PPRuNe Forums - New IMC benefits

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Thanks again all.

I will look initially into Tim's Nav, as that has been mentioned on the Flyer Forum also. I will also have a look at the MS sim at my club to see what I think before committing any more precious flying money!

I love flying,

I passed my IMCr a few weeks back and looking at your initial post have similar hrs as you

It took me much longer than the 15hrs spoken about earlier on this thread, but frankly I couldn’t care less how long it took, as it becomes immediately clear within about 10 seconds of launching straight into a cloud that if you are new to it (as I clearly am) and are not thought out and prepared and current (especially as someone new like myself) that you are not far away from an impending disaster

The one thing that helped me be more prepared, in addition to going over the route in advance with my instructor, was to practice the trip after a lesson on a MS flight sim, which costs like 40 quid and then a joystick for another 30 or so. This is money very well spent. Irrespective of helping to cut the number of hrs that it may or may not take in gaining the licence, I find it very good to go through an approach on the flight sim before heading off on a trip (especially somewhere that is new to me) as it helps me mentally prepare what I intend to do. In addition to being cheap as chips, there is no need to go to a club to practice on a sim, you can simply have a go at home as you wait for dinner

Maybe with more experience than I have this would all come very quickly, but the sim is an easy way to help prepare oneself before a flight into imc

At least that is my experience

Good luck with your IMCr

Nick

Hi Nick

That was a really helpful post, thanks. From what you (and some others) have said, getting MS Sim could be money well spent. I think I will check it out at the club, and if I get on with it, look at buying my own version. As you, and others, have implied, it's certainly cheaper than learning in a real aircraft!

If you don't mind me asking, how many hours did it take you to gain your IMCr? It would be useful to have an idea so that I can budget my finances and time accordingly. Also, I would be interested to hear the average frequency of your lessons, and how much groundschool you needed. The book suggests 20 hours:eek:

Congratulations on gaining your rating!

If you are going to do imc practice on a pc sim it is worth paying for pedals and other similar items in my opinion because it reinforces good habits and foot muscle memory/coordination etc, rather than making you fly without and reinforce bad practices . Of course practicing an approach on your pc will help when it comes to the real thing but also when you are flying an approach, especially the first few, your workload is high and that is exactly the time when you need all of the other stuff to be instinctive so you can concentrate on the hard bits. Use a checklist. Have trigger points for things like prelanding checks , think about things like expected radio calls and time estimates to the beacon etc and generally keep the flow of things to do as close to true life as possible and you will find it will definitely help all aspects of the approach not just the needle chasing.

Well done PRBloke! I have recently passed my skills test and written....still waiting to get my updated licence sent from Gatwick....haven't used it in anger yet...looking forward to it though...

I love flying,

In answer to your question:

“If you don't mind me asking, how many hours did it take you to gain your IMCr? It would be useful to have an idea so that I can budget my finances and time accordingly. Also, I would be interested to hear the average frequency of your lessons, and how much groundschool you needed. The book suggests 20 hours ”

It took me 27 IMC hrs I think – which goes up when you add on the 0.2 or whatever per flight for the time on the ground / taxing / taking off / landing etc (so a 1hr flight I recorded as 0.8 IMC hrs)

I thought I was pretty regular in terms of flying frequency – I started back in November and passed mid April. Being married and with a job in London, I can only get out at the weekends and trying not to be too selfish I found myself going to the club roughly every other Saturday (where we managed two flights, flight time of 9/10 and 11/12 or something)

One issue I had was familiarization with a certain type of plane

I often found myself in quite a few different complex planes for reasons out of everyone’s control, which in fact was great experience in itself, and I ended up taking the test in a retractable turbo arrow, but there is no doubt that identifying a plane that is right for your needs and sticking with it, will help make the whole process a little more straight forward

There is enough going on without worrying about finding the squelch knob or some other trivia thing as you launch into a cloud, which very quickly compounds your work load (and your instructors patience)

Regarding ground school – if you mean the exam that you need to sit, I just read the book once and then went over the imc confusor a few times and then sat the test – pretty straight forward

In terms of ground school with my instructor – he would call me or I would call him during the week to discuss the general outline of what we were to do on the Saturday (if it was an approach somewhere, say Bournemouth, this gave me a chance to load up the approach on flight sim and have a go)

We then sat down on the day itself and went over the plan before the flight and again post the flight we would sit down over breakfast and go over what often went wrong etc.

I found the whole experience to be invaluable and genuinely feel very happy to have done the rating

That was just my experience

Good luck

Nick

I don't know how good FSX is at turbulence, but practicing in simulated turbulence is safer than the real kind, and just as good for developing the scan.

Quote:

I don't know how good FSX is at turbulence, but practicing in simulated turbulence is safer than the real kind, and just as good for developing the scan.

My intsructor, spotting that I wasn't too happy with the turblence inside a cloud, said "try slowing down a bit". Which I understood, and which worked when I tried it, but I hadn't thought of it for myself.

Thanks again everyone, and especially Nick, for all your input.

I feel like I now have a slightly better idea of what to expect, and what to look out for. I wish I had discovered PPruNe before, or even during, my PPL course! It's very useful to compare other peoples' experiences.