How Much Actual Before Checkride

How Much Actual at time of instrument Checkride?

  • Total voters
    46
  • Poll closed .
Once I was getting proficient with the skills, my CFII had us file IFR to some other airport almost every lesson... sometimes we even got to fly in IMC (I voted for 2-5 hours). If it was a particularly challenging day he wouldn't have felt comfortable taking me up, but those were rare.
 
My CFII and I would actively seek out IFR conditions for our cross countries, which I highly recommend. I remember doing an ILS into KMEM, popping out of the clouds at 600' and having a FedEx DC-10 off my left wing on the parallel approach. It was a very cool sight.
 
I was very lucky. My 6 hours of actual included two missed approaches where nothing was seen at minimums.
 
I had almost 11 hours. I did lots of cross countries and picked days where I’d be in IMC for most of it.
 
My instructor and I sought out real IMC on most training flights after the basics. That experience was invaluable.
 
0.2 hours.



Sent from my SM-T510 using Tapatalk
 
I had about 4-5 hours. Mostly because much of my IFR training was with Cap’n Ron Levy and we took advantage of all the different weather as it happened.

Finish up was with a local who also recognized the value of practice when flyable IMC was happening.

I was glad we did as much as we could. I found it a valuable experience and a big sense of accomplishment when the approach started above or in the clouds and ended with a runway off our nose as we broke out below the layer.
 
AggieMike88 said:
What was the typical distance or flight time for these flights?

I am thinking I might steal this idea once I have my double-I
Click to expand...
Excellent idea. For about 6 months I filed and flew every flight after my instrument rating for experience.
 
MBDiagMan said:
How much time in actual IMC did you have when you took your instrument checkride?
Click to expand...

Can you add options:
I don't know yet, but so far zero
I don't know yet, but so far more than zero

I have 2 so far. Damn glad of it too. Without the foggles it's so much easier to get distracted from the scan. But you guys that have finished know that ;)
 
AggieMike88 said:
What was the typical distance or flight time for these flights?

I am thinking I might steal this idea once I have my double-I
Click to expand...
They were probably in the 35 to 100 nm range. The real ifr experience (even without clouds) was huge. The actual was huge too.

My CFII wouldn’t take me ifr for real if my skills were subpar, so keep that in mind. It’s too hard to babysit a weak student ifr or especially in actual.
 
Thanks for the participation folks!

I guess what piqued my curiosity was my IFR cross Country yesterday. Most of it was riding a wild bronco and in IMC. It was very challenging but massively educational. 4 hours actual with 4.3 total logged. Add to that an hour from a while back and I have five hours actual and probably will get more before the checkride.

The students in Arizona and other fair weather places may get none at all before the checkride. I am not going to say it should be mandatory, but I do now believe that it’s invaluable.
 
AggieMike88 said:
What was the typical distance or flight time for these flights?

I am thinking I might steal this idea once I have my double-I
Click to expand...
Good idea. Even in visual conditions, dealing with ATC gives mor real world experience than not. I've done IPCs on IFR flight plans where ATC has given the pilot curve balls better than ones I make up.
 
I'm about 40% through my IR training living in Florida under a Class B. I have yet to log any actual, but I have flown about 30 seconds at a time through many clouds and the first few times my instructor had me take off the foggles. But so short lived, I've not logged any of it. Call it a few minutes total, max. Unfortunately, we have so far only had these little build ups or really bad weather which neither are particularly conducive to getting any "actual" experience.

Since we do fly out of a D under a B, we pretty much file and do a short cross country on every flight as well. Granted, we have a lot of options. I'm to the point where I can get way ahead of the plane pretty quickly on these cross countries if we don't add stops in between, but that's probably why we're starting partial panel now.

My next flight may be my IR cross country!
 
AU_James said:
but I have flown about 30 seconds at a time through many clouds and the first few times my instructor had me take off the foggles. But so short lived, I've not logged any of it.
Click to expand...

Then there are the guys that log 0.1 for every time they pop a cloud. :eek:
 
I had about 3 hours of actual, all flying to GATTS. Had the instructor fly to my airport and we took 3 days to get from ATL to KS. We got hit with massive headwinds which had us stop for fuel halfway. Clouds we were flying through turned into icing conditions, so stay in the middle of nowhere until it cleared. Rest of the time it was clear and a million. Would have like more actual.
 
I live in and trained in Arizona. 0 actual before IFR checkride, like most people here.
 
Think I had 4. Over 10 years later and I've only added 1.0 :lol:
 
I had about 4 hours actual IFR before the check ride, in my log book. Not in my log, some real stuff from faulty weather briefing, flew into clouds at night, with no ill effect. My PPL instructor was efficient at getting me into much hood work in demanding conditions, so simply flying into a cloud in smooth air was not challenging. I had 2 PAR approaches to 20 feet before my PPl ride. I also had annual check rides with instrument approaches under the hood before I started my Instrument training. I also did simulator training a number of times early in my PPL flying. When I started my IR training, my first instructor was less skilled than I, and we had continuous issues, and then he was fired after the manager did a check ride with him.

I did hood work with my pilot friends as safety pilots as a regular thing to develop better skills even before starting the training.

Over 800 cross country hours logged, and 116 of them actual instrument.
 
good question...
looks like I had 5.6...and added 0.1 in the check ride.

Wasn't a lot but I was glad to have it.... I lived close to the airport, and I was single at the time with all the time in the world..... Except for work I had nothing else to do, and my instructor was also my friend and he'd call often when he had a cancellation and conditions were good. Let me fly a lot of times when I otherwise would not have....Good for both of us....

Sadly, all these years later I only have 11.0 total. Kills me that I let life get in the way....
 
i was reflecting on that time... a lot of my 5.6 was good down low stuff....real misses, approaches to mins.....not all just in cruise stuff....but not anything like the weather I see down here in FL

I remember later in life at some point when I was trying to knock rust off after a long spell on the ground looking for an instructor that had real experience. I had moved around a lot and had flown over the years with a lot of instructors who were very timid about flying in weather. It makes sense I think that often young CFII's don't have a huge amount of time in actual... I have long felt that I needed a lot more real world weather flying and finding the instructor to help me through that was hard to do. I guess I felt like I needed more of what I did with my original CFII, except to add more experience such as flying around the type of weather we have here, & making go/no-go decisions that aren't quite so conservative...real world stuff.

Anyway, I'm a long way out from thinking about instrument stuff now....I'm back in the elementary VFR realm....
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top