Instrument Training Challenges

AggieMike88

AggieMike88

Touchdown! Greaser!
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The original "I don't know it all" of aviation.
I'd like to hear from our cadre of CFI-I's and the IFR pilots and IFR students about what were some difficult challenges encountered by your students (or experience) and what solution did you develop/implement to overcome the challenge.

For the CFI-I's, I'd like to hear about challenges that came up more frequently. And what is your technique to resolve this.

For the IFR students or IFR pilots, what did you encounter in training that caused a "I'm not quite getting this" and then what was your "Aha! :idea:" moment?

As I progress with training, what wisdom would you share? What are the landmines and bear traps of the process?

I am are setting up a "fly very frequently" schedule. Another pilot buddy is doing this with me so we'll have a "tag team" and study accountability going on. Written Exam study is underway with the King Schools Online service, the various FAA AC's, and books from Garner, Dogan, and Machado. Sim time will be used frequently as appropriate (we have access to a Redbird FMX).
 
Before you even start the training make sure you're super comfortable in the airplane. I couldn't have gone into instrument training flying sloppy VFR. You need to know how to make your airplane climb at certain speeds, descend at speeds, descend in certain configurations etc.

I struggled with holds for a little bit, but after that for me it was pretty smooth sailing. I did let the airplane get ahead of me occasionally, and that is something that I continue to need to stay on top of. Going fast is awesome, unti you were supposed to be down to 90kts 10 miles ago and now you're trying to re-invent the wheel to get errr slowed down. I'd say I struggled a lot more on the ground than in the air. Find someone who is CURRENT (like, as of the newest PTS current) on all the ground info you'll need for the ride and LISTEN TO THEM. The online stuff gets the majority of points covered, but there will be much more than that on the oral. Better like the way your instruments look, because you won't be seeing outside for awhile. I had a handful of lessons where I took off with the foggles on and landed with the foggles on. Most of the time they came on at 200agl and came off either at the MDA/DH or in the early stages on final. Keep your VFR skills sharp too if you can. I struggled with that shortly after my rating I realized my pattern work had gotten really sloppy.
 
Don't swallow the training out of a firehose. Be sure you have an instructor who can (and does) start with the fundamentals of instrument attitude flying, then progress to more and more complex operations requiring you to put the basic pieces together. Took a while to get the hang of flying holds with a freeking humongous wind component, especially the evil CFII setting the hold up on two crossing radials as the waypoint and timing the inbound/outbound legs and wind corrections for headings: with the GPS map covered up using the needles only...then wham, it fell into place (sorta). Funny, since the checkride, I have never been in a hold on an IFR flight plan, just when I do some practice work under the hood with a safety pilot.
 
DutchessFlier said:
...Funny, since the checkride, I have never been in a hold on an IFR flight plan, just when I do some practice work under the hood with a safety pilot.
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You've probably never been asked to slow down to some sub-100 knot speed either.

The training often doesn't match real world flying. Not sure if that's bad or just the way it needs to be.
 
Bill Watson said:
You've probably never been asked to slow down to some sub-100 knot speed either.

The training often doesn't match real world flying. Not sure if that's bad or just the way it needs to be.
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Sheesh, it's a 172 Bill, I spend most of my time below 100kts:rofl: (well, it seems that way!)

I've been asked to keep best speed a few times, and that's interesting when you're looking back at an Embraer on final behind you!

Training was way more intense than the real world...
 
When I was an IR student, the only thing that came particularly hard to me was holding. A 2.5 flight of nothing but various holding patterns fixed my problem fairly fast. Not an II yet, but I'm sure I'll notice some common struggles once I am.
 
My biggest problem was forgetting to start my timer on the approach. The only cure was practice and doing the 5 T's repetitively, especially while chair flying - lots of chair flying. Blowing it while practicing in actual IMC also helped...

The other problem I had a few times was forgetting to press the VLOC button on the 430. Again, the 5 T's helped.
 
Important to stay ahead of things. Gotta be thinking about what's next. I liked the idea of getting the plane slowed down and stabilized before the FAF. Have you done a performance chart for the airplane with the settings you need for various configurations?
 
In IR training I think that the NDB approaches were the toughest. Holds were second toughest. Both of them just took a lot of practice to master.

After getting the rating, the first real instrument flight into actual was what I will never forget. When there was no one sitting next to me and I knew that if I screwed-up and it was all mine good or bad was a pivotal hour in my flying life.
 
I forgot to start time when hitting final a few times. Also, it makes things a lot easier when you know power settings for various phases of the approach.
 
As I make the final push to my check ride these are the things that have helped the most:

- Always ask yourself what should I do next and when should I do it?
- The iPhone app Nav Trainer was immensely helpful in getting a handle on NDB approaches.
- using the garmin 430 simulator
- using FSX, Nav Trainer, or the garmin sim to fly the next day's lesson the night before (on those days when I could get my instructor to tell me what we would do next time)
- liveatc.com

Things I'm still struggling with:
- that burst of activity right around the FAF when the controller rattles off a long list of instructions ending with "cleared for the approach."
- remembering to start a timer on timed approaches
- flying and writing. I am left handed so to write I have to let go of the wheel. The planes are so far out of rig it doesn't take long to be 30 deg off course.
 
The biggest obstacles to completion of the 10-day program I teach for PIC are lack of knowledge (especially weather, both basic weather theory and reading/interpreting reports and charts), poor stick and rudder skills, and unfamiliarity with their aircraft.

If you can't hold heading VFR while tuning a radio, it's not going to get any better during IR training without stopping the IR show and going back to basics. Ditto using your feet at the same time your hands are moving -- if you are a "feet on the floor" pilot, you will never be able to track a localizer. Also, if you can't land the plane on centerline, in the touchdown zone, on the mains, with minimal drift, out of a VFR pattern, you aren't going to be able to do it when breaking out at 250 feet above the runway.

As for knowledge, if you simply go to a weekend seminar and memorize the answers to the test, you will need a great deal more study at home and training in the briefing room before every instrument training flight. It takes a lot of time for me to teach someone what an Area Forecast is and how to read it, etc, and that's stuff every Private Pilot should already know, and can learn very nicely from Chapters 11 and 12 of the PHAK even if they don't have the patience to read and study the entire Aviation Weather and Aviation Weather Services books. Likewise, it takes a lot of time for me to teach you the legends on the L-charts and approach charts, and you could have learned that on your own if you put the effort in.

Another major speed bump is complex avionics. It's not that hard to find a really good training package for a Garmin system, either 430/530 or G1000. Likewise, you can read and learn the AFMS and pilot's manual for your autopilot on your own before training, and you probably should have if you use them for your VFR flying. If I have to teach you every switch, knob, and button in the plane, training will take much longer, and we're both going to burn out before you are ready for the IR practical test.

As for the rest, it's not a problem. We've got enough standard techniques and procedures to train a monkey to fly instruments if that monkey can already fly an airplane VFR with reasonable precision.

IOW, if all I have to teach you is instrument flying, it's a piece of cake. If I have to teach you both how to fly and how to operate your airplane, the process will be long and painful for both of us.
 
IFR training is something that I've been wanting to do for a long time! Unfortunately, family life...wife, kids & conflicting work schedules (wife & mine), just won't allow that to happen yet:(

I just think it would be so cool to fly an instrument approach and break out with the runway in front of me! I've done it on FSX & X-Plane:)
 
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In my IFR training (almost done) the part that I had the most trouble with was reading back a clearance. I would do a flight plan just to have ATC give a complete new one at run up. I feared this the most and struggled with writing it down and repeating it correctly. I finally realized that most of the time the clearance was the same for the most part. I came up with a standard abbreviations and within a couple flights I was done with read back mistakes. After 3 differant flights with correct read backs I no longer have a issue and it looks like its a thing of the past for me now.
 
Van Johnston said:
- flying and writing. I am left handed so to write I have to let go of the wheel. The planes are so far out of rig it doesn't take long to be 30 deg off course.
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Definitely a big challenge. I have been working on chicken scratching with my right hand. :mad2::mad2::mad2::mad2:
 
It was an awfully long time ago, but the hardest aspect for me to overcome was just being able to shoot a perfect approach - without looking again at the approach plate...which resulted in a wobbly approach. But I don't think I really learned how to fly IFR 'til I got my multi ATP. Then I was tasked with departing under the hood on a SID, and, just when I thought everything was going just peachy, I'd be given a holding pattern that was seemingly 50yds away, and while I was consumed with the mental gymnastics of how to enter the hold, an engine would fail...then was instructed to hold anyway, and asked my intentions, since my departure airport was now 1/4 mi in fog. I'd look at my sadistic instructor, pitifully, from under the hood...
 
Fun Thread!

Unloaded the ADF from the plane when I bought it: Saved 8lbs useful load and since most of the NDB's are gone around here, it served no purpose. Flying NDB approaches was a PITA.

Oh and yeah, remembering to time from the FAF: still escapes me on occasion, need to practice the VOR / DME / LOC approaches more, since most of what I fly are GPS or ILS.
 
DutchessFlier said:
Oh and yeah, remembering to time from the FAF: still escapes me on occasion,
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This is an example where the fault lies in the training, not the trainee. PIC teaches the 5T's at every action point from the beginning of basic radio nav, so it's ingrained in the trainee. We make them vocalize that at every action point in the sim and in the aircraft thereafter. Laws of Exercise and Primacy at work.
 
Luvrv8 said:
In my IFR training (almost done) the part that I had the most trouble with was reading back a clearance. I would do a flight plan just to have ATC give a complete new one at run up. I feared this the most and struggled with writing it down and repeating it correctly. I finally realized that most of the time the clearance was the same for the most part. I came up with a standard abbreviations and within a couple flights I was done with read back mistakes. After 3 differant flights with correct read backs I no longer have a issue and it looks like its a thing of the past for me now.
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Look yourself up on Flightaware after you file and you'll see the routing you're going to get read to you. Most of the rest you can probably have written down before you make the radio call.
 
Ron Levy said:
This is an example where the fault lies in the training, not the trainee. PIC teaches the 5T's at every action point from the beginning of basic radio nav, so it's ingrained in the trainee. We make them vocalize that at every action point in the sim and in the aircraft thereafter. Laws of Exercise and Primacy at work.
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What are the 5-T's?
 
It was just juggling all the balls in the correct order for me, and if there was an "ah-ha" moment, it was remembering that the airplane can still be flown when things start to fail.

Same vein, if you fixate or stop on a ball, the others fall on the floor and it's a lot harder to pick them up and toss them to start juggling again than to just keep them going at all times, or even drop one if you must while keeping the others going.

Timing, pacing, thinking three steps ahead. It just requires practice.
 
Just started digging into the knowledge stuff (King Online and some supporting books).

Maybe because I'm already an active pilot that I'm going to say that I'm a bit more interested, intrigued, and enjoying the acquisition of knowledge this round.

And now that I figured out how to play the video on my iPad, my lunch time is going by waaay to fast.
 
Someone remind me... how many questions are on the written exam? 40?
 
60 I think. I'm using a Sporty's iPad app to study and practice to retake my written. I paid $15 for the upgraded version because it gives you the correct answer to the practice test question if you get it wrong. I find studying the questions I got wrong to be a good learning tool, not just a memorization tool. If you answered the question wrong and know the reasoning behind why you chose the answer you did, seeing the correct answer and going through the exercise of understanding what makes the correct answer correct really embeds some of the knowledge. Also, it's pretty hard to study RMI and ADF stuff these days. You can read about it and somebody can tell you about it, but you can't easily go fly it.
 
EppyGA said:
Time– start time
Turn– the airplane
Twist– the OBS
Throttle- set
Talk– radio call
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PIC reverses the first two -- Turn, Time, Twist, Throttle, Talk. "Twist" includes frequency/ID, and "Throttle" includes "go down, slow down, or both." And there are a lot of airplanes out there with our 5-T's sticker on the panel.
 
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