Things I Learn in IFR Training - Who Knew?

I've been learning that when I want the clouds to be low, they never are. We were going to go cloud surfing tomorrow and now the TAF has the clouds higher than the IAF. Dang it.
 
Rgbeard said:
Once you get your instrument rating you’ll be chasing low weather and seldom find it.
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I'm lucky in that I can fly basically whenever I want, but in the 9 months since I got my rating, there's been at least one opportunity (usually several) to fly loggable approaches every month. I'm current through August.

YMMV if you have a real job and/or live in the southwest.
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
I've been learning that when I want the clouds to be low, they never are. We were going to go cloud surfing tomorrow and now the TAF has the clouds higher than the IAF. Dang it.
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The other one is when the tops are just below MDA.
 
WDD said:
Hoping this is a somewhat interesting, perhaps at times humorous thread to help other in IFR training.

Today I learned -
It finally clicked when training yesterday. On an approach, fly the heading indicator first, correct slightly as needed by CDI. I had been doing it backwards, which explains why I was chasing the needles. I made an approach that wasn't that wretched yesterday.

It also clicked why an HSI would be such an improvement.
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My instructors favorite quote for IFR. “Fly the bug!” He taught me to always fly the heading bug and adjust it as needed to keep the needles centered. Good stuff!


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Rgbeard said:
Once you get your instrument rating you’ll be chasing low weather and seldom find it.
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Since I moved to New England, it is almost impossible to get real IMC for practice and be able to get back into my home airport with only a RNAV approach.

Tim

Sent from my HD1907 using Tapatalk
 
Peter Anderson said:
My instructors favorite quote for IFR. “Fly the bug!” He taught me to always fly the heading bug and adjust it as needed to keep the needles centered. Good stuff!


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Bugs are nice when you have them. :)
 
What do you know - approach plates actually do change, and you really need to make sure you have the latest.
 
What is "Expected"?

When you get your A in CRAFT, you hear "maintain 8,000', expect 17,000' 10 minutes after departure." Is the 17,000 what I filed in the plan I'm getting clearance for? Or is this a different altitude that I need to climb to only if I loose coms? (If I loose coms and am in IFR, I assume I ping out 7600, fly to VFR, and then land as soon as practicable.)
 
WDD said:
What is "Expected"?
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That is part of the lost communications procedures.

If you lose communications under IFR, while in IFR conditions, you'd initiate a climb to the expected altitude at the specified time.

"Expect" can also apply to routing and tells you what to do if you lose communications before the subsequent clearance is given.

See 14 CFR 91.185 and Don Brown's two AvWeb columns on lost comm, starting wtih
Say Again? #50: Lost Communications — NORDO — Part 1.
 
WDD said:
What is "Expected"?

When you get your A in CRAFT, you hear "maintain 8,000', expect 17,000' 10 minutes after departure." Is the 17,000 what I filed in the plan I'm getting clearance for? Or is this a different altitude that I need to climb to only if I loose coms? (If I loose coms and am in IFR, I assume I ping out 7600, fly to VFR, and then land as soon as practicable.)
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You are not getting a clearance to climb to 17,000 in 10 minutes. It is the altitude you should climb to 10 minutes after departure if you lose com. That altitude may or may not be what you filed. It usually is, or close to it. Your filed altitude has nothing to do with what you do. Filed altitude is just to let them know what you want.
 
So if I loose comes, fly at the filed altitudes until 10 min, then climb to 17000?
 
WDD said:
So if I loose comes, fly at the filed altitudes until 10 min, then climb to 17000?
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Fly the CLEARED altitude, then the expected in lost comms - Clearance will usually be a heading and an initial altitude, then Expect XXX in ten minutes.
An exception would be if your clearance was a departure procedure.. but for a standard clearance, what I wrote above.
 
WDD said:
So if I loose comes, fly at the filed altitudes until 10 min, then climb to 17000?
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Minumum
Expected
Assigned

Fly the highest. Filed is not on that list. Fly the assigned altitude (8000 in your example) until 10 minutes after takeoff, at which point your should climb to 17000, assuming both of these altitudes are above the minimum IFR altitude where you are.
 
So I fly at assigned altitude to the points I’ve been cleared to. Then I loose coms. In which case 10 min after departure I climb to 17000 while still flying to to points Ive been cleared to.

Or do I just fly the initial heading given when I get clearance?

What happens if I loose coms 15 min after departure ? Still climb to 17000?
 
WDD said:
So I fly at assigned altitude to the points I’ve been cleared to. Then I loose coms. In which case 10 min after departure I climb to 17000 while still flying to to points Ive been cleared to.

Or do I just fly the initial heading given when I get clearance?

What happens if I loose coms 15 min after departure ? Still climb to 17000?
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Read Dan Brown's article linked above.

Tim

Sent from my HD1907 using Tapatalk
 
WDD said:
So I fly at assigned altitude to the points I’ve been cleared to. Then I loose coms. In which case 10 min after departure I climb to 17000 while still flying to to points Ive been cleared to.
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Yes

For route we use:
Assigned
Vectored
Filed
Expected

In that order. Fly your cleared route. When you reach your clearance limit, fly what you filed, or what you were told to expect. If you're on a vector and lose coms, you have to decide what's reasonable to return to your assigned route.

Vectors pretty much always come with an instruction as to what to do next. Vectors to join an approach, obviously join the approach. Vectors for traffic will have an "expect direct in 5 miles" or something similar. Vectors for weather will have "advise when able to resume course". In IFR they never leave you with a question about what to do next. That's the purpose of "expect"... to give you something to do next if all else fails.

Reading "the landline" on Facebook, it seems that in real life, they expect and prefer nordo aircraft to exit imc and land, or proceed to a nearby suitable airport. It sounds like people who follow the ave-f/mea rules are the exception. Comm failures are rare with modern avionics. Usually it's user error and the rules give you something to follow while you figure out what frequency you're supposed to be on. The other most likely cause would be electrical failure, in which case you'd have no option to continue anyway. That's a serious emergency and you need to be on the ground or in vmc asap, rules be damned.
 
WDD said:
So I fly at assigned altitude to the points I’ve been cleared to. Then I loose coms. In which case 10 min after departure I climb to 17000 while still flying to to points Ive been cleared to.

Or do I just fly the initial heading given when I get clearance?

What happens if I loose coms 15 min after departure ? Still climb to 17000?
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If by 15 minutes after, you haven’t got this already resolved with ATC, something has gone very wrong. First of all the 10 minute thing has only to do with altitude, not route. If you lose com at 15 minutes, what were you doing between 10 and 15 minutes?
 
Not following your question I'm afraid. What happens if I'm flying along under the cleared flight plan for 15 or 30 minutes at my assigned altitude. Then I loose coms. Do I climb to the "expected"? Or continue on the "assigned" altitude headed to the clearance limit?

I guess the "after 10 minutes" is what is tripping me up. Is this meant to cover things only if I loose coms in the first 10 minutes? Does this assume that if I've been talking to ATC for at least the first 10 minutes of my flight they've already given me instructions that supersede the "expect 17000 after 10 minutes"?
 
WDD said:
Not following your question I'm afraid. What happens if I'm flying along under the cleared flight plan for 15 or 30 minutes at my assigned altitude. Then I loose coms. Do I climb to the "expected"? Or continue on the "assigned" altitude headed to the clearance limit?

I guess the "after 10 minutes" is what is tripping me up. Is this meant to cover things only if I loose coms in the first 10 minutes? Does this assume that if I've been talking to ATC for at least the first 10 minutes of my flight they've already given me instructions that supersede the "expect 17000 after 10 minutes"?
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You were given maintain 8000, expect 17,000 10 minutes after departure. In this loosing com 15 or 30 minutes after departure scenario, are you still at 8,000? Did they climb you to something else, say 13,000? If they did, did they say something like ‘that will be your final altitude?’ Did they say something like climb and maintain 13,000, expect 17,000 at [fix] or in [time]?
 
WDD said:
So if I loose comes, fly at the filed altitudes until 10 min, then climb to 17000?
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It is laid out very clearly in 14 CFR 91.185 (c)(2).

(2) Altitude. At the highest of the following altitudes or flight levels for the route segment being flown:
(i) The altitude or flight level assigned in the last ATC clearance received;
(ii) The minimum altitude (converted, if appropriate, to minimum flight level as prescribed in § 91.121(c)) for IFR operations; or
(iii) The altitude or flight level ATC has advised may be expected in a further clearance.​
 
If the VOR plate says "A", it is for either runway - it just get's you to the center of the airport.
 
First time today CFII had me put a flight plan together in the plane, file via ForeFlight, get clearance, and fly it - while working the radios, pick the approach in the air, brief it, fly it, and everything else. From my perspective, it went something like this:

 
WDD said:
First time today CFII had me put a flight plan together in the plane, file via ForeFlight, get clearance, and fly it - while working the radios, pick the approach in the air, brief it, fly it, and everything else. From my perspective, it went something like this:

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Yep. During training I was having a helmet fire moment, looked at my cfii, and said, "I don't think I'm smart enough for this."

He said, "yes you are", took the controls and gave me a minute to collect myself.

Now it feels as natural as flying a vfr pattern.
 
Fantastic learning time though. As a bonus, I created a few new procedures calls to ATC - you can all thank me later.
 
GTN 650 does not load the ILS freq when you load and activate an ILS approach. I thought it did, but I got no horizontal glide slope. CFII manually entered the ILS few and it popped to life.

Should it, and if so, what went wrong?
 
WDD said:
GTN 650 does not load the ILS freq when you load and activate an ILS approach. I thought it did, but I got no horizontal glide slope. CFII manually entered the ILS few and it popped to life.

Should it, and if so, what went wrong?
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I find that the GTNs have some automation that has activation conditions I either don't know or don't understand. That includes switching to VLOC on an ILS. The biggest challenge I had transitioning from the GNS to the GTN, though, has been that it defaults to vectors to final instead of a transition fix and you have to manually tell it you want to choose a transition. The GNS always asks for the transition when you load an approach.
 
WDD said:
GTN 650 does not load the ILS freq when you load and activate an ILS approach. I thought it did, but I got no horizontal glide slope. CFII manually entered the ILS few and it popped to life.

Should it, and if so, what went wrong?
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The GTN loads the localizer frequency in the standby field. The user must manually move the frequency to the active field.
 
Ryan F. said:
The GTN loads the localizer frequency in the standby field. The user must manually move the frequency to the active field.
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Ah! That explains it. Thanks!

Odd that it doesn’t activate the freq as well - what other ILS freq would one want active at that point?
 
WDD said:
Ah! That explains it. Thanks!

Odd that it doesn’t activate the freq as well - what other ILS freq would one want active at that point?
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I think that is so you ID the frequency. Cross check the frequency with the plate before putting it in the active, which you would be doing long before you get to the approach.
 
WDD said:
Ah! That explains it. Thanks!

Odd that it doesn’t activate the freq as well - what other ILS freq would one want active at that point?
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You might need to keep a VOR frequency active prior to intercepting the localizer, for example when flying a DME arc from the VOR to get into the approach. I don't know what the GTNs do in that situation. Most people would fly the DME arc by GPS, of course.
 
Did my X Country yesterday. I did a 250 mile leg so this X Country can also count in the future for the commercial requirement.

1) You don't always get clearance with ground; sometimes its a sep freq.
2) Clearance isn't the same as release. Had to sit at threshold for 5 min. (This is never mentioned in any of the ground/written prep.)
3) "Expect" approach X is distinct from "cleared". Makes sense, but I didn't appreciate what that all meant. (Again, this is never mentioned in any ground/written prep.)
4) I flew in a Skylane, not the poky Skyhawk I usually train in. Things move quicker, and I got task saturated / easy to get task saturated. SO important to brief the approach as early as possible. I was NOT appreciating / disciplined in the thorough clockwise brief process.

It was a fantastic learning experience. It kicked my arse - bad. I'm not sure if my CFII wants to fly with me again..... :)

First half was OK. Then I had to land at first airport. That went wretched.

Departing, they gave me a VFR departure (never heard of that). Flying a VFR departure under VFR rules as part of your IFR plan is not the same as leaving VFR and getting a pop up IFR. You get your clearance in the air (who knew??)

Then my second airport (VOR approach) had a bad VOR (not in NOTUM). Changed on the fly to another airport with VOR approach. Got there and the controller said that VOR was bad. Changed to 3rd airport with a VOR approach. Got put into a hold. Held for 15 minutes, as controllers switched and they forgot us.

Oh yeah, most of trip was IMC - 1/2 was smooth, 1/3 mild turbulence, and the rest I would describe as pop up rodeo bull riding.
 
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WDD said:
4) I flew in a Skylane, not the poky Skyhawk I usually train in. Things move quicker, and I got task saturated
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It can sometimes be helpful to remember that a Skylane is usually OK with flying as slow as a Skyhawk.
 
asicer said:
It can sometimes be helpful to remember that a Skylane is usually OK with flying as slow as a Skyhawk.
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Good point. That was one thing I learned.... when you feel overwhelmed, pull that throttle back and roll the trim back. If that doesn't do it you can always get a delay vector.
 
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