Advice for a newby IFR Instructor
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Advice for a newby IFR Instructor
Well......after much kicking, screaming and gouging and general carry on by my boss (and that was just the pre-flight brief) I've been deemed competent enough to go out and teach this IFR caper to real live students.
So anyone got some anecdotal advise, tips, the good oil. Past experiances, the sort of things like things that students do in the clag that can be a gotcha.
I'm new at this game and seeking the wise heads on his forum.
So anyone got some anecdotal advise, tips, the good oil. Past experiances, the sort of things like things that students do in the clag that can be a gotcha.
I'm new at this game and seeking the wise heads on his forum.
Become very good at black hole night circling approaches yourself, then make sure your students do as well. Oh, and if you become an ATO, don't ever pass anyone out if they ever show even a moment's disorientation or loss of situational awareness on the test.
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Absolutely agree with the other guys here.
Make sure you can fly the entire flight yourself.
Try to deal with all contingencies on the ground to get maximum benefit from time in the air.
Brief, brief, brief. Discuss ground speed calc's and various wind effects etc on the ground a 100 times.
Plan alternates well before departure or arrival at destination. The student must have a faultless understanding of fuel planning. Force him or her into a diversion later in their training and make sure their first IFR diversion is with you and not by themselves. Get them to upgrade to IFR from a VFR departure and downgrade to VFR en-route as well. Thats what their first job will involve a lot of.
Allow them to brief as much as possible before engine start including RTO, LASALT's, SID etc and maybe even the first approach if its nearby and re-brief the salient points prior to TOPD.
Do the radio for them every so often in the early stages or fly while they do the radio. A lot of students can learn more from a good demo of one leg and an approach than doing it all themselves and being told they got it wrong. Believe me, you won't be ripping them off as they'll welcome the chance to watch. Make sure you do it extremely well. Keeps you in perspective and current too.
Make sure you're well enough to do the flight by yourself. Don't just think you'll be okay to sit and monitor from the right seat because you'll either have an incident or that will be the day the student gets sick and can't finish the flight.
Lastly, don't always opt for the LONG flights. Two short ones are better for the student because they gey 2 IFR dep briefs, departures and RTO briefs, 5 or mor en-route phases, 4 or so approaches, a couple of stars and much more confidence for around the same money. Also if they haven't prepared well and seem to be floundering don't be afraid to can it early and save their hard earned money. Go and do it all again when they're better prepared.
Oh and NEVER cut corners. If you can't do the whole thing professionally and legally, don't go. Have a brief and do a sim or something else.
Good luck with it. It is THE MOST REWARDING thing you can do.
GUARD
Make sure you can fly the entire flight yourself.
Try to deal with all contingencies on the ground to get maximum benefit from time in the air.
Brief, brief, brief. Discuss ground speed calc's and various wind effects etc on the ground a 100 times.
Plan alternates well before departure or arrival at destination. The student must have a faultless understanding of fuel planning. Force him or her into a diversion later in their training and make sure their first IFR diversion is with you and not by themselves. Get them to upgrade to IFR from a VFR departure and downgrade to VFR en-route as well. Thats what their first job will involve a lot of.
Allow them to brief as much as possible before engine start including RTO, LASALT's, SID etc and maybe even the first approach if its nearby and re-brief the salient points prior to TOPD.
Do the radio for them every so often in the early stages or fly while they do the radio. A lot of students can learn more from a good demo of one leg and an approach than doing it all themselves and being told they got it wrong. Believe me, you won't be ripping them off as they'll welcome the chance to watch. Make sure you do it extremely well. Keeps you in perspective and current too.
Make sure you're well enough to do the flight by yourself. Don't just think you'll be okay to sit and monitor from the right seat because you'll either have an incident or that will be the day the student gets sick and can't finish the flight.
Lastly, don't always opt for the LONG flights. Two short ones are better for the student because they gey 2 IFR dep briefs, departures and RTO briefs, 5 or mor en-route phases, 4 or so approaches, a couple of stars and much more confidence for around the same money. Also if they haven't prepared well and seem to be floundering don't be afraid to can it early and save their hard earned money. Go and do it all again when they're better prepared.
Oh and NEVER cut corners. If you can't do the whole thing professionally and legally, don't go. Have a brief and do a sim or something else.
Good luck with it. It is THE MOST REWARDING thing you can do.
GUARD
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Advice for a new IFR Instructor
Much good advice in the posts above.
Especially the one from Mach E Avelli about 'black hole airports'. To add to that, place much emphasis on the take-off from the same type of airports. It has to be done as an IFR procedure and not VFR . Otherwise a tragedy may happen.
Tmb
Especially the one from Mach E Avelli about 'black hole airports'. To add to that, place much emphasis on the take-off from the same type of airports. It has to be done as an IFR procedure and not VFR . Otherwise a tragedy may happen.
Tmb
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Lots of good advice here, but my favourites are: "Always be watching..." "NEVER take your eyes off what the student is doing." "Make sure you can fly the entire flight yourself." "NEVER cut corners."
I've been close to upside-down on an ILS missed approach at night; Had parachuting aircraft hassling Centre for a clearance to drop through cloud even though we'd been in it for 40 minutes solid and were very close to them and getting closer; and seen students otherwise ready for the test lose it completely when they got a clearance that didn't match what they were expecting.
Also seen students fly with smoothness, confidence and precision that left me humbled for days afterwards.
My $.02? Make sure you're thoroughly current yourself, so that it doesn't matter what happens, you are capable of successfully completing the flight from any point with minimal extra adrenaline.
Enjoy it, it's brilliant !
I've been close to upside-down on an ILS missed approach at night; Had parachuting aircraft hassling Centre for a clearance to drop through cloud even though we'd been in it for 40 minutes solid and were very close to them and getting closer; and seen students otherwise ready for the test lose it completely when they got a clearance that didn't match what they were expecting.
Also seen students fly with smoothness, confidence and precision that left me humbled for days afterwards.
My $.02? Make sure you're thoroughly current yourself, so that it doesn't matter what happens, you are capable of successfully completing the flight from any point with minimal extra adrenaline.
Enjoy it, it's brilliant !
Grumpy
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+ or - 50 feet is the limit - this is what you would have been taught.
Set high standards and enforce precision.
And if you can see outside - do it.
Good luck.
Set high standards and enforce precision.
And if you can see outside - do it.
Good luck.
The number one reason a student struggles in IMC is because they are not scanning properly.
If you can really make sure that they are scanning properly before they even touch an aircraft then your job will be a lot easier when you're in the real stuff. "Scan, scan, scan!".
Make sure they are not man handling the controls more then they have to. In something like a GPS arrival or an ILS approach a lot of students will try and fly the 3 degree profile by man handling the controls too much. They just need to set thier rate of descent and trim it out. I always ask them to take thier hands off the controls in these situations and 99% of the time the aircraft will pitch up or down quite a lot. If this happens then obviously its not trimmed properly and its demonstrating to them that they are fighting the controls.
Even in level flight most of them are making things worse by touching the controls more then they have to.
When changing power settings in IMC students will tend to focus on the RPM and MP gauges and will start to lose hdg, alt, pitch quite quickly. Comes back to scanning while doing anything.
And lastly, and this is for the benefit of the student but also for you. Really stress that they never handle the controls in such a fashion that they are creating slight g forces which start to screw with your physiological feelings and create illusions.
Most of the time when I say "check altitude" they will react unnecessarily by pulling back hard which creates a g force when they are only 200 feet below where they should be. 200 ft below assigned altitude isn't great but it doesn't deem a hard manouvre (unless perhaps in a critical situation like at the DA in an ILS). In a missed approach at night in ****e weather when they pull back harder then necessary it can really screw with your mind.
If you can really make sure that they are scanning properly before they even touch an aircraft then your job will be a lot easier when you're in the real stuff. "Scan, scan, scan!".
Make sure they are not man handling the controls more then they have to. In something like a GPS arrival or an ILS approach a lot of students will try and fly the 3 degree profile by man handling the controls too much. They just need to set thier rate of descent and trim it out. I always ask them to take thier hands off the controls in these situations and 99% of the time the aircraft will pitch up or down quite a lot. If this happens then obviously its not trimmed properly and its demonstrating to them that they are fighting the controls.
Even in level flight most of them are making things worse by touching the controls more then they have to.
When changing power settings in IMC students will tend to focus on the RPM and MP gauges and will start to lose hdg, alt, pitch quite quickly. Comes back to scanning while doing anything.
And lastly, and this is for the benefit of the student but also for you. Really stress that they never handle the controls in such a fashion that they are creating slight g forces which start to screw with your physiological feelings and create illusions.
Most of the time when I say "check altitude" they will react unnecessarily by pulling back hard which creates a g force when they are only 200 feet below where they should be. 200 ft below assigned altitude isn't great but it doesn't deem a hard manouvre (unless perhaps in a critical situation like at the DA in an ILS). In a missed approach at night in ****e weather when they pull back harder then necessary it can really screw with your mind.
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Keep ahead of the student.
Encourage student to do hand flying while workload is low to develop instrument scan (cruise).
While talking about Instrument Scans actually give (You know TEACH) your student a 'Scan' (ask the Rex Interview panel how many pilots have stalled the metro sim during an interview)
Climb: Primary Scan AI-ASI
S&L: AI-VSI
Descent: AI-VSI
Secondary: T scan
And the cross check: Inverted V scan
Build in big safety margins.
Make sure you are well aware of your company’s policies for simulating engine failures: Blue Line +10 above 500' with gear selected up, at night 1000' above LSALT, NOT in IMC
No 1 engine feathered landings. This is so old school thinking!! Read about Duchess at YSBK
No full VMCA demonstrations!! Read about Aerostar off Coffs
Encourage student to do hand flying while workload is low to develop instrument scan (cruise).
While talking about Instrument Scans actually give (You know TEACH) your student a 'Scan' (ask the Rex Interview panel how many pilots have stalled the metro sim during an interview)
Climb: Primary Scan AI-ASI
S&L: AI-VSI
Descent: AI-VSI
Secondary: T scan
And the cross check: Inverted V scan
Build in big safety margins.
Make sure you are well aware of your company’s policies for simulating engine failures: Blue Line +10 above 500' with gear selected up, at night 1000' above LSALT, NOT in IMC
No 1 engine feathered landings. This is so old school thinking!! Read about Duchess at YSBK
No full VMCA demonstrations!! Read about Aerostar off Coffs
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Very good topic and I agree with all above. First thing you might want to consider is to revise a bit of the ops and effects of controls lesson. Funny how over time students forget the little things like an increase of airspeed will increase lift, that little dot does'nt have to move very far, so that nice descent they set up almost becomes straight and level again, . Trimming can get left behind in the heat battle as well.
Know what Attitude is required for each phase of flight. Be it climbing, descending, turning and even S & L at various airspeeds and airframe configurations both normal and assymetric.
And they must realize that the AH is both Pitch attitude and Bank attitude.
For example a rate 1 level turn at 140kts in the aeroplane I teach in is about 20 AOB and Pitch Attitude is about half the dot above the horizion line.
And above all, patience.
Just my two bobs worth. Have fun with it and keep seeking advice from the old hands and keeping learning yourself.
MM
Know what Attitude is required for each phase of flight. Be it climbing, descending, turning and even S & L at various airspeeds and airframe configurations both normal and assymetric.
And they must realize that the AH is both Pitch attitude and Bank attitude.
For example a rate 1 level turn at 140kts in the aeroplane I teach in is about 20 AOB and Pitch Attitude is about half the dot above the horizion line.
And above all, patience.
Just my two bobs worth. Have fun with it and keep seeking advice from the old hands and keeping learning yourself.
MM
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If you happen to be conducting single engine go-arounds under the hood, be ready for the student to inadvertently put in full wrong rudder as he applies full throttle on the live engine. Happened to me twice in Seminole's and once in a DC3. Potentially dangerous.
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All good posts. But dont forget Traffic Management. I used to teach in the bush many moons ago where there was none. So I'd make it up....EG..on an NDB app at YSWL, in simulated IMC to the minima, give the student following traffic and see how things would work out??? Would he/she keep the traffic 1000ft above missed app alt or let them come on down. To this day I hear some very poor separation between IFR drivers in IMC OCTA. Can be done quite well in the sim aswell.
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elaborating more on the 'can you fly the nav yourself'
You gotta know your aircraft inside out, its capabilities, settings, navaid failures (especially if you fly glass cockpit), mode settings, what each and every button and dial or guage means. Dont leave any stone unturned cuz when you get a question from your student and you dont know the answer or if your in the ****e and an abnormal occurs your the only fail safe there is.
good luck
You gotta know your aircraft inside out, its capabilities, settings, navaid failures (especially if you fly glass cockpit), mode settings, what each and every button and dial or guage means. Dont leave any stone unturned cuz when you get a question from your student and you dont know the answer or if your in the ****e and an abnormal occurs your the only fail safe there is.
good luck
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Guptar, firstly a pat on the back for realising your limitations ie. inexperienced in the field, and looking for some advice
Some good points here.. my 2 cents...
You beat me to it... spend some time on the whiteboard with some scenarios... (as Bulldog mentioned)
Make sure the student knows a correct 'scan'... that it's not just a matter of moving your eyeballs around like they're in desperate need of an exorcism (such as a generic scan like T, inverted V... )
Make sure it's correct ATTITUDE flying (power + attitude = performance.... which is somewhat overused/misunderstood me thinks). Where I used to teach we would cover all the instruments up except the AI (in the sim), get the student to fly attitudes and power (trimmed properly as Fonz says...)... and guess what? if I keep the wings straight, pitch dot 0, and cruise power I hold a heading/altitude! without even seeing the Alt/hdg! (do I need to scan the ASI every 5 seconds in the cruise?!?)..... If I keep the wings stright and climb attitude etc. etc. I get climb speed... (this gets the point through to them about attitude flying)................THEN once they've got this, reveal the other instruments and point out what they should be looking at & when.
point taken... but may promote 'chasing the instruments'...
get them used to what 'feels' right.. let them have a play with the MAP/RPM and know that 'this much of a shove' relates to 'that much of a change'.... for example... a large power change... there's no point watching the MAP needles going ALL the way (eg. cruise to descent power)... put the levers in the ball park area,(while looking at AI) THEN have a look...
ICING. Be aware yourself, and make the student aware.
Guard good points... just to add to the fuel side of things, 'ok, what if ___ is socked in, where can we go, do we have enough fuel'... or how long can we hold before we have to divert & where to......
lastly, remember that you're an 'instructor'... so TEACH, don't ASSESS.
(ie. no use saying just 'you stuffed this up'... unless you're following up with 'this is how to prevent it happening again / this is how to get out of it')... try looking at yourself first before pointing the finger at the student... did I teach him/her how to do this properly?
Well, waiting to get picked apart by the crowd
, but just some general points i've picked up along the way.
Some good points here.. my 2 cents...
But dont forget Traffic Management
You beat me to it... spend some time on the whiteboard with some scenarios... (as Bulldog mentioned)Make sure the student knows a correct 'scan'... that it's not just a matter of moving your eyeballs around like they're in desperate need of an exorcism (such as a generic scan like T, inverted V... )
Make sure it's correct ATTITUDE flying (power + attitude = performance.... which is somewhat overused/misunderstood me thinks). Where I used to teach we would cover all the instruments up except the AI (in the sim), get the student to fly attitudes and power (trimmed properly as Fonz says...)... and guess what? if I keep the wings straight, pitch dot 0, and cruise power I hold a heading/altitude! without even seeing the Alt/hdg! (do I need to scan the ASI every 5 seconds in the cruise?!?)..... If I keep the wings stright and climb attitude etc. etc. I get climb speed... (this gets the point through to them about attitude flying)................THEN once they've got this, reveal the other instruments and point out what they should be looking at & when.
Set high standards and enforce precision.
When changing power settings in IMC students will tend to focus on the RPM and MP gauges and will start to lose hdg, alt, pitch quite quickly.
get them used to what 'feels' right.. let them have a play with the MAP/RPM and know that 'this much of a shove' relates to 'that much of a change'.... for example... a large power change... there's no point watching the MAP needles going ALL the way (eg. cruise to descent power)... put the levers in the ball park area,(while looking at AI) THEN have a look... ICING. Be aware yourself, and make the student aware.
Guard
good points... just to add to the fuel side of things, 'ok, what if ___ is socked in, where can we go, do we have enough fuel'... or how long can we hold before we have to divert & where to......lastly, remember that you're an 'instructor'... so TEACH, don't ASSESS.
(ie. no use saying just 'you stuffed this up'... unless you're following up with 'this is how to prevent it happening again / this is how to get out of it')... try looking at yourself first before pointing the finger at the student... did I teach him/her how to do this properly?
Well, waiting to get picked apart by the crowd
, but just some general points i've picked up along the way.
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Some more of the good oil.....
All excellent posts lads!
I agree absolutely with remembering to TEACH instead of assess! Remember your principles and methods of instruction... it is no good telling the student to do something without telling them HOW to do it. If you can't get a student to do something... e.g. track on an NDB then ask for help... I have been approached and I have done the approaching for help myself; it'll make you a better instructor.
Take the load off the student in the beginning, then load them up as they approach the test.... take over if you have to explain something.
Fuel!
Have enough of it! It is very easy to get carried away with burning extra fuel with 'have another go at that sector entry' etc... soon enough you'll be over your planned fuel burn if you don't keep on top of it with a fuel log (I based mine on time since takeoff and hourly fuel flow). But don't take so much that you miss out on your IFR climb gradients on one engine.
Also, try to sit in on every flight test debrief that you can, you'll get invaluable feedback.
For those long days... be careful with the caffine. I nearly got severely caught one afternoon with having consumed too much coffee, immediately followed by a 3 hour flight with a student and then finding that the airport was closed due to an inter moving through (which we had fuel for - but not the bladder space). I nearly had to declare a pan pan
...lol
I agree absolutely with remembering to TEACH instead of assess! Remember your principles and methods of instruction... it is no good telling the student to do something without telling them HOW to do it. If you can't get a student to do something... e.g. track on an NDB then ask for help... I have been approached and I have done the approaching for help myself; it'll make you a better instructor.
Take the load off the student in the beginning, then load them up as they approach the test.... take over if you have to explain something.
Fuel!
Have enough of it! It is very easy to get carried away with burning extra fuel with 'have another go at that sector entry' etc... soon enough you'll be over your planned fuel burn if you don't keep on top of it with a fuel log (I based mine on time since takeoff and hourly fuel flow). But don't take so much that you miss out on your IFR climb gradients on one engine.Also, try to sit in on every flight test debrief that you can, you'll get invaluable feedback.
For those long days... be careful with the caffine. I nearly got severely caught one afternoon with having consumed too much coffee, immediately followed by a 3 hour flight with a student and then finding that the airport was closed due to an inter moving through (which we had fuel for - but not the bladder space). I nearly had to declare a pan pan
...lol