EGO DEFLATION: 1 hour = complete deflation, $120/hr

barnstorm2

Platinum Member
Joined
Nov 1, 2003
Messages
14,573
Location
Cincinnati, Ohio
Aircraft
2-place Air Command CLT SxS (project), & Twinstarr Autogyro
Total Flight Time
750+hrs and climbing
Well, I took my second hour of instrument training yesterday and this hour was under the hood...

I can fly my gyro while programming the gps, talking to a passenger, listening to radio chatter in the pattern, folding a sectional in an open cockpit and chew gum during gusty winds and thermals without loosing heading, alt or airspeed so...:violin:

I figured this instrument stuff was going to be a breeze.... :smokin:


NOPE. :(

If you want a real EYE OPENER take some time under the hood with a instrument training CFI!!!!

I have another session next week....

.
 
5 hours of hell ?

5 hours of hell ?

Tim,

What has got you upside down in inside out ?

You forgot: " program the IPOD..."

How many hours, in which aircraft ?

To do what ?

Jonathan
 
You doing this in a airplane I assume?

Yes, it is a Cessna 172.

Tim,

What has got you upside down in inside out ?

You forgot: " program the IPOD..."

How many hours, in which aircraft ?

To do what ?

Jonathan

good point, but I keep my ipod on shuffle! ;)

2.3 hours so far. C172.

Nothing has be corn-fused but it is just HARD.

I know how to fly a fixed wing. It is basically like a gyro but much more a pain in the a$$. :plane: :boink: :D:

I don't have a cert but I can do basic flying no problem.

For the 1st hour we went up with out the hood. Since I don't have a FW cert he wanted to see how well I could fly the C170 by the dials with the hood off first. He quizzed me on how to set gyros (the little ones in the dash that is) how to do spin recovery, what instruments gave what info.. ect.

The second hour he had me put on the hood during climb out, keeping it on until back in the pattern.

What he had me doing was basic 'check ride' kind of stuff.

He had me do strait and level, look up the freq for a radio navigation beacon at a local Class D airport.

We set the freq in the VOR and he had me go there.

I was doing fine so far...

Then he started having me divert course at such n such an airspeed, climbing to such and such and coming out on such n such a heading.

Now things got hatefull.

I felt like I had less control of the airplane then I did on my first intro lesson!

I just had a hell of a time keeping all three or four stipulations of the maneuver (turn, as, alt, climb rate, heading, so on...).

As soon as I got my self settled then he had me go back to the intersect heading with the Class D airport.

We did this several times until we got to the airport.

Thankfully we just flew straight through as he explained some VOR use when close to the target.

We then set course for an imaginary airport due east from the Class D airport. So I now had to navigate east still using the beacon at the Class D while he... you guessed it... Had me loose alt, gain, turn, descend ...... then back to course intersect.

Once he finally let me take the hood off I felt like I could hardly make myself fly the plane using my eyes and butt for a few seconds. Really weird feeling.

He let me land it and taxi back to the tie-downs.

1.3 hrs.

.
 
IFR that will make you a even better pilot, way to learn.
This is very simplistic but that’s the way I see it, I hope it helps.

It’s a practice thing made tougher flying an aircraft your not automatic with like the way you know your gyro that is. Even rated pilots really don’t like to switch aircraft (even same type but different panels) in actual.
Practice flying a Flight simulator (even Microsoft ‘s) over the same area and flight plan can really help, as it’s really mostly just practice:
To me it’s learning and making 3 basic things automatic:

1) Controlling the aircraft as easily with instruments as during VFR in broad daylight, should be better precision with instruments as your really on them to the exclusion of the sights.
2) Being able to see yourself in 3-D space by looking at the chart and knowing exactly where you are in your (imagination) minds eye. Not everyone can do this!! They still got there rating but we won’t fly in actual with them as PIC! One way they say you can tell is if you can visualize something you know how it works. Like an engine, if you can see the inside of it in your mind’s eye running then you can also project yourself in a sort of virtual world that really helps know where you are.
3) Procedures and regulations.

It sounds easy when you say it fast.

It’s mostly practice like Stan is describing making it automatic and staying ahead of the R22.
PS:
Tim:
"Once he finally let me take the hood off I felt like I could hardly make myself fly the plane using my eyes and butt for a few seconds. Really weird feeling."
This sounds like you were already in the virtual world I described, to me!!! That was the first transition out of your imaginary world, soon you won't even notice. Way to go that is fast!!!!
 
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I felt like I had less control of the airplane then I did on my first intro lesson!

Tim, the scary part is the same thing can happen to any VFR pilot if the weather moves in fast enough, only you can't just take off the hood when you've had enough.

There's a reason insurance underwriters like to see an instrument rating. It can make the difference in surviving that first encounter with IMC...which isn't always a planned event.
 
Tim I think that what you are doing is sensible and a big investment in personal safety. No sensible non instrument rated pilot voluntarily goes IFR but there are occasions when it can happen. As you have just found out doesn't take much to get very overloaded quickly, followed by totally disorientated.

Burnside-Ott many years ago had a trial Young Eagles program where as an experiment we had young (12-14) pilots on a flying summer camp participate in an experiment done together with the FAA.

They began flying under the hood from the first hour otherwise following a normal ab initio flight training syllabus. They followed pretty much expected patterns of progress, could have gone solo at about the expected time and were superb instrument pilots. Only drawback, after the ten or so hours when we took the hoods off and continued normaly they were fixated on instruments and had to be pushed to fly by external reference or to have any sort of a lookout.

Point is they picked it up very quickly. You will soon find it challenging interesting and hopefully useful
 
Tim: I applaud you for getting instrument training. I have none except for some hood time acquiring my PPSEL back in 1983. But I can just imagine learning these skills will be hard at first..then just become second nature as your brain is trained to take over the workload. Its the same exact scenario for me learning helicopter flying. Each new step is a big challenge at first...but then your brain takes over and it starts going on automatic.

Good luck and keep us posted!

Stan
 
Tim,

Most of my time was IFR up until a few years ago. It -will- make you a better pilot. At the very least, your confidence in general situations will improve. The next bit is weather. Never trust weather just because you may fly in it now. And never EVER trust ANY radar center beyond very general weather advice. I think weather recognition and recognizing weather trends are the most difficult and most important parts of IFR. The mechanicals will come to you in time.

Just wait until you have to do a hold on a point defined by two radials in an aircraft equipped with a single VOR. Yeah...it is probably a good thing I have no designs on becoming a CFII. I'm afraid I would be evil.

*JC*
 
Hang in there, Tim! It'll all come together soon enough.

What do you plan to do with your instrument training? As I remember, you have a PPL in gyros, and don't have one in FW. Can you add a FW instrument rating without the underlying FW PPL? I've never heard of a gyro instrument rating (helicopter IFR ratings are rare enough) but I can easily see you being the pioneer!

I agree with the above posts about the rating being a good idea even if you don't use it. I haven't filed an IFR flight plan since I started flying floats in the early 90's, but it's nice to have. I view instrument training like the aerobatic training I took: I don't like to use it everyday, but if I ever *need* it, the training's sure nice to have had!


Neil

ps - do you have any more Microsoft trips planned?
 
Thanks guys!!

BTW,

I just got a great email saying that you don't need a full IFR equipped aircraft for IFR training for Commercial. Just a machine with a Needle/Ball instrument !

Hang in there, Tim! It'll all come together soon enough.

What do you plan to do with your instrument training? As I remember, you have a PPL in gyros, and don't have one in FW. Can you add a FW instrument rating without the underlying FW PPL? I've never heard of a gyro instrument rating (helicopter IFR ratings are rare enough) but I can easily see you being the pioneer!

I agree with the above posts about the rating being a good idea even if you don't use it. I haven't filed an IFR flight plan since I started flying floats in the early 90's, but it's nice to have. I view instrument training like the aerobatic training I took: I don't like to use it everyday, but if I ever *need* it, the training's sure nice to have had!


Neil

ps - do you have any more Microsoft trips planned?

Neil,

No trips to Redmond planned. Uncle Bill (well, now uncle Steve I guess) only pulls my chain to get me out there when there is a big new product release.

I started the instrument training for my Commercial Gyroplane and CFI rating requirements but now I feel like I will explore this further.

It has been much more enlightening than I thought!

Oh, and my boat is still for sale and I lost the email address (again) of the guy you work with that likes boats.

.
 
Where I learned to fly, a bunch of us referred to the hood as "The Cone of Stupidity". It seemed as soon as you put it on, 50% of you IQ vanished!
 
You haven't lived until you've experienced "Foggles" over bi-focals.

*JC*
 
haven't lived....

haven't lived....

or you haven't lived until you've had a 2 hour IFR checkride completely under the hood by an ex military guy... and he doesn't think you're made of the "right stuff"!!! When I left the airport, I barfed for 30 minutes... didn't let him see he got the better of me!!

(but I DID pass!!!).... >500 hours Instrument in my Cherokee 6!!!

Gary Buster
tyler, texas
 
It's all changing though. The "kid" that gave my last ICC had never seen an ADF before and had no idea how to use one. He was really uncomfortable with my "steam guage" instruments and lack of a glass rack. Apparently, Emory Riddle has gone to all Garmin systems (I say this only because he was a recent ER graduate).
 
The change in technology is a real hassle for fixed-wingers right now. It's still fairly common to find an instrument instructor who knows steam gauges, but finding a designated examiner who knows glass panels is a challenge in some areas.
 
Although, I now know that you can actually get instrument training in a machine (gyro) with a Needle/Ball instrument I have continued with my FW IFR training as I have found it quite interesting, challenging and useful.

Today we progressed to non-precision and precision approaches. WOW.

It all seemed like magic when I read about doing these before and I hardly understood what I was being tested on when I took the Commercial knowledge exam but now it is all really coming together.

It is really amazing to be following the radio navigation aids and running the controls to keep the little white lines a perfect cross hair, then having the CFI tell you to look out of the airplane and there you are 200 feet AGL, on final and pointed right down the runway of the Springfield Beckley airport (home of the 178th Fighter Group).

1.6 hours today, but it hardly seemed like it and I was sad to head back to the home airport except that I knew I was too tired to learn much more today.

.
 
Certainly does get pretty intense under the hood/in the sim. Very satisfying to break out on the money be it a mile and a half out from the threshold or 50 ft over the runway though Tim.

As for glass cockpit, loved the comment made by a steam gauge airline pilot who after his first sim session on glass was asked what he thought. His reply was "Now I know how my dog feels when he watches Political Commentary onTV with me!!!"
 
Earned my instrument rating for fw in 1993 --did all the training in a C-172. Trained in Tucson, AZ and did all the IFR work around Tucson International and Ryan Field---I recall doing my IFR x-country up to Prescott. Since there's rarely IMC in southern Arizona, all of my time was simulated. That was also around the time when they went to the A-B-C airspace classifications I think. After I got the rating I never filed IFR again. Go figure. :plane:
 
Tim,

You will find that a quick constant scan of the instruments is the key to good instrument flying.
If you look a any one instrument for more than a couple of seconds it is too long.
The quicker you can program your brain to get into the habit of constantly scanning you will be better off.
Just keep reminding yourself to scan, scan scan.
 
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