Student Pilot- Actual IFR

[Jaybird180]

This past Saturday was strictly IFR (visibility and ceiling). Considering that I have 1.6h remaining on my simulated instrument requirement, I'm thinking I may have failed to recognize a potentially valuable training opportunity. Could I have flown with a CFII, logged the time as actual instrument and used it toward my 3h training requirements? Or is this too risky a proposition?

 

[Ted]

My second flying lesson ever (with virtually zero time in a plane prior) was in actual IMC. Not too risky at all by itself. However given the time of year, my guess is that the actual IMC would have ice in it in your location, and that part would be too risky.

I would encourage you to get some time in actual IMC with an instructor, provided it's a time when the weather cooperates. Voice this desire to your instructor, it will be his or her responsibility to make sure it's a day that you can safely fly in IMC.

 

[DGlaeser]

Absolutely. I have done that with PVT students when the conditions were just right. I have the student pretty much just fly the plane whiile I do all the radio setup and most of the communication so the student is not confused and overwhelmed. There is extra effort (mostly by the CFII) to plan and execute such a lesson, but most students are willing to accept the time and cost.
The difference between flying in IMC vs. under the hood is dramatic and worth the experience when it can be done safely. It's a great motivator to get an instrument rating!

 

[PittsDriver]

Yeah buddy. In fact, I think it was a really valuable hour or so I spent in my training flying around in the clouds listing to my instructor talk about minimizing head movements and doing the opposite of everything I heard before - keep my eyes inside and constantly moving in a scan. He'd nail me every time I was fixated on one instrument - good stuff.

 

[poadeleted20]

The practicality would depend on circumstances, but it would be legal. The problem for the instructor is that you don't have even the beginning of the background for all of the IFR procedures involved in the flight (especially in the Washington DC airspace), and as such, there would be a lot going on about which you wouldn't have a clue unless the instructor spent about eight hours of ground training on IFR procedures with you before the flight. Thus, your instructor's attention could be significantly distracted from your training and performance. That could interfere with the quality of your training unless the instructor is very comfortable and adept at IFR flying in actual instrument conditions from the right seat, which (unfortunately) many instructors are not.

 

[tonycondon]

i would occasionally, when conditions were right, still fly on IFR days with primary students. sometimes we would stay in the clouds and practice instrument work, with me taking care of all the IFR-related ATC communications, clearances, etc. Other times we would climb to get on top of a layer and do our private level air work stuff, enjoy the beautiful view, and then I would coach them through an approach back down to the airport.

 

[PittsDriver]

The practicality would depend on circumstances, but it would be legal. The problem for the instructor is that you don't have even the beginning of the background for all of the IFR procedures involved in the flight (especially in the Washington DC airspace), and as such, there would be a lot going on about which you wouldn't have a clue unless the instructor spent about eight hours of ground training on IFR procedures with you before the flight. Thus, your instructor's attention could be significantly distracted from your training and performance. That could interfere with the quality of your training unless the instructor is very comfortable and adept at IFR flying in actual instrument conditions from the right seat, which (unfortunately) many instructors are not.

Now wait a minute:
A CFII that isn't comfortable flying from the right seat in IMC? Or maybe you're referring to a CFI-(non I) that is instrument rated - in that case maybe, but I probably wouldn't do it with that guy anyway which is probably your point. My instructor was a CFII when we did it though I was just a private student at the time.

As for the hassle factor and all the homework - certainly there are ways around that with ATC that you get a block altitude and some maneuvering space where there's really no ATC hassles to speak of. You can fly around within reason letting the student deviate all he wants while trying to keep it upright and on airspeed while on an IFR clearance.

I'd still submit that under the right circumstances that it's a very valuable training experience for any private pilot candidate to do. It was pre-9/11 but I did my IMC flights out of W00 just outside the Andrews AFB Class B surface area.

 

[Jeanie]

Devil's advocate here: OK, so you take a PP student into the clouds and they "do pretty well" so how to get the message across that even though they did OK that they aren't supposed to try it by themselves when they are on a X/C and they think... "oh it's just a little bit of clouds to go through I did it w/ my CFII and it was easy so maybe I can push it just a little further today after all I need to get home blah blah blah... Isn't there a fine line between the lesson of : see this is what it's like and yet you don't do this?

 

[Fearless Tower]

Devil's advocate here: OK, so you take a PP student into the clouds and they "do pretty well" so how to get the message across that even though they did OK that they aren't supposed to try it by themselves when they are on a X/C and they think... "oh it's just a little bit of clouds to go through I did it w/ my CFII and it was easy so maybe I can push it just a little further today after all I need to get home blah blah blah... Isn't there a fine line between the lesson of : see this is what it's like and yet you don't do this?

They could get the same impression flying under the hood.

 

[dmccormack]

Isn't there a fine line between the lesson of : see this is what it's like and yet you don't do this?

There is, but I think the majority will think, "Wow, that was hard -- I need more training..."

 

[JeffDG]

Let's not forget, there are instructors who refuse to take their IR students into "actual"

 

[TMetzinger]

Answer - put them in a Redbird AATD or something similar in full IMC and see how long they last. I think it can cure or reduce overconfidence.

Same argument applies to autopilots - there are VFR and IFR pilots who are not proficient to fly in IMC droning along in the clouds on autopilot. People who think they don't have limits usually find them out in painful fashion.

 

[Everskyward]

My primary instructor would occasionally take off from Oakland in IMC in order to climb over the hills to the practice area which was clear. After we were finished he would do the ILS approach back into Oakland. I think it was a good experience. By the time I got my private he could talk me through an ILS although I would not have been able to do one without coaching.

 

[poadeleted20]

A CFII that isn't comfortable flying from the right seat in IMC?

I said "actual instrument conditions," not IMC, but for the purpose of this discussion, we'll let that pass. In any event, it is a sad truth that there are plenty of CFI-IA's out there who lack actual instrument experience and are very uncomfortable to the point of refusing to give instrument training in actual instrument conditions other than something like the long IFR XC at the end of training.

As for the hassle factor and all the homework - certainly there are ways around that with ATC that you get a block altitude and some maneuvering space where there's really no ATC hassles to speak of.

That's true, but a) it ain't so where Jaybird flies, and b) many CFI-IA's aren't aware of this option or how to do it.

I'd still submit that under the right circumstances that it's a very valuable training experience for any private pilot candidate to do.

I agree that it can be a "very valuable training experience," but it will depend on where you are and who the instructor is and the stage of the student's training.

It was pre-9/11 but I did my IMC flights out of W00 just outside the Andrews AFB Class B surface area.

That's not legal today. You'd have to get outside the SFRA over the Eastern Shore, and then you run into either the R-areas, traffic on V1, or radar coverage issues with Patuxent TRACON.

 

[PittsDriver]

I miss used the reference to IMC and actually meant actual. If I had a CFII that wasn't comfortable in actual I think I'd be looking for another CFII - yikes!?! Jeez, my instructor and I routinely went out and flew in the clouds and even went out into icing conditions just so I could see what it looked like and know first hand how fast you need an escape plan and how to work it out with ATC. Good training that...

 

[bobmrg]

No. The three hours required by 61.109 for the private pilot certificate are "flight training in a single-engine airplane on the control and maneuvering of an airplane solely by reference to instruments." The instrument rating experience requirements in 61.65 are for "instrument flight training." All the pre-private hours are for is to teach the applicant to keep the airplane under control while doing the time-honored 180 degree turn.

Bob Gardner

 

[bobmrg]

The practicality would depend on circumstances, but it would be legal. The problem for the instructor is that you don't have even the beginning of the background for all of the IFR procedures involved in the flight (especially in the Washington DC airspace), and as such, there would be a lot going on about which you wouldn't have a clue unless the instructor spent about eight hours of ground training on IFR procedures with you before the flight. Thus, your instructor's attention could be significantly distracted from your training and performance. That could interfere with the quality of your training unless the instructor is very comfortable and adept at IFR flying in actual instrument conditions from the right seat, which (unfortunately) many instructors are not.

The flying would be legal, Ron, but to consider the three 61.109 hours as counting toward the instrument rating requirements would not.

I know full well that many student/CFI combos do this and get away with it, but it is not correct.

Bob Gardner

 

[tonycondon]

No. The three hours required by 61.109 for the private pilot certificate are "flight training in a single-engine airplane on the control and maneuvering of an airplane solely by reference to instruments." The instrument rating experience requirements in 61.65 are for "instrument flight training." All the pre-private hours are for is to teach the applicant to keep the airplane under control while doing the time-honored 180 degree turn.

Bob Gardner

i agree there is a big difference between private level instrument training and what goes on during instrument rating training.

but if all you're supposed to be able to do is do a 180 deg turn why does the PTS test climbs, descents, turns to specific headings, and unusual attitude recoveries?

when i got my training there was a lot of emphasis at the private level of a standard rate 180 deg. turn. when i give instruction i hardly ever do standard rate 180 deg. turns, i teach total control of the aircraft on instruments. climbs/turns/descents, and combinations of those, plus unusual attitudes.

i've never really found a situation where i flew into a wall of clouds where a 180 degree turn would've helped anyway. maybe near the coast with marine layers or other weather phenomenon that we don't experience in the middle of the country. most of the marginal weather i see around here that would lead to a VFR into IMC scenario is slow and insiduous, and all encompassing, i.e. widespread.

 

[rottydaddy]

i agree there is a big difference between private level instrument training and what goes on during instrument rating training.

but if all you're supposed to be able to do is do a 180 deg turn why does the PTS test climbs, descents, turns to specific headings, and unusual attitude recoveries?

when i got my training there was a lot of emphasis at the private level of a standard rate 180 deg. turn. when i give instruction i hardly ever do standard rate 180 deg. turns, i teach total control of the aircraft on instruments. climbs/turns/descents, and combinations of those, plus unusual attitudes.

i've never really found a situation where i flew into a wall of clouds where a 180 degree turn would've helped anyway. maybe near the coast with marine layers or other weather phenomenon that we don't experience in the middle of the country. most of the marginal weather i see around here that would lead to a VFR into IMC scenario is slow and insiduous, and all encompassing, i.e. widespread.

A good point...I got more than the "180 and you're home free" kind of instruction, and I think the most useful part of my hood time was the unusual attitude recoveries. Later on, the only times I've questioned when my visibility was adequate was when I noticed the instruments did not jibe 100% with what I thought the airplane was doing. One sort of finds oneself in this situation sometimes (you know- vis less than 10 miles, water horizon or low clouds ahead), and the ability to scan properly and understand what you're seeing there is very valuable.

The 180 turn can still be useful, say, if you know you have better vis behind you but not in front, but having executed the 180, you may still have some flying to do in IMC, and that very well may demand altitude changes, so that stuff is also worth learning for the PP. Seeing as how the FARs allow VFR pilots to fly over overcasts or fog, it's also pretty important to know how to make a controlled descent with only the instruments, in case of an emergency (like loss of power).

But learning to effectively avoid blundering into IMC was something I ended up doing on my own, really... no matter how much good instruction you get, even some time in IMC, nothing sticks as well as almost getting into trouble (or getting into trouble, LOL). You should be thinking about it as you gather the weather data, and keep thinking about it throughout the whole process.
I never got to fly in IMC during my training, and wouldn't have minded it. wouldn't have minded more hood time, either.

 

[Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe]

Seeing as how the FARs allow VFR pilots to fly over overcasts or fog, it's also pretty important to know how to make a controlled descent with only the instruments, in case of an emergency (like loss of power).

Or if the forcast for the destination turns out to be wrong.

But what are the chances of THAT ever happening...

Meterology is a SCIENCE for crying out loud.

 

[poadeleted20]

I miss used the reference to IMC and actually meant actual. If I had a CFII that wasn't comfortable in actual I think I'd be looking for another CFII - yikes!?!

Good thinking.

Jeez, my instructor and I routinely went out and flew in the clouds and even went out into icing conditions just so I could see what it looked like and know first hand how fast you need an escape plan and how to work it out with ATC. Good training that...

After a few bad icing situations when I was much younger and much dumber, that is not a practice with which I am comfortable.

 

[bobmrg]

i agree there is a big difference between private level instrument training and what goes on during instrument rating training.

but if all you're supposed to be able to do is do a 180 deg turn why does the PTS test climbs, descents, turns to specific headings, and unusual attitude recoveries?

when i got my training there was a lot of emphasis at the private level of a standard rate 180 deg. turn. when i give instruction i hardly ever do standard rate 180 deg. turns, i teach total control of the aircraft on instruments. climbs/turns/descents, and combinations of those, plus unusual attitudes.

i've never really found a situation where i flew into a wall of clouds where a 180 degree turn would've helped anyway. maybe near the coast with marine layers or other weather phenomenon that we don't experience in the middle of the country. most of the marginal weather i see around here that would lead to a VFR into IMC scenario is slow and insiduous, and all encompassing, i.e. widespread.

My experience has been that a student enters a whole new world when the visual horizon is not there to be used as a reference, and it might take the whole three hours to become comfortable enough with instrument references to not panic. The references to radio communications, radar services, and use of navigation systems in 61.109(a)(3) are, to my way of thinking, side issues that can be accomplished without wearing a hood. You don't have to be in instrument conditions to get lost and need VOR triangulation (remember that?) or to call a radar facility for help in getting oriented.

Bob

 

[tonycondon]

i agree bob

 

[flyingcheesehead]

As someone who got my first actual IMC as I was ticking over 10 hours of total flight time, I am a BIG believer in Private students getting actual. At the time, it made me that much more sure that actual was something I didn't want to mess with until I was properly rated and proficient. Entering the clouds at 700 AGL in a left turn, and *immediately* feeling like I was in a 30-degree right bank was a big eye-opener, to say the least! You just don't get that from the hood, so IMHO the hood is more likely to lull students into a false sense of security than getting some actual.

 

[denverpilot]

I would agree that I also think actual during the Private is what made me acutely aware that I didn't want to mess with IMC without appropriate training. One of my CFII's took me up in a snowstorm.

Quite cool/eerie to be able to see all the houses and roads straight down, but absolutely nothing straight ahead. Shot three ILS's into KBJC, and called it an evening. Long discussion about freezing level and basically he walked me through his decision-making process, where we'd go if the weather got worse, fuel load, all of it, over the course of an hour and a half or so before the flight, and another hour after... a very good learning experience. (This was also back in the days when a CFI didn't charge for handshake-to-handshake time, and I'm very grateful for the 2 1/2 hours this older CFII spent that day... I think he was having as much fun as I was. Hard to find that now.)

I also will freely admit I'm one of those "idiots" who's accidentally flown into a cloud VFR.

I just honestly thought I was further below a huge flat overcast than I really was, and a "bump" of cloud that was lower caught me not paying attention. I was quite literally digging for a chart in the back (I was comparing WAC and Sectional charts in-flight at the time, just seeing what the differences were, and the WAC had fallen down and back behind my seat).

That "180 degree turn" (and knowing that I also was 3000' AGL and had room to go lower, but decided against it) truly did save my butt, and my wife's.

I didn't have "the leans" that day, which was nice, and the whole episode was over a couple minutes after it started, but I'd also been out under the hood with a CFI prior to that day where he'd worked hard to give them to me, and succeeded... so I knew to trust the eyeballs only... and maybe the ears. But never the butt.

My wife remembers me saying, "I'm going to be really busy for a couple of minutes, don't say anything please." She also remembers it being "interestingly gray". I'm always honest with my wife, and shared that this was one of the dumbest and most dangerous things I'd ever done piloting an aircraft, later when we were on the ground. She (like me) prefers honesty over BS.

At that point in time I had at least 20 hours logged in a simulator with a CFII, so that helped. The shock of transitioning to the instruments wasn't that bad, and a standard rate turn and we were back out.

But... heart rate had gone up significantly and I knew my head wasn't in the game or that wouldn't have happened.

Hit the NRST button on the GPS and landed at a cropduster strip near College Station, TX and then did a mental assessment, seriously considered knocking off completely for the day and just flying to a bigger airport and getting a hotel, looked over the weather information I'd printed out in Houston a few hours before, talked to FSS on the phone (no cell phones back then), and decided to wait for the "burn off" that was forecast to actually occur -- THEN continue North to Denver.

It did, and we then continued on our merry way, with my head on straight, and removed from the up-and-locked position it apparently was inadvertently left in by the pilot, a few hours earlier, leaving Houston.

 

[elmetal]

the hood is more likely to lull students into a false sense of security than getting some actual.

This is so true! I thought I was the cool guy when we were doing hood work back in my private and I was like man this is dumb, obviously you just use the instruments this is easy


"Oh yeah?"

Didn't get near a cloud again until I started my instrument training

 

[jesse]

Answer - put them in a Redbird AATD or something similar in full IMC and see how long they last. I think it can cure or reduce overconfidence.

Depending on their comfort with simulators - they might surprise you. I've seen people fly a simulator surprising well in IMC with only a few minutes of teaching. Flying on instruments really isn't that hard - it's learning the entire system and all the gotchas that come with it. A failure to understand that system or correctly interpret a plate someday will kill. You'd have to trap the student into that situation in the sim which could be a challenge.

I was a little braver then I should have been as a fresh pilot. I could fly on instruments fine and flew "IFR" on flight simulators for years prior to that. Because of that I did some things that looking back on were pretty stupid. Sure I handled them fine, but I'd have been in a world of hurt if a few more links were added to the accident chain. I got a lot of that stupidity out of my system within the first 50 hours or so, mostly by reading NTSB report after NTSB report along with good guidance from folks on the internet

 

[Ted]

My second lesson ever was an IFR cross country in actual. I didn't try to flip the plane upside down. My instructor kept a close eye on me and handled all the radio work (as well as the landing and the ILS) but I did all the basic flying of the plane without issue.

If I can do it, I doubt I'm the only one. It's not that hard, and what it did for me was emphasize why I needed an instrument rating (I couldn't have done this trip without one).

 

[dmccormack]

I was pretty cocky and confident going into IR training. I think I had about 10 hours dual when one day we're supposed to be flying direct to CKB VOR to do some holds. CFII asks me, "Vy are you turn ing?"

(He was Russian)

"Umm.. I'm not..."

Again, "Vy are you turn ing?"

"ummm... no..."

"Vy are ve turning!"

Yep -- I had the leans bad and the "Hand of God" had the airplane in a 30 degree bank.

Right then and there I learned I was not immune and it was an excellent lesson.

 

[poadeleted20]

The flying would be legal, Ron, but to consider the three 61.109 hours as counting toward the instrument rating requirements would not.

I know full well that many student/CFI combos do this and get away with it, but it is not correct.

Absolutely correct, and I hope I didn't give any opposite impression. The FAA is clear that the "3 hours of flight training in a single-engine airplane on the control and maneuvering of an airplane solely by reference to instruments" required by 61.109(a)(3) do not count towards the 15 hours of instrument flight training required by 61.65(d)(2), although they do count towards the 40 hours of total instrument time also required by that section.

 

[TMetzinger]

Depending on their comfort with simulators - they might surprise you. I've seen people fly a simulator surprising well in IMC with only a few minutes of teaching. Flying on instruments really isn't that hard - it's learning the entire system and all the gotchas that come with it. A failure to understand that system or correctly interpret a plate someday will kill. You'd have to trap the student into that situation in the sim which could be a challenge.

This is true but should not apply to the VFR pilot. Now for the "I'm gonna fly IFR even though I'm not trained or rated" guy... Murphy and Darwin await.