Switching Planes For IR Training

MBDiagMan

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If it weren’t for bad luck I wouldn’t have any at all. Long story short, I finally passed my instrument written and sent my manual landing gear Mooney to the Avionics shop for a 345. Was ready to get it back and fly my butt off until the instrument checkride. Before getting the Mooney back from the shop, I tripped and broke the fall with my right arm. Fast forward to today’s orthopedist visit and I have to have surgery on my shoulder. Retracting the manual gear is now a virtual impossibility. Well, not exactly correct. I have retracted it with the bad shoulder, but it set the shoulder on fire.

So.... there’s my Cessna 140. A 140 for the IR training? Absurd you say? Well maybe not as much as you think. It was restored by someone who put in more engine, a vacuum pump and a custom made panel that has a six pack and centerstack. It has two VORs, one LOC and one LOC/GS. When the plane was built, the guy gave it to his wife for her birthday and she got her IR in it. I bought it with the idea of getting mine in it, then got my Mooney which changed choice of plane for the mission. Now that I can no longer fly the Mooney, I am looking again to the little 140 to step up for the task. When I proposed this to an instructor friend of mine he said “why not?”

I’m not anxious to fly actual in it, but it might have to do for my IR trainer.

I know there will be those of you to claim that I’m crazy, but it won’t be the first time.
 
Yeah a manual gear Mooney and bad shoulder could be incompatible. How long to recover? My little group of middle age workout friends use the rule of two. Whatever the recovery they tell you, multiply duration by 2.
 
Fly the Mooney from the right seat? Or is there too much parallax with the instruments?

My brother got his IR (many years ago) in a Cessna 120 with some add on instruments to get it purd near adequate for training.
 
No GPS! :eek:

Of course you start, or even complete, your instrument flying in it. Do you have enough airports with VOR/LOC/ILS approaches for variety in your area? I've seen a lot of non-towered airports with just RNAV/GPS approaches is why I ask.

Beats waiting until your shoulder is fully back to normal. Think about when the surgery is and how long recovery is after that.
 
If it weren’t for bad luck I wouldn’t have any at all. Long story short, I finally passed my instrument written and sent my manual landing gear Mooney to the Avionics shop for a 345. Was ready to get it back and fly my butt off until the instrument checkride. Before getting the Mooney back from the shop, I tripped and broke the fall with my right arm. Fast forward to today’s orthopedist visit and I have to have surgery on my shoulder. Retracting the manual gear is now a virtual impossibility. Well, not exactly correct. I have retracted it with the bad shoulder, but it set the shoulder on fire.

So.... there’s my Cessna 140. A 140 for the IR training? Absurd you say? Well maybe not as much as you think. It was restored by someone who put in more engine, a vacuum pump and a custom made panel that has a six pack and centerstack. It has two VORs, one LOC and one LOC/GS. When the plane was built, the guy gave it to his wife for her birthday and she got her IR in it. I bought it with the idea of getting mine in it, then got my Mooney which changed choice of plane for the mission. Now that I can no longer fly the Mooney, I am looking again to the little 140 to step up for the task. When I proposed this to an instructor friend of mine he said “why not?”

I’m not anxious to fly actual in it, but it might have to do for my IR trainer.

I know there will be those of you to claim that I’m crazy, but it won’t be the first time.

Not crazy at all. If yer shoulder gets better and you start flyin the Mooney again, get a little dual with a CFI until you’re ‘up to speed’ before punching holes in clouds with it
 
Is the panel layout the same? If it's the same it won't be much of an issue. If it's shot gun vs six pack there'd going to be some (a lot?) of transition time for your scan to adapt.
 
If the Cessna 140 had pitot heat, I would even fly it in actual. What else separates it from the Arrow that I am comfortable flying in actual?

Anyhow, I can't think of any reason not to at least start your instrument lessons in your Cessna 140. The two considerations along the way are going to be the cross-country lesson and the check ride, each of which requires a certain number of different types of approaches.

The cross-country lesson requires that you file IFR, go at least 250 nm, fly an instrument approach at each airport, and fly three different kinds of approaches with the use of navigation systems (I have no idea if this includes a no-gyro radar approach so let's assume in your plane that you will do at least an ILS, a LOC-only or similar, and a VOR). If you're not in the Rockies, your 140 should be able to get to the MEAs in your area and do a real IFR cross-country. You just have to find three different kinds of approaches that you can fly along the route.

For the check ride, the ACS at page A-16 sets the minimum required approaches to be flown:

Two nonprecision approaches. One must involve a procedure turn (or a GPS terminal arrival area procedure). One or more must be flown without autopilot or radar vectors. One must be flown partial panel.

One precision (ILS) or LPV (with DA 300' or lower) approach.

So you will need to take the check ride somewhere with an ILS. I don't know if you can fly the same ILS three times (once as an ILS, once as LOC only by ignoring your glideslope needle, and once again as LOC with a partial panel). My check ride was at an airport where the runway was under construction so the glideslope was out of service and the DPE required me to fly three different approaches: LPV, VOR, and LOC. I don't remember whether the VOR or LOC was the partial-panel one.

Get started. You'll forget all about your bad luck once you're drinking from the fire hose while trying to aviate, navigate, and communicate all under the hood.
 
The airport where they send us for the checkride has an ILS and several nearby airports have non precision approaches. The 140 has no DME. Will that be a problem?
 
The airport where they send us for the checkride has an ILS and several nearby airports have non precision approaches. The 140 has no DME. Will that be a problem?
It depends on the specific approaches. There are some that are "DME REQUIRED." For example, the nearest ILS to me says DME REQUIRED on the plate. The reason it's required is that there are three initial fixes: two of them put you on a DME arc and the other one is a VOR/DME fix. (The VOR approach to the same airport does not require DME. There are two initial fixes, one of which puts you on a DME arc and the other of which is the VOR itself. So if you do not have a DME or IFR-approved GPS, you can fly directly to the VOR to start that procedure.)
 
Iamtheari,

If you have time and access to the plate, could you look at the ILS LOC approach for KTYR, Tyler, Texas? It looks like these can be flown with VOR radials to mark the IF and IAF. Is this too good to be true or am I missing something?

If you can’t take a look that’s okay, but if you can, it will be greatly appreciated.
 
Iamtheari,

If you have time and access to the plate, could you look at the ILS LOC approach for KTYR, Tyler, Texas? It looks like these can be flown with VOR radials to mark the IF and IAF. Is this too good to be true or am I missing something?

If you can’t take a look that’s okay, but if you can, it will be greatly appreciated.
No problem. The ILS or LOC RWY 13 does not say DME REQUIRED so you are fine there. And that makes sense. You can identify the UIM VOR initial approach fix by crossing the VOR of course, or the INDOO initial approach fix by centering the localizer needle and the UIM R-183 needle. You'll be happy to have dual VOR receivers for that. Same with the missed approach fix and the alternate missed approach fix, both of which can be identified by two crossing VOR radials. You can fly this approach as an ILS (precision) or LOCalizer (nonprecision).

There are also the VOR/DME RWY 4 and VOR RWY 31 approaches. You can fly the VOR RWY 31 without a DME. That counts as a second nonprecision approach.

I stand by my original conclusion: Get flying. :)
 
wait a minute - unless you plan on doing your check ride in the 140...
Won't you have another pilot / cfii in the right seat? Why not have them put the gear up and down.
 
Problem is that the instructor is on a different field and I have to fly to him. The checkride might be interesting too. Oh, by the way Mrs. Examiner, give me a gear up. Just release that handle and pull hard.
 
Thanks iamtheari! I thought that I was reading those approaches correctly, the DMErequirement is for the lower minimums approach. Tyler is not far from here. Most instructors send students to Greenville for checkrides, but I expect that there is an examiner at Tyler.
 
Thanks iamtheari! I thought that I was reading those approaches correctly, the DMErequirement is for the lower minimums approach. Tyler is not far from here. Most instructors send students to Greenville for checkrides, but I expect that there is an examiner at Tyler.
I don't know what my DPE would have done if I had said I didn't have LPV capabilities. Wait for the ILS to be back in service in the winter? Fly to the nearest airport with an operating ILS that summer (about 85 nm away)? Decline to give the check ride? But I think you have enough resources in your area to be able to complete the check ride with your plane's existing equipment. You'll need a current transponder and pitot/static check for the instrument cross-country lesson, or you can use another plane for that one. The cross-country lesson is the only instrument rating prerequisite that must be done under IFR, and you can't accept an IFR clearance without those checks being current.

Of course, if you get a chance, you should fly some actual and file IFR more than just that one lesson. You want to be comfortable in the system so that the check ride tests your instrument flying and procedures, not your ability to deal with the stresses of public speaking on the radio. If you fly into towered airports and get flight following regularly, it will be easier to get comfortable.
 
Problem is that the instructor is on a different field and I have to fly to him. The checkride might be interesting too. Oh, by the way Mrs. Examiner, give me a gear up. Just release that handle and pull hard.

How far away is the instructor and what is the max speed of the Mooney with the gear down?
 
Hadn’t thought of that. The gear extended max speed is 120. It is 41 nm. You got me thinking!

That's just 20 minutes.

How are you at pumping flaps down? I've never flown a manual gear or hydraulic flap Mooney.
 
Not a huge worry, but I’d also be thinking a LITTLE bit about overall fitness to fly with the bum shoulder.

Any scenarios you can think of BESIDES the gear handle where you’d need that arm to be in good condition?

As far as the Mooney vs 140 and the older instruments go, I’m in the “Just go fly whatever you have” camp. As @EdFred said, you’ll need a little transition time between aircraft eventually anyway with a CFII or at the least a safety pilot, but otherwise you could just get on with it and pass the ride.

You’ll still be learning and practicing and staying in proficiency long after the ride is over and when your arm is happier you can move to the Mooney.

Just doesn’t seem like a big deal from here. Fly what’cha brung, and get ‘er done, if the IR is something you want to accomplish.

Hope they can patch up the arm eventually. Sounds sucky.

I think my boss has you beat though. He sent an email saying he was sorry he was AWOL for a few days, he broke his back in two places. Wow.

Sounds like he’ll be fine, but he said it hurt a LOT.
 
I think God intervened.

I did some work on the 140 carburetor heat yesterday and took it up this morning to test it. It works fine now, but the air was a little bumpy and I am really spoiled by how confident I feel in rough air when flying the Mooney. It was downright freaky in the pulley and cable ragwing plane. I was wondering how much fun all this would be in the 140 and how it would involve so much extra time and fuel flying too and from the other field for lessons. I went to the terminal for coffee and was sitting in the airport managers office shooting the breeze, when a fellow walked in that I didn’t know. He was introduced as the chief pilot for one of the corporate planes on the field. The airport manager said to me, “now this guy is a REAL instructor. “

I asked him if he ever took on instrument students and he was a little hesitant saying “well, sometimes.” We started visiting with each other and the more we talked, the more it sounded like a good fit. I felt really comfortable with him and our schedules match. I told him about my planes and he was even more enthused. I took him to the hangar and showed him the planes. He has manual gear Mooney time too. He was excited about the 140 too and said that there were plenty of places n the area where we could shoot approaches with it.

I have doctors appointments upcoming, so we will delay getting started, but we are scheduled to fly at 6AM next Thursday. We are going to start in the Cessna and go from there. He said that if my shoulder wasn’t ready for the gear before checkride time, that I should just do it in the 140.

My whole outlook about this is the polar opposite of what it was about 8:30 this morning. I think that with a little time, I will have comfort in bumpy air again in the 140. As a nice bonus, this guy and I hit it off well and it’s always good to have one more friend.

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. I will keep everyone posted.
 
Your fine. I did my entire IR in my Cherokee 140 with nothing but an ILS/LOC, KX170Bs radios. No DME. Phoenix is not exactly the easiest place to find non GPS approaches either. In my opinion it made me a better instrument student, and quite frankly the feedback I received from my checkride examiner reflected that.

At the very end of my training we had a G5 HSI and GNC 255 radio put in. My examiner let me use the GNC 255 as DME. FSDO said that was fine.
 
@MBDiagMan sounds like you found the old guy who was thinking “not another 40 hours in a Skyhawk...” hey wait, you have interesting airplanes? LOL.

He’s right about the 140, there’s still enough places with non-GPS approaches mostly everywhere that you can learn a lot or even earn the rating in it. Then you’ll just need some follow up for the GPS stuff. You guys are going to have fun.
 
Yeah Denver, I really think we will have fun. I think we will get along well and communicate well. I am really looking forward to flying with him and learning from him.
 
I think God intervened.

I did some work on the 140 carburetor heat yesterday and took it up this morning to test it. It works fine now, but the air was a little bumpy and I am really spoiled by how confident I feel in rough air when flying the Mooney. It was downright freaky in the pulley and cable ragwing plane. I was wondering how much fun all this would be in the 140 and how it would involve so much extra time and fuel flying too and from the other field for lessons. I went to the terminal for coffee and was sitting in the airport managers office shooting the breeze, when a fellow walked in that I didn’t know. He was introduced as the chief pilot for one of the corporate planes on the field. The airport manager said to me, “now this guy is a REAL instructor. “

I asked him if he ever took on instrument students and he was a little hesitant saying “well, sometimes.” We started visiting with each other and the more we talked, the more it sounded like a good fit. I felt really comfortable with him and our schedules match. I told him about my planes and he was even more enthused. I took him to the hangar and showed him the planes. He has manual gear Mooney time too. He was excited about the 140 too and said that there were plenty of places n the area where we could shoot approaches with it.

I have doctors appointments upcoming, so we will delay getting started, but we are scheduled to fly at 6AM next Thursday. We are going to start in the Cessna and go from there. He said that if my shoulder wasn’t ready for the gear before checkride time, that I should just do it in the 140.

My whole outlook about this is the polar opposite of what it was about 8:30 this morning. I think that with a little time, I will have comfort in bumpy air again in the 140. As a nice bonus, this guy and I hit it off well and it’s always good to have one more friend.

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. I will keep everyone posted.

Looking forward to hearing how it’s going.
 
Well, things related to my instrument training just seem to change almost daily so I thought I would give an update and keep the thread going as my IR journal.

I flew three times with the new instructor I was so excited about. As I suspected he is WONDERFUL to fly with. We communicate really well, he is encouraging, incredibly knowledgeable, and thorough, not to mention just an all around good guy. We flew an hour in the Mooney and it went well, but we confirmed that handling the Johnson Bar landing gear is no longer possible for me. The next two hours we moved to the 140 and I had told him I needed some coaching on getting comfortable with her again in choppy air. He loves the 140 as much as I do. We got some choppy air and he got me feeling comfortable with it again. Then another change. The company/family he flies for laid a schedule on him that will prevent him from flying with me again until September at the earliest. Bummer!

Something else happened, I found a super nice electric gear Mooney and am in the process of buying it. They are swapping my 430W and GTX 345 out of my current Mooney into the one I am buying which will cause a delay before I bring it home, especially since they took a break for OSHKOSH. So.... I started flying with another instructor at a field 45 NM away. I will fly with him until my home field instructor comes back into the picture, or maybe finish with him. I flew with the remote instructor Wednesday in the 140. He checked me out on my basic instrument flying and felt good enough that we did a couple of non precision approaches with the VOR’s and it went pretty well. He, like my local instructor, feels good about me doing it in either plane, but is anxious to try it all in the Mooney so we can plan which way to go.

Flying 45NM both ways for a lesson is a pain and an expense, but at this point I am just happy to be training and moving forward.
 
You get lemons so you buy an airplane? Works for me! My buddies at the airport keep razzing me saying that I will go to any length to get another airplane, meaning I will injure my shoulder in order to get another plane. That might float except the plane I am moving away from is a wonderful example of an M20C that I was convinced would be my forever plane and now I have to give her up.
 
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Update:

I have flown in the 140 three times with the remote instructor. We have done a number of non precision approaches and I have gotten pretty comfortable under the hood. We are going Saturday to do a few precision approaches. All this has been in the 140 with dual VOR’s. This instructor taught me to fly in an Aeronca Champ, then solo’d me in a 150 back in 1992. He had just retired at that time, so he is getting pretty old, but still really sharp. It’s really fun flying with him again after all those years. Thing is though, he admittedly is not the one to teach me the 430 and flying with it. Hopefully my local instructor will be back in action in September and I can pick up that part with him. If he doesn’t I’m going to learn more about the 430 and make it work with the old guy.

My “new” plane will probably be ready Monday. I have to have a CFI checkout for insurance purposes before bringing it home. I may have to get my remote instructor to do that. He is a Mooney guy from way back and is looking forward to checking me out. Once that is done and I have her home I am hoping to find a safety pilot. My challenge now is just finding a way to log hood time.
 
Update:

I have flown in the 140 three times with the remote instructor. We have done a number of non precision approaches and I have gotten pretty comfortable under the hood. We are going Saturday to do a few precision approaches. All this has been in the 140 with dual VOR’s. This instructor taught me to fly in an Aeronca Champ, then solo’d me in a 150 back in 1992. He had just retired at that time, so he is getting pretty old, but still really sharp. It’s really fun flying with him again after all those years. Thing is though, he admittedly is not the one to teach me the 430 and flying with it. Hopefully my local instructor will be back in action in September and I can pick up that part with him. If he doesn’t I’m going to learn more about the 430 and make it work with the old guy.

My “new” plane will probably be ready Monday. I have to have a CFI checkout for insurance purposes before bringing it home. I may have to get my remote instructor to do that. He is a Mooney guy from way back and is looking forward to checking me out. Once that is done and I have her home I am hoping to find a safety pilot. My challenge now is just finding a way to log hood time.
The King course for the 430 was very helpful for me personally. I’m currently in my IFR training.
 
We flew a VOR DME, a VOR and an ILS approach in the Piggy yesterday morning. It was a hoot! Flying approaches at 70 Is pretty easy. I expect to get the Mooney Wednesday and 5he remote instructor wants to move to it, but I will have to wait and see how that works since he is admittedly not 430 literate. I may have a lot of study on my own or maybe we go back to the Piggy. She sure is fun to fly and I have had her so long she fits like an old pair of shoes.

The long and short of it though is that I am finally doing my instrument training in spite of the ongoing obstacles.
 
If it weren’t for bad luck I wouldn’t have any at all. Long story short, I finally passed my instrument written and sent my manual landing gear Mooney to the Avionics shop for a 345. Was ready to get it back and fly my butt off until the instrument checkride. Before getting the Mooney back from the shop, I tripped and broke the fall with my right arm. Fast forward to today’s orthopedist visit and I have to have surgery on my shoulder. Retracting the manual gear is now a virtual impossibility. Well, not exactly correct. I have retracted it with the bad shoulder, but it set the shoulder on fire.

So.... there’s my Cessna 140. A 140 for the IR training? Absurd you say? Well maybe not as much as you think. It was restored by someone who put in more engine, a vacuum pump and a custom made panel that has a six pack and centerstack. It has two VORs, one LOC and one LOC/GS. When the plane was built, the guy gave it to his wife for her birthday and she got her IR in it. I bought it with the idea of getting mine in it, then got my Mooney which changed choice of plane for the mission. Now that I can no longer fly the Mooney, I am looking again to the little 140 to step up for the task. When I proposed this to an instructor friend of mine he said “why not?”

I’m not anxious to fly actual in it, but it might have to do for my IR trainer.

I know there will be those of you to claim that I’m crazy, but it won’t be the first time.

Honestly I think the C140 is a better plane for your IFR training anyways.

It’s a more basic panel which will help you form better situational awareness (same type of non /G panel I learned IFR in).

It’s slower, giving you more time to learn to stay ahead of the plane.

If you look to find a experienced freelance CFII, you should be able to get a more experienced instructor, if someone asked me to get their IFR and had a arrow or 182 or something, unless I knew them I’d probably pass, but someone wanting to do it in a floatplane, or a tailwheel or warbird, I’d probably jump on it.
 
Just a note of information that might be helpful to someone. I mentioned about learning the 430. In case someone needs to do the same there is a wonderful training tool that can be found at “themooneyfler.com.”
 
Honestly I think the C140 is a better plane for your IFR training anyways.

It’s a more basic panel which will help you form better situational awareness (same type of non /G panel I learned IFR in).

It’s slower, giving you more time to learn to stay ahead of the plane.

If you look to find a experienced freelance CFII, you should be able to get a more experienced instructor, if someone asked me to get their IFR and had a arrow or 182 or something, unless I knew them I’d probably pass, but someone wanting to do it in a floatplane, or a tailwheel or warbird, I’d probably jump on it.

In the nicest way I beg to differ. I am currently doing my IFR in a 182 with a 430w. Not a speed demon by any means but it will more realistically mimic my mission as it is my club plan and what I fly my family in. Again not fast but getting behind the plane while learning is helpful in understanding those pitfalls and lean how to avoid them. The added distraction of using and dialing the 430 and using for different approaches is on the ways you can get behind.

The attitude flying, climbs, turns, descents can be done with any standard steam six pack. But when it’s time to get busy, holds, approaches, misses, flight plan changes by atc, knowing how to spin those dials and use the Menus comfortably as well as perform good attitude flying will be the key. I think it’s very important to do that intraining before one enters the real world to help prevent getting distracted in IMC with equipment that you didn’t necessarily train a lot on.
Your situation forced you to start in the other plane and for the beginning stuff I think that’s great but I’d get training in what you are going to fly your family in!
 
In the nicest way I beg to differ. I am currently doing my IFR in a 182 with a 430w. Not a speed demon by any means but it will more realistically mimic my mission as it is my club plan and what I fly my family in. Again not fast but getting behind the plane while learning is helpful in understanding those pitfalls and lean how to avoid them. The added distraction of using and dialing the 430 and using for different approaches is on the ways you can get behind.

The attitude flying, climbs, turns, descents can be done with any standard steam six pack. But when it’s time to get busy, holds, approaches, misses, flight plan changes by atc, knowing how to spin those dials and use the Menus comfortably as well as perform good attitude flying will be the key. I think it’s very important to do that intraining before one enters the real world to help prevent getting distracted in IMC with equipment that you didn’t necessarily train a lot on.
Your situation forced you to start in the other plane and for the beginning stuff I think that’s great but I’d get training in what you are going to fly your family in!

Personally I’d rather train students without any moving map GPS or geo ref

Plus he already has the C140 and it doesn’t burn much fuel, so win win
 
I am committed to coming out the other end of this competent in the Mooney with the 430, but I personally do not believe that flying the 140 will prevent that. Even if I were to do the checkride in the 140, My local instructor is extremely thorough and extremely proficient with the 430 and spends a lot of time in the clouds. Even if I end up following all the way through to the checkride in the 140, the local instructor will provide a very thorough lesson plan for making me as good as I can be.

Also I fully expect that both of these instructors want to spend some time with me in the Mooney ssimply because it is legal for IMC and both of them want me in actual at some time during the course of the training.

Had a lot of stuff going on this week trying to get the Mooney and looking for flying weather, so I am kind of stalled on this for a few days, but expect to be back under the hood in a few days.
 
Just an update on my ongoing struggle to the instrument checkride. There is good and bad.

I was flying with the remote instructor in the 140. We shot three different types of approaches and the equipment in the 140 worked well saving for the Attitude Indicator. I got it out, sent it off and it is all well again. The remote instructor wants me to get practice with a safety pilot, but I am having trouble finding one. He says I don’t need to pay him, but that might be the only thing I can do.

The seller is delivering my electric gear Mooney tomorrow, but I have to get a CFI checkout before I am covered by insurance. I hope to take care of that no later than Monday or Tuesday. My remote instructor wants the next lesson in the Mooney, but I think he just wants to see it. I am anxious to get time in the new to me Mooney, but I still might do the checkride in the 140.

I am beginning to think I might have to hire one of the guys that come to me and fly my butt off until done. This is not something to move slowly on.
 
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