IFR bust and frustration - advice needed

Doomer

Doomer

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Doomer
I've been studying my butt off but unfortunately blew the oral on some questions I knew like the back of my hand but just blanked on. It was like my mind shut off. Very disappointed in myself and my ego is bruised.

I have a reschedule in a week so I went up with my CFI today to shoot some approaches (last I flew IFR was a month ago) and I flew like absolute crap; behind the aircraft, forgetting items on my checklist, messing up comms, losing general situational awareness overall, wasting time trying to trim the AC, doing essentially S-Turns around the LOC needle, forgetting how to do things in the GPS, etc.

My confidence is pretty much shot at this point, but I've been hitting the books like a mad man (basically reading the Pilots Cafe until my eyes bleed). I'm wondering if professional pilots, CFIIs or pilots who fly a lot of SPIFR can give me some pointers on some things I'm tripping up on:
  1. Staying ahead of the aircraft, anticipating what's next
  2. Getting out of my own head, overthinking everything, not being able to "relax" and focus on flying the plane
  3. Rushing everything - I feel like I need to rush the brief, rush loading the GPS, rush my checklists, etc.
  4. Forgetting items/stages in the flight (forgot to pickup weather for my first approach, for example)
  5. This is embarrassing to admit but I'm still having procedural issues with the GPS - when I was at altitude briefing my 2nd approach, I wanted to have everything loaded in my GPS, my OBS dialed in, etc. before I contacted ATC....that's great, but when I went to load the ILS approach into the GPS it wanted an IAF and since I hadn't yet contacted Approach I had no idea what to do....I ended up just activating VTF which in hindsight was probably a bad idea if they wanted me D-> to an IAF, but I ended up being vectored anyway.
It's stupid stuff like that. I just can't seem to find my "groove" or flow. When I'm on the ground chair flying, everything makes sense to me (when I'm supposed to do what, how to do it, etc.) - it's only when I'm actually spending money in the cockpit that I forget what to do.


I'm really my own worst enemy, and I'm not sure what to do or how to fix this.
 
First off, seems like this an issue thats better off discussed with your flight instructor than on POA. In my opinion some of the issues you mentioned should've been ironed out before the checkride, for example: not staying ahead of the aircraft, overthinking procedures, rushing, forgetting items. Regardless of what your instructor trained you to do, if you're making all four of those mistakes you should not have gotten past the stage check right before your checkride assuming you had it and your instructor should not have recommended you. I'm curious how you got that far or if theres more to the story we're missing? I know you didn't fail on the flight portion but still. Did the flight school rush you to take the checkride? Did you already discuss this and they ignored you? Have you said anything? Also, 61 or 141?
All that aside, sounds like you need more time in the plane and then you'll be fine, these problems that you mentioned are common for some students to have about halfway thru their instrument training, but at least 4 out of the 5 things you mentioned above are under control before a checkride. I'll give you some quick pointers now that maybe help but ultimately this is something that should be sorted out where you're flying.
1. Your instructor should constantly ask you what are the next three items you need to do or what's the next thing that needs to happen, know what approaches and route your going to fly before your next lesson, then take out some paper before the flight and write down each individual step. "weather received, altimeter + Inst. checked, approach briefing when appropriate"
2. You may overthinking whats right because you're not familiar enough with what is right < fortune cookie wisdom
3.
4. Know the procedures better, or make a checklist. ABC, Altimeter, Briefing, Checklist
5. Practice, watch some youtube videos or go in the sim, or you may not fully understand how it works and you need someone to personally explain it
To sum up, talk to your flight instructor, if he can't help you find a new one.
 
The training environment, specifically, the typical 1.5 hour lesson where one tries to get 4 or 5 approaches logged, is tough, and, somewhat, not realistic. Yes, you have to know how to do the fast dance for the checkride, but real IFR trips are much slower. Ask your CFII if you can do some cross-country to other airports, where, while still enroute, say, maybe 10 minutes from any IAF, you get current weather, select, brief, and load the approach of choice, etc.
 
The part that caught my attention was that you last flew IFR a month ago. Instrument flying, like most things in aviation, is a perishable skill. Especially at your stage of the game. Fly more.

As for loading the approach transition, it’s a situational awareness issue…where am I, and what’s the easiest way to get onto the approach from here?
 
You've outlined your issues. The only way to fix this is to work through it. One thing my CFI drilled into me early and often was to never let anyone rush me while IFR. This included CFIIs, controllers, dpes, passengers. If you feel rushed slow down. Ask controllers for delay vectors, especially during training as you set things up. Configuring avionics needs to be second nature and is a perishable skill.

Things like picking an IAF are up to you. Generally I pick the one that makes the most sense based on my flight path. It's ok to call ATC, tell them you want an approach, then say you need to load it up and need delay vectors.

You don't say how long you've been training, but if you are trying to just hit minimum numbers then you are doing yourself a disservice. I trained until I felt I was ready. It was pretty evident to me once I was there. But I'm older and I wanted to feel comfortable fly instruments without an instructor there so I wasn't counting hours and didn't care how long it took.

Just keep at it, you should be training twice a week at this point.
 
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Sounds like you just need more practice. Not flying ifr for a month was a mistake as it's a highly perishable skill, especially when you're just starting out. It'll be hard to be ready in a week, you might consider seeing if you can push it back.

It is hard to, if not impossible to stay ahead of the plane doing back to back approaches. That's the point... if you can do it back to back with an instructor, real world ifr is a cake walk.

Don't get in a rush; you have to do things efficiently and deliberately. Again this takes practice. Did you develop a checklist. Mine was:
A-tis
I-nstruments checked/ adjusted
R-adios/ radials tuned

C-DI source
A-pproach briefing
L-anding check list
M-onitoring (gps mode/marker beacon)

I can walk through it mentally as I'm getting closer. My instructor used a different nuemonic, but I don't remember his.

Couple things on the navigator issue
I don't load an approach until it's assigned. I fly with a gtn and it's been a while since I've flown a gnc, but it only takes a couple button pushes to load & activate. When practicing you do generally know ahead of time. If you have something loaded, you can always ask for that fix. If they give you something you aren't expecting, ask for a vector. If you get behind, ask for a delay vector. ATC is there to help you.

I assume you're flying with an efb and have the approach loaded? Again you should have an idea of where you are and where you're going so when they give you a fix you know where it is.

Staying ahead... don't ever just sit. Always ask yourself "what's the next thing I'll need to do? " Trim is your friend. You should be able to let go of the yoke and the plane keep flying straight & level. You should also know what power settings you need to hold altitude at the common speeds and configurations you fly. If you can devote less "clock cycles" to physically flying, that frees you up to think about your next move.
 
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I agree with two already mentioned pieces of advice - discuss with your instructor and slow down.
Doomer said:
Staying ahead of the aircraft, anticipating what's next
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When your lead off is asking how to do this when you have already been checkride ready, it sounds like your confidence is shot to the extent that you are now spending time overthinking and catastrophizing. All that is going to do is prevent you from succeeding. I think it happens to all of us at some point and methods of overcoming it very individual.
 
Rgbeard said:
I believe the two most helpful words are: Slow down.
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Yup! Doing anything in the IFR environment too quickly increases chances for errors.

The other bit of advice I would give is to reduce the big list of “What’s next?” thinking to “What are the next two things?”

We know what the entire list of items via flow and checklist. But if we focus on the next two things, our chance of making a mistake is reduced.
 
I've found that doing anything and everything you can *right now* to make your life easier in the future is key. I don't rush on the ground and get all of my comms set-up. I brief my first approach on the ground before even taking off, and set up the OBS and so forth so I have that much less to do in the air. Anytime I have down time in the air I'm thinking ahead to "how can I make my life easier in the next few minutes". Also - no need to fly fast, slow the plane down if you need to, use the tools you have to make IFR flying as easy as possible.
 
PaulS and others are spot on. Three weeks gap between flying and checkride? Your CFI should not have signed you off. You need 2X a week minimum. A couple of classroom ground school oral exam prep. And a day or so before go through a complete check ride and Oral exam simulation.
 
If there is one thing I learned in over 35 years of airline flying, slow is smooth and smooth is fast! Take your time and you won’t have to repeat anything.
 
I have mentioned this before on here, but fly as much as you can between lessons by yourself and fly approaches, departures, procedure turns, slow flight, stalls etc in VMC. Doing all the IFR procedures in clear VMC by yourself will help establish patterns and muscle memory so that your lessons and time under the hood go so much better.

And then after you get your rating I recommend almost always filing an IFR flight plan and flying approaches even in severe clear VMC. Believe me it helps
 
Jim Carpenter said:
The training environment, specifically, the typical 1.5 hour lesson where one tries to get 4 or 5 approaches logged, is tough, and, somewhat, not realistic. Yes, you have to know how to do the fast dance for the checkride, but real IFR trips are much slower. Ask your CFII if you can do some cross-country to other airports, where, while still enroute, say, maybe 10 minutes from any IAF, you get current weather, select, brief, and load the approach of choice, etc.
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^^^
THIS

I wish I had asked my instructor to do this during my IFR training. I only realized it after the fact. My training was in an area with a dozen airports and a bunch of approaches within a few minutes of each other. I never had any time to slow down during my training and just get comfortable for a few minutes.

To this day I have no idea why the examiner passed me on my checkride - I literally could not hold a heading and screwed up a bunch of other stuff. He actually took the controls from me and attempted to show me how to hold a heading in straight and level flight!

On my very first solo flight after getting my ticket I almost killed myself. I never flew IFR again (partly because of this and partly because it was too expensive for me to maintain).

I'm not blaming my instructor for my failure. I"m sure he was just trying to avoid having me spend any extra money (I was doing this on a financial shoestring).

My mistake was not speaking up and simply asking to do a couple of longer, simpler flights, where I could breath, slow down, and just get comfortable flying the plane for a few minutes.

I get the fact that you need to be able to deal with non-stop changes on an actual IFR flight. But this needs to start with a solid foundation.

Suggest you ask your instructor to take a few simple, no changes, as-filed, practice IFR flights. I wish I had thought of this during my training.
 
Clip4 said:
Let me guess, you also flew on a turbulent day.
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Good point. This had a lot to do with my nightmarish IFR checkride. But you can't use it as an excuse, and it's not something you can avoid. It just sucks....
 
Shuckers86 said:
If there is one thing I learned in over 35 years of airline flying, slow is smooth and smooth is fast! Take your time and you won’t have to repeat anything.
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That reminds me of an experience I had in a high school calculus class. I kept bombing on the periodic tests that the teacher gave, because it always seemed like there was too much to do within the time available. The teacher knew that I knew the material, because of the presentations he had us do in front of the class on a regular basis. So he told me something that immediately solved my problem: "When you don't have enough time, you have to TAKE your time, because you don't have time to go back and correct your mistakes." That advice has served me well ever since.

I also find it useful to slow the airplane down whenever I feel I might be at risk of getting behind.
 
Do you have a home simulator like X-plane? While simulators aren't great for learning to control the airplane during your PPL, they are a great tool for getting your "flow" down for instrument training. Especially if you use live ATC services like PilotEdge. During those off weeks when you aren't actually flying, fire up X-plane and fly the approaches you expect on your checkride.
 
Thank you so much for the messages everyone, I've read every reply and will be taking nuggets of wisdom from each one.

I've brought these issues up with my CFII. He's told me on multiple occasions (when I'm on my A game) that I am 100% ready for the checkride and a good IFR pilot, I just need to slow down and not get inside my head so much...trying to figure out how to remember that while in the cockpit is another matter.

I'm thinking about putting some sticky notes on the panel during my checkride: "Slow Down!" - "Checklists" - "Where are you going, how do you get there?" - "What are the next two things?" - hopefully DPE won't see these as red flags but if they help me fly better, then it is what it is.

P.S. Yes it was a very turbulent and hot day which did not help things. Couple that with not flying for a few weeks and well, recipe for disaster. I'm on the books with my CFII for 2 flights just days before my checkride.

Time to hit X-Plane and do some chair flying!
 
Hope you plan to do more than the 2 right before the checkride. I'd suggest a minimum of 2/week between now and the checkride. Ask your CFII to push you hard, simulate a checkride. Same with oral.
If you get behind, come up with a way to deal with it. There's usually a lot more time than you think.
 
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I haven't finished yet, but requesting delay vectors or a hold might stop the log jam ...
 
Hang 4 said:
Hope you plan to do more than the 2 right before the checkride. I'd suggest a minimum of 2/week between now and the checkride. Ask your CFII to push you hard, simulate a checkride. Same with oral.
If you get behind, come up with a way to deal with it. There's usually a lot more time than you think.
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Yup I have a 2-hour mock oral scheduled with him, and then two 3-hour flights with back-to-back approaches, holds, misses and whatever else he throws at me. I told him I want him task saturating me as much as possible and to not give me any hints when things get rough. Delay vectors are a great idea as are the holds, thank you for that tip - I always forget that is an option.
 
You hadn't flown IFR for a month, but what about VFR? The instrument rating test requires you to take a difficult exam while you are flying the plane. If flying the plane is second nature, you only have to pass the instrument test. If you are at all rusty at flying, you will quickly become task-saturated and fail when you add the instrument check ride firehose.

A lot of people spend all their flying time working toward the instrument rating flying approaches over and over again, with the occasional unusual attitude recovery. While it would be extreme, I think the best cure for a failed instrument check ride is to go get a tailwheel endorsement and then work back up to the instrument skillset required to pass the exam.

Here are the skill layers that you need to master to get through this, with the foundation bottom layer first:
  1. Stick and rudder skills: How well do you fly the plane VFR in smooth air when there is no outside pressure on your performance?
  2. Challenging conditions: How much worse do you fly the plane when the air is rough, the winds are blowing you all over, and there are a bunch of traffic calls to listen to and look for?
  3. Instrument skills: How much of your brainpower does it take to scan, cross-check, and interpret the instruments?
  4. Procedures: How quickly and accurately can you brief, comprehend, program the panel for, and fly a procedure when it is assigned?
Checklists are both a cure and a symptom of problems throughout these layers. Miss something? Use the checklist! Rushing through checklists? Improve each layer from bottom up until you get bored between checklists.
 
Great advice above.

Go fly visual under IFR, in VMC.

Fly a couple “real” XCs 1 hour or so under the hood or in actual.

Fly often, VMC or IFR.
 
Think of learning IFR as you would playing golf or guitar. You can get to the point of knowing how, and even being somewhat good. To be check ride ready you also need to be “familiar” with it - you’ve rehearsed and repeated enough times that you can do well on the test.

My additional advice - repeat the steps over and over. Repeat the oral prep questions - over index your FAR AIM with post it notes.

This “familiar” feeling will also calm things down in the checkride.
 
I had a somewhat rough IFR checkride experience where I really thought I failed due to similar issues you are having. Ground portion went well for me. You don’t have to know everything (although memory recall helps show a better understanding) but you do have to have a good working knowledge of where to find answers. If something comes up that you don’t know, don’t panic. It’s perfectly fine to tell the DPE you will look up the answer in your materials.

As far as the flying portion, I had a near meltdown myself where I was overthinking and had a lot of anxiety about everything. I basically put WAY too much pressure on myself to make sure I pass. It affected my flying skills to the point where the examiner had to repeatedly tell me to slow down because the nerves really got the best of me. The reason he passed me was because one of the approaches I had to fly required a holding pattern to be flown at the FAF. While ATC cleared me for the approach, I simply did not feel I was set up to fly the approach so I told ATC I needed to remain in the hold while I prepared to fly the approach. The decision to delay doing something I was not comfortable with saved my checkride. Flying the plane first is the most important thing. Remember to aviate, navigate then communicate. If something doesn’t feel right, don’t do it until you’re ready. Ask for a delay or vector. Showing you’re capable of recognizing and correcting an issue can be something that can save your checkride and your life should you be in actual IMC one day.
 
One thing that really helped me in my primary training eons ago and each airline since is to chair fly. Chair fly the approach, holds etc until you can do it in your sleep.
 
One thing I would add, is make sure you are able to free yourself of distractions and fatigue.

My own story was from preparing for my multi-engine checkride. Multi training had been going well, and I had the checkride scheduled. I had a lesson scheduled with my instructor in the afternoon, but that morning I was called into work at 4:00 AM due to a snow storm, and spent 12 hours in a snow plow. Despite that, and not wanting to miss my lesson, I decided to push through and fly anyway. Wouldn't you know this was the lesson my instructor planned to be all of the under the hood work for the multi ride. Now I had my instrument rating for a few years, and a fair amount of experience. Do this in a multi engine airplane should be a no-brainer.

Instead I learned the meaning of being behind the airplane. We setup for the ILS, an approach I've done a hundred times. I was so focused on trying to get established inbound, I completely missed passing through the glideslope. The airplane was still clean, at cruise power, at the initial altitude as my instructor queried, "You think its time to slow down and go down?" I responded working on it...as the airport literally passed underneath us. Yeah, we scratched the rest of that mission.

In my case, it wasn't a lack of skill or ability, it was a combination of fatigue and stress that put me behind the airplane, about 10 miles behind the airplane.
 
I agree about the 1.5 hour training flight is an unrealistic IFR flight regime. Real IFR, even in IMC is so much simpler. But you have demonstrate crazy-time for the checkride or during an IPC.

At least for me, the biggest challenge is not flying the plane, it's managing the nav box. (In the olde days with analog gauges it was actually simpler). When the box is not cooperating (aka "I can't remember the proper knobology sequence" or "I hit the wrong button and now I don't know what the box is doing") or the gyros/CDIs are not configured properly, things can go haywire in a hurry. Setting up the box should be its own integrated routine. (I made a cheat sheet to help ingrain the proper knobology sequences. I don't refer to it much any more as long as I fly regularly.) Anything you can set up in advance without committing to anything that may change will keep you ahead of things.

Just to change things up, I've set up an ILS "manually" on my GNS-430W during an IPC and flown it like the old days. Didn't have to load or activate approaches, twist a bunch of knobs, etc. Just tune, verify and follow the ILS needles. The moving map is just a superfluous bonus. My instructor was a bit flummoxed at what I was doing, but in a traffic-laden practice environment at a busy airport with rapid-fire vectors and corner-cutting it was actually easy to do it that way. That meant committing to the potential missed approach "manually", too, but why not?
 
I get uncomfortable if I don't fly at least every two weeks, preferably every week if possible. Uncomfortable as-in, I just feel I could be more proficient flying more often. Go out and fly a VFR trip somewhere... just go fly. Remind yourself that you in fact can fly well, have fun, and make it from point A to B. As others have mentioned, definitely fly IFR/Approaches/Holds/etc. as much as possible in the days leading to your next checkride. I just got my instrument rating at the end of March. I did the 10-day PIC version. It was an action packed week and a half flying every day, real IMC, plenty under the hood, etc. When I got to the checkride, I felt pretty good about the flying part, heck I was more dreading the oral part. I'm sure this was because I was flying so much leading up to the checkride (25-30hrs in 10 days) that the flying part wasn't too bad - so DEFINITELY fly!! But take some time (a flight) for yourself and go enjoy it too. Take a VFR XC somewhere for lunch or something.

When I was on my checkride, I was getting vectored and as I was about to join the final approach course (autopilot on), I hit some button somewhere and I'll be damned if the plane didn't start heading the opposite direction I desired. I immediately cancelled the autopilot and hand flew it the rest of the way in. The point being - staying ahead of the plane includes being prepared to take over from the autopilot (if you are flying with one) at a moments notice, knowing where you're at, knowing what the plane should be doing next, and proceeding without interruption. You can only do this by thinking and being a couple steps ahead of the plane - always. The DPE said in my debrief "I don't know what button you pressed up there but was glad you didn't make a tough situation worse by trying to fix anything and instead just focused on flying the plane".

Since March, I pretty much fly everywhere IFR. As mentioned above - it is MUCH slower in real world conditions (as long as you stay ahead of the plane). On my GTN, I typically load (not activate) an approach early. Generally the one I load is the one I will get (as I'm already anticipating a particular runway based on winds/traffic/ATIS). Many times you're given a visual approach when in VMC. Even so, I still load an approach of my liking and activate/fly it as if I'm being vectored anyway. That way I'm always simulating the systems management part of IFR flying with approaches/GPS/autopilot/etc. Plus it gives you an added check that you're flying/landing the correct runway.
 
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