Help with overcoming "IFR bordem"...

You should stop wasting your money and quit flying IFR immediately. You will drop it sooner rather than later anyway. Most of the rest of us are stimulated by the challenge of flying real IFR and appreciate the flexibility and usability it provides to our airplane investment.
 
Want boredom, try being stuck someplace under a low ceiling, The IFR may damn well get you out.
 
At one point in my instrument training, I also got bored. My Mooney was in the shop and I had to fly a Skyhawk . . . So much less to do, and so much more time to do it in . . . .

Find some airpprts that are close together and fly approaches into both of them. Changing from one to the other quickly will keep you too busy to be bored.
 
tawood said:
Sigh...already did this one too, several times (how else would I fly a hold, VORs is all I gots!...guess I could fly a hold right over a vor, which I haven't done yet.)
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The hold at KRNO (Reno, NV) is *at* the FMG VOR. We had to go to the central valley in California to find a published hold that was at the intersection of two radials. Sure I could have simulated it east of Reno using two VORs but it's not the same as flying an approach to a busy airport and getting vectored all over the place. I have a GPS and so part of the challenge is getting the next approach loaded while still flying the airplane, talking to ATC and flying a procedure.

It was certainly never boring... and neither was my first actual without my CFII... to an airport I had never been to before, 2500 miles from home.
 
as they say [ATP]s they earn many years salary in the briefest of moments. that might also be true if you are on a victor airway and get a turn from the sector controller into the worst weather you/your aircraft can handle.it did to me .you will never board again after that .
 
tawood said:
Hi all,
For the past month or so, I finally got the time that I've been working on the flying portion of my IR...I passed my written about a year ago. When I studied for my written, I found the information interesting and I enjoyed studying.
Now that I've started the flight training portion, I'm finding the training HIDEOUSLY BORING!!! I mean, like watching paint-dry / grass-grow boring. I've got about 18 hours so far with a francis hood, and 2 hours of actual...When flying on instruments, its like you're just sitting there, staring at gauges (and not many gauges, as my instructor seems to be covering up most of them, nearly all the time).
I like my instructor, and I truly don't believe that he is the problem at all. He tells me I'm doing really well, and he's recently cut me loose to fly with a friend/fellow pilot for the next 20 hours or so of hood time. I was hoping that flying with my friend would be better, but after flying with him for an hour and a half last night, it is not. I find myself absolutely dreading my next practice flight...not trying to be a troll, but am I alone in this feeling?
I've been flying for over 20 years VFR, and I do still enjoy flying VFR very much. I'm actually at a point where I'm thinking maybe IFR is not for me. Since I'm not a quitter, I see myself getting the rating, then never, EVER, using it. Or at least, avoiding using it, at which point I would become rusty, THEN never use it, etc.
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Do it with one hand tied behind your back. If that don't work, close your eyes. If you're still bored you don't need no stinkin rating. Just go fly
 
I was a VFR only pilot for about 5-6 years. Took trips all over, family vacations, etc. Loved it! Got delayed maybe 3-4 times, nothing bad. Finally got stuck out of town nearly 5 hours waiting for an overcast to burn off, the family staring at me the entire time. Decided to get my IFR.
Trained, got my IFR. One weekend, it was rainy, miserable in our hometown. Wife and I had nothing to do for the weekend but stare at each other while it rained. Filed IFR and flew down to the beach for beautiful weather. IFR made flying much more reliable, predictable and consistent.
I remember being bored during my private pilot training. I remember being bored during my IFR training. However, it took me years to be a good VFR pilot; I’m still working on being a good IFR pilot.
The rating is so much more than staring at instruments with wings level. You’re correct that 90% of the time IFR is boring. Penetrate a cloud wings level, come out the other side. But, the precision that IFR teaches you is important. Knowing how to fly your plane in multiple configurations in addition to wings level. Knowing what settings gets your plane into those configurations. Understanding and maneuvering through the IFR system. Some of these things take years to understand.
Keep working. Bored? Search for the next thing to learn. There’s plenty.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
It’s all about mission for me and in that context I find it extremely satisfying but never exciting.

At first it was about getting to a friend’s lake house for parties every weekend. Neither Airport had an approach but there was plenty of strategizing around Wx and such. Learned a lot of weather stuff, was highly motivated to make the flight and most important, it stopped being so exciting like it was trying to do it VFR every weekend. Hand flying in IMC was incidental to the mission.

Currently the mission has been flying to take care of aging parents. Many of the flights, particularly in the winter, have been satisfying to complete. Recently a particularly unsatisfying flight was perhaps the most engaging. Up to that point I always made my destination on the same day or I scrubbed the flight for another day. There was a big, deep wad of icy clouds forecast over my destination. My plan was to over fly it to get past the wad, descend to get under it and retrace my steps to KAGC. I did a couple of smart things like taking my O2 bottle, topping off an almost full fuel load and thinking thru my ‘worst case’ scenario (the true worst case would be losing the engine on top of 10,000feet of icy clouds but...).

What I did wrong was get impatient to start so I took off a full 2 hours before the forecast optimum departure time. Ouch! Every time a touched a cloud I began to iced up and had to climb out of it. O2 became a necessity since 14k was required to stay clean. The forecast was accurate as they increasingly are these days, so as I looked at points north, they all reported low icy ceilings with tops up to 12k. Lake Erie ended that exercise and I had to return home. Talk about BORING. Fours hours in blindingly sunny skies, droning along on autopilot, able to plot any course desired except descent north of the Mason Dixon line.

9cd77e8c82bccb5755c7f556062c397f.jpg


Arrrgh, but curiously satisfying in the end because it never got exciting in my home assembled flivver.

I spent years racing sailplanes... that was exciting! Whether racing down ridge lines, mixing it up in 20 plane gaggles, flying the edges of t-storms and landing in random farm fields, roads, and cattle pens. Too exciting for this aging carcass. Completed missions flying in the system, mixing it up with the big boys during a Class B Push does it for me now. And with good planning, I’ll avoid the push.

Get your rating, then figure out what turns your screw and go find it.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
 
@tawood in your past leading up to your IR where was the expectation set in your mind that IR was going to be "exciting"?

The further you get into ratings, the less "exciting" and more "standardized" the flying is going to become. Not only that, it's supposed to. The pace changes, the weather can throw some curve balls, but in general, if you're doing it "right", it's all pretty boring...

Until you go back and start teaching students how to land... LOL... that can get "exciting" again. :) And there's even ways to teach that which will hopefully minimize such "excitement". :)

The IR is making a new habit out of aircraft control by reference to instruments, that over the time required become a habit, so you hopefully don't have to think much about it, and can focus on other decisions that'll affect the outcome of the flight. Just like you don't think anymore about keeping the wings level VFR when looking out the window... your sub-conscious just does it.
 
I have to admit, I was the same way during IFR training. With a math/physics background, figuring out the charts and angles and procedures was very quick (and even without that background, I'm sure most pilots who decide to train figure it out pretty quick). I knew I wanted to do IFR for the dispatch ability, but the training flights were never super exciting. I kept myself entertained by doing plenty of pretty VFR flights in between. When I was at the "just go fly with a safety pilot and a hood" stage, I would try to maximize the radio / briefing / etc workload (eg approaches at 9 different airports in and around the DC SFRA in a 4-hour flight). I also made sure some of my "fun VFR" flights were in minimum VFR conditions, so I was comfortable with the sight picture at minimums, landing at unfamiliar airports to listen to fun stories while waiting out the weather, etc.
 
denverpilot said:
@tawood in your past leading up to your IR where was the expectation set in your mind that IR was going to be "exciting"?

The further you get into ratings, the less "exciting" and more "standardized" the flying is going to become. Not only that, it's supposed to. The pace changes, the weather can throw some curve balls, but in general, if you're doing it "right", it's all pretty boring...

Until you go back and start teaching students how to land... LOL... that can get "exciting" again. :) And there's even ways to teach that which will hopefully minimize such "excitement". :)

The IR is making a new habit out of aircraft control by reference to instruments, that over the time required become a habit, so you hopefully don't have to think much about it, and can focus on other decisions that'll affect the outcome of the flight. Just like you don't think anymore about keeping the wings level VFR when looking out the window... your sub-conscious just does it.
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I've never thought that IFR would be exciting...I think some people see the opposite of boring as exciting, so now when I say that the instrument flying is not what I expected, they assume I meant that I expected excitement. What did I expect? Flying that would be interesting...I don't find IFR interesting. Since my original post, I've gone up under the hood for about 4 more hours: did more hold practice, more approach practice...it has gotten less "dreadful" because I'm not expecting anything other than droll flying...I'll get through it.
I have come to the conclusion that a few people have hit the nail on the head saying that my Cherokee has provided some of the boredom...it does fly VERY VERY easy. I guess that is also a good thing, although it may be too easy. As an example, a couple of lessons ago, there was some confusion when my instructor handed the plane over to me. I thought he had it, he thought I had it...after 30 seconds, he says, "Why aren't you holding the yoke?" I grab the yoke, and expect to be on some wild deviation...nope, still within 50 feet of the altitude, still within a few degrees of the heading.
 
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I must say I never was bored acquiring all my certificates and type ratings. That's over 44 years of flying. As @denverpilot said, instructing now and teaching landings is verrrry exciting. :D
 
tawood said:
I have come to the conclusion that a few people have hit the nail on the head saying that my Cherokee has provided some of the boredom...it does fly VERY VERY easy. I guess that is also a good thing, although it may be too easy. As an example, a couple of lessons ago, there was some confusion when my instructor handed the plane over to me. I thought he had it, he thought I had it...after 30 seconds, he says, "Why aren't you holding the yoke?" I grab the yoke, and expect to be on some wild deviation...nope, still within 50 feet of the altitude, still within a few degrees of the heading.
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You need to fly something out of rig. LOL. Much more entertaining. :)

One way to make it a challenge, fly it within 10 feet and no discernible degree changes in heading. If that’s too easy, 0’. :)
 
Interesting thread. I absolutely loved my instrument training. Maybe it was the places we got to go. I did my training at FlightSafety and there were 2 of us that always flew. One student flew, the other sat the back seat and we went to a destination. Change seats and fly back. Some of the destinations: Miami Int'l, Palm Beach, Orlando Int'l, Tampa Int'l, Naples, Key West, and New Orleans (long comm. xc in the Seminole). There were others but you get the idea. So it was never the same approach and holds over and over again. Are you able to change up where you're flying to?

Commercial on the other hand I hated with a passion!
 
Hank S said:
Find some airpprts that are close together and fly approaches into both of them. Changing from one to the other quickly will keep you too busy to be bored.
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My suggestion as well. Part of the instructor's job is to challenge you. Changing up procedures, briefing for an approach on the fly. Fly at night, fly in moderate turbulence, fly approach after approach. In the training environment, an efficient and cost effective training session should not be boring. If you're using an iPad, turn off the GPS so it's purely a chart. Find some busy airspace and work your way through some re-routes and best forward speed approaches.
 
Hank S said:
At one point in my instrument training, I also got bored. My Mooney was in the shop and I had to fly a Skyhawk . . . So much less to do, and so much more time to do it in . . . .

Find some airpprts that are close together and fly approaches into both of them. Changing from one to the other quickly will keep you too busy to be bored.
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Almost certainly @tawood is already doing that. I did my IFR training in the same area and there are lots of airports with IAPs fairly close together: KPTK, KDET, CYQG, KYIP, even Y47 and KVLL depending on what equipment he has and which VORs are OTS. Both of my CFIIs told me that if I can manage the heavy workload in this environment, real-world IFR will be a snap. I don't know about a snap, but it's definitely less... "exciting". :D
 
I wouldn't say my IFR training was boring because for the most part we did not just drone along, we were constanly going from one thing to another. I will say that real IFR flight is boring because it is supposed to be boring. You're cruising along right where you are supposed to be, you're ahead of the plane so everything you have to do has been planned, set up, and executed in your head way before you actually have to do it, your calculated fuel use and flight times were all spot on, weather is pretty much as forecast etc etc. Yawn. Of course things don't always go as planned, but when it comes to IFR flying, boring is good.
 
Yeah, as someone who is just getting into instrument training, I view it as a challenge and a skill more than a form of entertainment. I view personal flying as a valuable form of personal transportation as much as I do a passionate hobby, so I view having my instrument ticket as a way of expanding my options for transportation value to the maximum. I know I won't be the guy who files IFR on every single flight (mostly because the TEC routes in Southern California sometimes dictate crappy routings between the airports I fly between), but I will certainly keep current and have that ticket in my pocket for when I need it.

If you want to do fun stuff, go grab a commercial ticket and do aerobatics. Both of those involve a lot more "fun" than keeping the plane level and avoiding the leans. What they don't do is give you more options.
 
I just passed the written and am starting the flying part soon. My instructor is planning on a bunch of 4 hour flights to all over the place. I have the feeling it’s going to be busy in the cockpit so I can’t imagine it getting boring. But look forward to being good enough that it feels boring!!!!!
 
Phil Benyo said:
I just passed the written and am starting the flying part soon. My instructor is planning on a bunch of 4 hour flights to all over the place. I have the feeling it’s going to be busy in the cockpit so I can’t imagine it getting boring. But look forward to being good enough that it feels boring!!!!!
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Phil, your instructor sounds like my instructor, what state are you in?
 
I agree, IFR for the most part requires less neurons than VFR, but if you want to really test your stuff, outside of illegal or death, try a PAR approach.
 
I find flying IFR boring, but I enjoy operating IFR. For me, once the hand-flying skills were down, it was about discovering all the additional capabilities of my GPS. (I had no idea it was able to fly SIDs and STARs as well as approaches.) Once I got my ticket, most of my time was spent becoming adept at using the technology and the procedures to get myself safely on the ground. The "flying" part of it is rather boring, until you break out of actual 200ft AGL and are lined up perfectly to land. THAT is exciting. Flying through clouds? Boring.

The reason to get your IFR ticket is for excitment, its for safety and utility. At least, that's what it was to me.
 
denverpilot said:
Depends on the controller, I suppose....

"Oh, ****... I meant turn left..." :) :) :)
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It certainly does. I've unplugged a few trainees before and took over. It happens, just like grabbing the plane when your student doesn't seem concerned about the nose gear touching first. :D

I'm sure @Timbeck2 and @Radar Contact would tell you this too, actually any controller.
 
PaulS said:
Massachusetts, kbed, I was hoping for nearby, we could've swapped as safety pilot. Just started my training.
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I’ll be up your neck of the woods. One of the airports on my list to get familiar with is KLWM.
 
We got rid of our PAR about 2 years ago. Happiest day of my life since I'd been running PAR approaches since 1993 and started on the FPN 62 with raw radar and screwdriver adjustments. Kids I trained in the latter years were spoiled. Uphill, both ways, barefoot...you get the picture.

I've unplugged a few trainees in my time, threw their plug towards the stairs and told them to follow it.
 
James331 said:
I agree, IFR for the most part requires less neurons than VFR, but if you want to really test your stuff, outside of illegal or death, try a PAR approach.
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Who still has PAR approaches? I did an ASR several years ago out of necessity, but I haven’t seen a PAR for eons.
 
Libby Army Airfield in Fort Huachucha AZ still has one. The Navy has bought our old one but hasn't come up with the money to transport it out of DM.
 
Tim,

I am/was in the same boat as you. IFR is pretty boring. I think you and I are probably similar as we went into the training prepared, and it was an easy click for us. When I did my IR training it was all done at night, and my instructor basically said, "I am not in the plane, you have to do this solo." He wouldn't hold a chart, he wouldn't touch a radio, he wouldn't do anything other than comment/critique what I was doing. So, night, IMC and under the hood, I learned to have everything prepared ahead of time. And I did the training in a slow-ass \U warrior. So yeah, once you can lock in the gauges so they don't move it all becomes mundane. Even now in the Comanche it's pretty boring, so when I do my 6+1, I do everything at cruise speed, stack my approaches so I have almost no time between going missed and setting up the next approach, and try and stress myself that way, so that when I'm doing it for real, it's....yeah...boring.

If it's boring, you're doing it right. If it's hectic/stressful/exciting/anything that moves your hear rate off the bottom peg, maybe your approach/technique needs to be re-evaluated.
 
James331 said:
It's something different
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Ok, I'll buy that. But I don't think they're particularly challenging, unless you're emergency fuel and about to flame out in near 0-0 conditions. We had 5 F-5s (Agressors) that went missed on the first PAR, second round they barely got in.
 
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