxx?', 'why is that jet being told to reach 7000 by [fix]?, and suchlike.
Initially they mostly won't know, of course, but soon they'll tune their ear to extracting the valuable nuggets from third-party communications which are crucial for maximizing our own situational awareness.
Adding another $0.01 to the mix:
The students will most times respond to, or at least hear, ATC messages addressed to our a/c but will often be deaf to other messages which don't seem to 'apply to us'. Especially when they are focusing on their scan/navigation in IMC.
However as we all know, those messages can carry vital information pertaining to our own safe passage. So, quiz the student every so often on 'what was the last thing ATC said?', 'How high above you, what range and in what direction is Nxxxxx?', 'why is that jet being told to reach 7000 by [fix]?, and suchlike.
Initially they mostly won't know, of course, but soon they'll tune their ear to extracting the valuable nuggets from third-party communications which are crucial for maximizing our own situational awareness.
