IFR Proficiency - In a plane that does it for you

I shoot 6 approches a month. 3 with AP and 3 hand fly.
 
Dumb question since I haven't done any IFR training yet - but what is the backup procedure if there is an electrical failure that takes out your radios, including glide slope, GPS, and so on? How do you hand fly down through clouds to a safe landing?
 
I carry an iPad with stratus 2 in my flight bag to back up the g1000 - and a flashlight. The Columbia 400 has two alternators and a dual bus system - and a cross tie switch to tie the busses together. There is a backup altimeter, attitude indicator and airspeed indicator located off to the left. I'm confident I could handle a substantial, compound electrical failure.

Suspenders and belt, I know...but,

Had a generator failure and simultaneous cross bus relay failure in an h-46 once, had to take controls and 180 us away from the loud bank we were about to enter - this compound failure wasn't even covered in NATOPS. In IMC, I don't think we would have made it.
 
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hindsight2020 said:
Tell that to the two dreamers in front of Colgan 3407...

Besides, arguing one is good at FMS wizardry is like winning at the special olympics.
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I would agree that hand flying approaches both without the bells and whistles and with the "autowhatever" engaged are the best ways to practice. You need both skill sets.

Not sure what the Colgan situation has to do with the OP's discussion of IFR proficiency in general, but I do have to take issue with the Special Olympics comment. I've worked with many special needs people, children and adults, for whom achieving a Special Olympics goal is akin to earning, and just as difficult as, you or I earning our pilots licenses. FWIW, your comment is unfair and frankly, naïve.
 
Ron Levy said:
I don't know how often the AHRS in the DA-40 fails, but unlike the Cirrus G1000 package, there's only one AHRS in the Diamond G1000. My experience killing that in flight with DA-40 pilots suggests many of them are totally flummoxed by the problems presented if that happens until we've spent a couple of hours talking and flying with that situation. Many folks shy away from really pulling c/b's, and for them we have a number of ATD's which very well simulate this problem (including the FlyThisSim TouchTrainer), but you absolutely cannot create a valid simulation of this one in flight just by covering things, and going to the reversionary mode doesn't even come close to training people to deal with it. No doubt there are other similar issues with other glass panel systems, and it's up to the folks flying/instructing in them to take the initiative to train on it periodically.
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AHRS failure DA40 style, means going right to the analog three high in the center panel....
 
In my opinion adding the automation also adds a new layer of currency requirements. I believe it is important to maintain the same hand flying currency you had in your previous equipment along with adding the requirement to be intimately familiar with the normal and failure modes of the new automation.

Automation does make IFR much less stressful if everything works and you know how to use it. When something pops up that isn't working due to failure or programming oversight the pilot should be very comfortable punching out the autopilot and flying the airplane.

My 10 cents
 
Jim Logajan said:
Dumb question since I haven't done any IFR training yet - but what is the backup procedure if there is an electrical failure that takes out your radios, including glide slope, GPS, and so on? How do you hand fly down through clouds to a safe landing?
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If you're talking alternator failure you've still got battery power to get you down. If somehow your entire electrical system is fried then hopefully your aircraft has backup vacuum driven instruments to either do a PAR or fly somewhere to do a visual approach. Then of course a lot of pilots have hand held GPSs that would be a last resort to get you down.
 
Jim Logajan said:
Dumb question since I haven't done any IFR training yet - but what is the backup procedure if there is an electrical failure that takes out your radios, including glide slope, GPS, and so on? How do you hand fly down through clouds to a safe landing?
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As a practical matter, it's usually not a question of "how will I do an instrument approach to get it down" but rather "how do I get to some VFR conditions". Knowing the heading that takes one to improving conditions and away from low IFR is very useful in such conditions.
 
Jim Logajan said:
Dumb question since I haven't done any IFR training yet - but what is the backup procedure if there is an electrical failure that takes out your radios, including glide slope, GPS, and so on? How do you hand fly down through clouds to a safe landing?
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I've got my Garmin Aera 510 (which includes that 5-instrument panel display) plus an iPad with ForeFlight. Combine that with my five remaining flight instruments (vacuum AI, vacuum HI, A/S, Alt, VSI) plus hand-held comm radio (plugged into the external antenna jack on the panel), and I can get down just fine. But back 40 years ago, it would have been those five flight instruments plus the hand-held comm looking for a PAR at a military base to get in. Since PAR's are now pretty much extinct, it's nice to have all that hand-held technology in the cockpit these days.
 
bbchien said:
AHRS failure DA40 style, means going right to the analog three high in the center panel....
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While that does for flight instrumentation, there is no backup CDI, so you need to know how to use the degraded-state CDI display on the PFD to fly an approach -- and that is significantly harder than using an old-fashioned mechanical CDI. You also have to spread your basic scan over a very large area. My experience is that pilots who haven't practiced it recently can't do it well enough to fly a safe approach.
 
Velocity173 said:
If you're talking alternator failure you've still got battery power to get you down. If somehow your entire electrical system is fried then...
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That's happened to me twice -- electrical smoke in the cockpit, master-OFF, revert to hand-held and get it on the ground ASAP. Fortunately, both happened on nice VFR days with a good airport nearby, but...
 
Velocity173 said:
If somehow your entire electrical system is fried then hopefully your aircraft has backup vacuum driven instruments to either do a PAR...
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Isn't it kind of hard to do a PAR without radios?
 
If you have a complete electrical failure and no portable nav, gps, or comm, your only real option is to head for better weather, and you better know where to find it and have enough fuel to get there.

Many twins and some singles have sufficient electrical isolation/redundancy that it's highly unlikely you'll lose ALL the avionics due to single or multiple failures.

But, let's consider a couple scenarios that require you to get down as soon as possible:
  • complete electrical failure, no portables, 30 min fuel remaining.
  • electrical fire, no portables.

In both cases, my action (and advice) would be to head for what you think might be reasonable terrain (ideal would be farmland with an airport nearby) and descend at minimum controllable airspeed plus some small safety margin against a stall. you hope you run out of clouds before you run into the planet, but if you have to hit the planet, you're doing it at a minimal energy state.
 
bbchien said:
AHRS failure DA40 style, means going right to the analog three high in the center panel....
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Ron Levy said:
While that does for flight instrumentation, there is no backup CDI, so you need to know how to use the degraded-state CDI display on the PFD to fly an approach -- and that is significantly harder than using an old-fashioned mechanical CDI. You also have to spread your basic scan over a very large area. My experience is that pilots who haven't practiced it recently can't do it well enough to fly a safe approach.
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don't forget that you can still load up a RNAV approach and use the MFD to position yourself on it. It helps to go to AUX, 3rd page, MFD DATA BAR FIELDS and change something less useful to XTK (crosstrack) - that'll show you how far off you are and whether it's left or right of the desired.
 
moonshine said:
don't forget that you can still load up a RNAV approach and use the MFD to position yourself on it. It helps to go to AUX, 3rd page, MFD DATA BAR FIELDS and change something less useful to XTK (crosstrack) - that'll show you how far off you are and whether it's left or right of the desired.
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You can do that, but it's hard to see precise lateral deviation without zooming way in. Also, folks often have trouble keeping their scan going over that wide an area. I think you might do better to hit the big red button so you get the MFD info on the PFD in front of you, which reduces the amount of panel space you have to scan -- something I'd like to try with a few trainees to see if I helps.
 
The answer depends on what's in the panel.

I studied for and earned my IR in an airplane without a GPS or AP. All approaches were hand-flown.

With the first airplane I flew which had an autopilot, I still found hand-flown approaches more challenging.

In the Cirrus with Perspective, hand-flying approaches are embarrassingly easy (as long as the PFD doesn't die!), and setting up coupled approaches are only a bit more challenging--mostly because one must remember the buttonology.

So for me in the Cirrus, more than 50% of the approach practice I do is coupled, since hand-flying to ATP standards is so easy that you'd have to be blind drunk not to reach those standards.
 
IPC's every six months. I do every other one in a simulator and my CFI doesn't let me use autopilot on my IPC'S!

I use the AP when I'm actually doing an instrument approach, but with an IPC every six months practicing hands on approaches, holdings, and partial panels, I feel prepared if it's not available.
 
jhflyboy said:
IPC's every six months. I do every other one in a simulator and my CFI doesn't let me use autopilot on my IPC'S!

I use the AP when I'm actually doing an instrument approach, but with an IPC every six months practicing hands on approaches, holdings, and partial panels, I feel prepared if it's not available.
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That doesn't seem wise, the IPC should cover both the ability to do it by hand and to make all the G-whizz work properly, especially the ability to deal with amended clearances.
 
azure said:
Good thread. I have to confess, I haven't flown a coupled approach since getting my ticket. I use the AP in cruise all the time, but typically disengage it before I'm cleared for the approach.
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same here. I usually get an approach laid out in the GPS and cruise along with AP until I get a vector. I usually disengage the AP at that point unless I have a long way to go.
 
Ron Levy said:
That's happened to me twice -- electrical smoke in the cockpit, master-OFF, revert to hand-held and get it on the ground ASAP. Fortunately, both happened on nice VFR days with a good airport nearby, but...
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I guess if you fly long enough stuff is going to happen, but geesh, I'm not looking forward to it happening to me. :hairraise:
 
rbridges said:
I guess if you fly long enough stuff is going to happen, but geesh, I'm not looking forward to it happening to me. :hairraise:
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When I got my first airplane, I was totally ignorant. I assumed a good annual by my mechanics meant everything was fine. Come to find out 2-3 former owners had made a rat's nest out of the wiring behind the panel -- overloaded breakers, stuff connected without any rhyme or reason -- and stuff like that may not be found in an annual.

Fast forward to flying with the family one night, luckily in VFR conditions, but still with us on an IFR flight plan. We're crossing through the Memphis Class B at a busy time. I'm trying to engage the old Century I to hold a heading. It was trying to turn about 5 degrees off heading. I set and re-set 2-3 times, then on the next attempt, I just hold the yoke while reaching up to turn off the AP. Before I turn off the AP, the overload by the servo pops a breaker -- and stupidly, my radios and intercom were on the same circuit as the AP.

I will never forget looking up in sight of Memphis International, seeing planes everywhere, yet I can't talk to anyone. I try to reset the breaker -- but it won't reset (later found the breaker was bad). I start digging for my handheld and squawking 7600. After a good bit of trial-and-error of placing the handheld in a position where they could hear me and I could hear them, we finally could go back to our original squawk and continue.

We landed at home and I had the plane in the avionics shop not long afterwards -- and had them en-mass rewire most everything behind the panel. There was a mountain of superfluous wiring left on the floor when they were done... Never had another problem after that...

All that is to say I'm a firm believer Murphy's Law applies doubly in airplanes -- and I fly with the thought there should always be at least 1 out all the time... It's also why I can't get to 1000 AGL on takeoff fast enough as there isn't usually a good alternative before that point.
 
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