How good or bad were you in early instrument training?

Learning the IFR info for the written test I found disjointed. :confused: I found IFR flying fairly straightforward. Kinda the opposite of how I found the PPL training. The PPL book info was very straightforward, but it took awhile for me to get to solo. Part of that was my CFI loving crosswind landings right from the start for PPL, drove me nuts, but now I'm grateful as a windy day is just more bumps to deal with. Sort of like when we built a new home when I was wrapping up middle school and going into high school and my Dad said, "we're going to do all the electrical and plumbing work". "Oh great! grumble, grumble," says me the cranky teen-ager. As an adult I'm thankful I had that experience and I can now do that work on my home.

I grew up playing the early video games in the early 80's with simplistic graphics. Early-on in the IR training I told myself, "Play the video game. Ignore your ears (balance and motion) and play the game." If I can feel like I'm moving while I'm sitting or standing at a video game, then I should be able to ignore my ears/sense-of-motion while flying. Plus I don't get motion sickness.

My CFII one day said, "Ok, so you're coming up on the checkride and we just need to get you scheduled and ready for the test, right?" Me, "Uh, no. I'm maybe half-way through the IFR training hours." CFI, "No way!" I pulled out the logbook and yep, right around 20 hours. Now, I had just recently finished the PPL, so I had been flying regularly and it was at a towered airport, so talking with ground and the tower every flight meant that radio work wasn't new either. Frequent flying and treating IFR flying like playing a video game made the flying part pretty straightforward for me. I think it was the combination that really helped.
 
farangutan said:
Shortly after I got my instrument rating, I moved across the country and went to get checked out to rent from the local FBO. I also had dull VFR and landing skills. Fortunately it came back quick, but it was a little surprising. I recommend taking the opportunity to be a safety pilot for someone else while you train for your instrument or every few lessons take a break to fly without the foggles. I didn't, it was head down all the time for a few dozen hours, switching back to VFR you have to adjust to flying with the eyes outside again.
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That's what I'm doing. Every few weeks, do a vfr flight to remember the skills of navigating by looking outside, pattern entry and landing.
Also, I like to enjoy the scenery :)
 
455 Bravo Uniform said:
Yes, those were the first 2 lessons, then we did them partial panel a couple lessons.
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You might have been moved along too fast. I wouldn't start the patterns until basic instrument scan, straight and level trimmed flight, level turns and compass turns were proficient.

Pitch, Power, Trim. Under the hood. Get the specific numbers for manifold pressure, prop RPM and trim position memorized for level flight, then move on to climbs, descents and turns to adjust on those numbers.

Once you have a good set of numbers, all the advanced maneuvers and approaches are just an additional task on top of basic aircraft control.
 
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I sucked right up to, and during, my check ride. Not exaggerating. Guy should never have passed me.

I learned the plane can make a huge difference. I did all my training in my Cardinal. One day my instructor suggested we try his Archer which he had just put a new GTN 650. I knew nothing about Garmin equipment and hadn't flown a low wing plane in years.

That IFR flight, in a totally unfamiliar aircraft, was my best IFR flight before or since. The plane was so easy to fly I felt I could concentrate on staying ahead on the approaches, communications and critical thinking. I was really surprised, also, that I could fly using the GTN 650, knowing absolutely nothing about the instrument when I got in the plane.

Maybe your opinion of your progress is just an indication that you want to be a better pilot. I think a good pilot is never satisfied with his skills and no flight is ever perfect.
 
Doing Pattern B over and over and over made a big difference in my being smooth at making configuration changes and just being comfortable with the plane.
 
In reading these responses, it reminded me of my checkride.

I almost busted the ride because my landings had gone to crap.

First approach was an ILS, and he wanted me to actually land the plane instead of going missed.

I almost took half the runway to touch the wheels in a %&^( C172.

The DPE indicated that had I taken much longer to touch down, I would have, in-fact, busted on that.
 
It's a slow process of getting your scan right and applying control inputs proactively. It will go to hell when you are distracted, turning knobs on the nav box, or copying a new clearance in-flight, etc.

After about 20-25 hours, it may start to "click," and you may get seriously bored for the last few hours of training. My instructor observed that most of his students were ready for the check ride well before the required 40 hours were done. Now, maintaining proficiency...another matter.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Dunno if anyone else has done this. My training was in the days of NDBs and I just could not visualize my position. Ask me to intercept a bearing to and I floundered. Intercept a bearing from was impossible. To make matters worse, my CFII was the kind of guy who could be beamed to a random point in space from the Enterprise and would know where he was within 2 seconds. He could not find an easy solution.

Anyway, one evening it was so bad, I took off the hood, turned to Andre, said, "your airplane," and let go. He was kind, "I know you are working hard at this. Let's call it a day. Just fly us home." I looked at him. "Maybe you didn't hear me. I said, 'YOUR AIRPLANE'," and folded my arms. Andre flew us home.

If I made it through, you can too.

A suggestion or two to discuss with you instructor.

Are you talking out loud? are you verbalizing both the current heading/course/altitude and what comes next? Not everyone, but for most it focuses attention and helps catch deviations early.

The other thing I see often, even during IPCs, is the "Willy nilly scan." Flitting from instrument to instrument without really seeing it. Take the time to see it and, again, verbalize such things as "needle 1 degree right. Correcting 3 degrees left to center."
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Been there, done that. :rolleyes: I’m almost finished now, but my wall was keeping oriented on holding entries. It’s behind on me my..... left? No, I’m doing left turns it’s was a what entry, so it’s .... right? Now I’m 200’ low, what? That’s when I had my “I’m done” moment.

Hang in there OP, it WILL click for you!
 
rav said:
20 hours in, my holds suck :(
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Hey, if you stay on the "protected" side, don't escape the distance limits, and manage to intercept the inbound course, before the fix, you are doing OK. It doesn't have to always look pretty. The hardest part is visualizing an appropriate entry without the magic box. Choose an entry that seems to work without excessive yanking an banking, and go with the flow. TBH probably the only holds you will actually fly in real life are HILPTs. Some GPS approaches are going that way now, instead of the T-entries.
 
chemgeek said:
Hey, if you stay on the "protected" side, don't escape the distance limits, and manage to intercept the inbound course, before the fix, you are doing OK. It doesn't have to always look pretty. The hardest part is visualizing an appropriate entry without the magic box. Choose an entry that seems to work without excessive yanking an banking, and go with the flow. TBH probably the only holds you will actually fly in real life are HILPTs. Some GPS approaches are going that way now, instead of the T-entries.
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The thing that helped me visualize entries was to picture that if it’s not direct, I cross over to the other side from which I’m approaching the fix to fly outbound for the reversal. (I’m not explaining that very well, but it seems to work for me.)
 
Volitation said:
The thing that helped me visualize entries was to picture that if it’s not direct, I cross over to the other side from which I’m approaching the fix to fly outbound for the reversal. (I’m not explaining that very well, but it seems to work for me.)
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My approach to holds is simple: if you can reasonably fly a direct entry do it. If that is not obviously possible, if you can fly a teardrop, do it. (This covers 90% of actual holds.) Otherwise, fly a parallel entry. If you have a Garmin, it makes suggestions for you...which seems like cheating compared to my training pre-GPS.
 
chemgeek said:
My approach to holds is simple: if you can reasonably fly a direct entry do it. If that is not obviously possible, if you can fly a teardrop, do it. (This covers 90% of actual holds.) Otherwise, fly a parallel entry. If you have a Garmin, it makes suggestions for you...which seems like cheating compared to my training pre-GPS.
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And once you pass the examine and checkride how you get into holding is up to you! My instructor seemed biased towards parallel when there was any doubt where I find a teardrop, especially with only one turn in holding, the better answer for me. He didn't like it when the Garmin agreed with me. :D
 
Pugs said:
And once you pass the examine and checkride how you get into holding is up to you! My instructor seemed biased towards parallel when there was any doubt where I find a teardrop, especially with only one turn in holding, the better answer for me. He didn't like it when the Garmin agreed with me. :D
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Personally, I get to the hold, and use reverse to back it in. ;-)
 
The part you will find amazing is how much more precise you are in your everyday VFR flying. So many VFR pilots will let their altitude get away from them as well without paying much attention to it. I've flown with guys that would deviate 100-200 feet up and down all day doing simple VFR flying. Once they get working on their instrument rating, they start to pay more attention to attitude and altitude deviations, and all of their flying becomes much more precise.
 
455 Bravo Uniform said:
I’m starting to get a little bummed.

I have 15.7 hours of hood time (including 3.5 PP) and 12 instrument flight lessons in the books. I feel like I’m below average in my progress.

The last 2 lessons were VOR and localizer holds.

Here are my suckage points:

*Altitude - every flight I seem to have 2 or 3 episodes where a change in configuration gets me out of trim, and then I get fixated on a task/disctracted and I’m 100 ft off, sometimes as bad as 200.

*Holding - easy to get distracted and “forget” to start my turn.

We end most flights with an approach-
*I got below glide slope by half scale 2 flights ago.
*Heading - once or twice I’ll get distracted and lose track of the localizer by about half scale.

And now my VFR landings are starting to suck because I’m used to being on final at 90 kts IFR, vs my VFR 70 and 60 on short final. Just more discouraging on top of the IFR suck.

My CFI tries to be encouraging, but he’s also noted that I need to be getting my altitudes nailed at this point.

I’m hard on myself. But I want to really know where I stand. Can’t get a good read. My CFI teaches younger students who are going from PPL to CFI. That’s not an excuse, it’s just a fact that might explain if I suck or if I’m being compared to young natural “sticks”.

If it makes a difference, I’m always flying needles, without my GPS map page on, except when on GPS approaches.
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I sucked right up until I got it. It took me longer than average, but that exposed me to more actual and more real life situations that make me much more comfortable now flying in IMC. You'll know when you are ready, mainly because your instructor just sits there and shuts up, lol. Well, pretty close anyway. Just keep plugging. There are always those who are aces at half the required time, but those are not the rule. Don't quit.
 
rav said:
20 hours in, my holds suck :(
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Simplify. Hit the fix and turn outbound.

Except right up against the FAA angle “limits” for “perfectly correct” hold entries, this always works.

Visualize it a bit and you’ll see it does.

For teardrop just know where you are and don’t complete the outbound turn. Leave a little angle so you can turn back in toward the fix without overshooting the inbound course.

I find this old tip from an old pilot helps people remove the stress of holds, then they have extra brain cycles to think about them.

But to start with, if you’re behind and overloaded. Just hit the fix and turn outbound.
 
2nd505th said:
Uh oh. If minimum time is 40 I assume average is 60 and I'm 3x average - then 3+ years to my instrument. Gulp.
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That’s minimum time, not time required to learn, and at some point in the process it ceases to be “something new”.
 
You are doing better than me! But I’ve been getting somewhat more adequate over time...slowly.

One thing I found helpful was to lower my power settings. When I’m under the hood I now keep the rpms at the very bottom of the green. And another tip I learned from a double i to help correct overcontrolling: Instead of my normal vertical yoke handle grip, wrap my fingers around the yoke near the center. No more abrupt changes in altitude or heading with those two suggestions.
 
How often are you flying? I used Gatts and flew 4 hours or so every day. In the first day or two I was clueless but by the fourth it clicked. I think flying daily helped me a lot.
Gary
 
As a fellow "sucker," I wrestled (and still do at times) with the same things. For me, I had to stop staring at the gauge I was trying to correct (i.e., the glideslope or CDI), and focus on the CONTROL instruments while making corrections. If you're off course, choose an appropriate amount of course change, use the attitude indicator and the heading indicator to make that course change, and THEN check the CDI again to see if you're getting the results you wish. Same thing for glideslope. Too low or high? Don't stare at it... go to your attitude indicator, make appropriate pitch (and/or power, depending upon how far off you are) change, cross-check VSI and altitude indicator for trends, then check your glideslope to see if you got the performance you needed. Don't stare at the instrument telling you you're off... once you see that you're off, it doesn't do you any good until you've made the appropriate changes.

Something like that....
 
I was bad...I mean really bad.
I bought an RV-9A and immediately started IFR training in it.
It's a LOT different than a 172/182.
Like teaching a teenager to drive in a Z06 vs a Cruze.

The key for me in this plane was repetition and going back to basics: holding a heading, climbing turns, etc (under the hood).
That, and getting a consistent scan habit.
Once I was solid in those, the rest was "easy".
 
Power settings and pitch are extremely important in flying a good approach. If you are hunting for proper speed during an approach you are setting yourself up for failure, it needs to be automatic. I know the setting for level flight at initial approach speed, the setting for initial flaps level, if you do that and the setting for riding down the glide slope. It was the first thing we did when I started instrument training and I use those numbers to this day. (with slight adjustments for ambient conditions.)
 
woodchucker said:
One thing I found helpful was to lower my power settings. When I’m under the hood I now keep the rpms at the very bottom of the green. And another tip I learned from a double i to help correct overcontrolling: Instead of my normal vertical yoke handle grip, wrap my fingers around the yoke near the center. No more abrupt changes in altitude or heading with those two suggestions.
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I’d go a step further. Two fingers. If you can’t fly it in non-turbulent conditions with two fingers, it’s not trimmed.

And if it’s not trimmed it won’t stay put when you need five seconds to tune a radio, scan, check on frequency, scan, copy the clearance, scan...

Two fingers. Otherwise it had better be trimmed to fly itself. No AP. :)
 
I understand the feelings of the OP. I am currently about half way through a 10 day instrument rating. I have got about as much actual IMC as not. I prefer it, foggles suck.
I would like to think the frustration of not learning as quick as one would like is normal. I too am very hard on myself, but I am struggling with it right now. My instructor is a horrible teacher, its like he waits for me to screw up and then make me feel stupid instead of making a suggestion or asking a question when he sees things going awry. But, maybe its just because he is not paying attention! I look over and see him looking down at the ground, or picking the scab on the back of his hand! My second day of flying, we were doing a step down RNAV, I lost situational awareness. I was looking at the instruments, I knew something was off, but it was so off that I really got confused. I was flying the approach one altitude off, I was at the altitude for the NEXT fix, not the one I was crossing. I was 800' low! My instructor did not notice until after I did! Then he says "do that on the check ride and you'll fail". No ****, but was I supposed to have it all dialed in at 5 hours of instrument instruction? A day later I looked at the approach plate and the obstacle it was stepping us down for. I was 100' below the top of the tower that is only a few hundred feet off the approach course laterally. Good thing I wasn't too good on the lateral and the wind had blown us off course away from the tower, if it had been the other way we would have hit the tower at 800agl! When I saw that, I was sick about it.
It is getting better, but we have been flying everyday in moderate turbulence or worse, holding altitude is difficult, with winds in the 20's to high 30's holding a course is tough. And, trying to keep the airspeed down because of turbulence we are flying around at 2000rpm with airspeeds from 80 to 90 with a pretty nose high pitch attitude, mushing around all day. Today it was 13 gusting 27 on the surface, 2000' up it was predicted to be mid 30's. In the morning he says, its going to be one of those days, going to require constant adjustment of power to maintain altitude, then later in the day he tells me not to use power, to do it with the yoke, the yokes that are stiff and sticky.
Power through it is all I can do, I already paid him and have too much invested in airline tickets, rental car, and hotel rooms. I try very hard to have a positive attitude before each flight. last flight today I am setting up the gps but missed something, he sits there for a bit, then asks "are you done?, I have shown you how to do this everyday (4 days), you have to get this right." Now, I am ****ed because of his tone making me feel stupid, and he has totally destroyed my positive attitude. I paused for a few seconds, breathing deeply, telling myself not to go off on him and quit. A great way to start a lesson!

Keep at it, that's all you can do. Everyone said it was hard.

I am 49, I know I don't learn as fast as I used to.
 
Most deviations are the result of a fault in the instrument scan. A lot of that is knowing what to scan and when, and not to interrupt your scan for more than 5-8 seconds and not get fixated on one item. When a student is off altitude and trying to correct, they'll fixate on the altimeter and once they get where they want, find they're 30 degrees off on the heading, etc. Keep the scan going and importantly, RELAX! Being tense contributes to over-controlling and unconscious inputs. One more thing, when you're changing frequencies, loading your approach, etc. you have to learn to divide your attention. Do things in steps and with each step, stop and scan. For example, hit procedure...scan...select the approach...scan...load the approach...scan, activate the approach.
 
455 Bravo Uniform said:
I’m starting to get a little bummed.

I have 15.7 hours of hood time (including 3.5 PP) and 12 instrument flight lessons in the books. I feel like I’m below average in my progress.

The last 2 lessons were VOR and localizer holds.

Here are my suckage points:

*Altitude - every flight I seem to have 2 or 3 episodes where a change in configuration gets me out of trim, and then I get fixated on a task/disctracted and I’m 100 ft off, sometimes as bad as 200.

*Holding - easy to get distracted and “forget” to start my turn.

We end most flights with an approach-
*I got below glide slope by half scale 2 flights ago.
*Heading - once or twice I’ll get distracted and lose track of the localizer by about half scale.

And now my VFR landings are starting to suck because I’m used to being on final at 90 kts IFR, vs my VFR 70 and 60 on short final. Just more discouraging on top of the IFR suck.

My CFI tries to be encouraging, but he’s also noted that I need to be getting my altitudes nailed at this point.

I’m hard on myself. But I want to really know where I stand. Can’t get a good read. My CFI teaches younger students who are going from PPL to CFI. That’s not an excuse, it’s just a fact that might explain if I suck or if I’m being compared to young natural “sticks”.

If it makes a difference, I’m always flying needles, without my GPS map page on, except when on GPS approaches.
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Yo, don't be discouraged.. IFR is the real deal. It's not easy. To answer your heading question "where you good or bad" .. below is my self assessment
-the good parts:
--maintaining heading, altitude, and speed
--maintaining trim
--flying coordinated turns
--not having an issue flying in actual

-the bad parts:
--for some reason, even though I can easily picture then in my head, hold entries and procedures were my biggest weakness.. especially the random "hold 5 miles south of XXX VOR on the 318 radial" - umm okay, what the hell does that mean? So yeah, that part was tough. At some point I gave up trying to just intrinsically know it, and started to rely on the finger technique thing to figure out the hold type, etc.
--like you, flying the approach at 90 knots and landing at 65 was an adjustment.. but ultimately I learned to fly all my approaches at 90 knots and reduce to actual landing speed on short final. I feel like that's just sometehing you get used to
--I found ILS easier, since you have two needles to follow. On Localizer approaches there is more eye gymnastics, so these were a little harder for me as far as timing out the descent correctly, not busting an altitude, and staying on the localizer. For an ILS it's pretty easy, just make tiny corrections, watch the track vs the course, and be patient

My biggest learning point:
--we were in actual, hand flying (in training) and I fixated on maintaining altitude plugging in the approach into the 650.. well low and behold we entered a turn. The Archer stays naturally coordinated fairly well so I couldn't actually feel the turn until looking up and seeing both DG and AI and TC showing a turn. Rolling out level gave my body a weird feeling like NOW we were turning. So that was a good lesson to never look at any one instrument more than a few seconds, force yourself to keep checking all the instruments

Anyway, don't be discouraged, good luck!
 
Tantalum said:
….especially the random "hold 5 miles south of XXX VOR on the 318 radial" - umm okay, what the hell does that mean? ….
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yeah, what DOES that mean?

I think the biggest thing for me initially was making massive S turn over-corrections on the approach. SMALL corrections and wait...…..
 
eman1200 said:
yeah, what DOES that mean?

I think the biggest thing for me initially was making massive S turn over-corrections on the approach. SMALL corrections and wait...…..
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Case and point... lol. NORTH
 
@Wagondriver don’t give up. What you’re going through is certainly complicated by the compressed training time. You are halfway. I am almost halfway.

I’ve had a few more lessons and taken the advice of many above (thank you). There are better days and worse days. Today we took a “break” and flew to KIND and back to KLAF, both in actual and at 100 ft above mins. The only parts of my flying that really stunk were the very last bits of each ILS (the most important). And by stunk I mean nearly full scale deflection on the LOC where we almost went missed at KIND, and getting WAY below GS at KLAF. The rest was passable cuz ATC didn’t say or see anything. A few radio calls got screwed up at KIND (was expecting 5L and they gave us 14; plus they asked us to report roll-out, due to RVR). Everything else went well. Instructor said the reason I “sucked” is because I was supposed to at this point...said if I had gotten it right, he might have signed me off for my check ride, LOL!!

I did figure an “aha” after today’s debrief. From 100 hrs in my plane under VFR, I had my power settings memorized for pattern work - level Flaps 0 and 500 fpm flaps 20. I know em in my sleep and CFI knows that. Those settings don’t work at 90 knots and flaps 10 level before FAF and 500 fpm after FAF. Duh. No wonder I’m fighting the GS, which gets me distracted. CFI noticed me fighting yoke and power today because it was NOT subtle. So simple, yet needed some blatant display of ineptness and debrief discussion for it to click. I’ll do some power setting practice at flaps 10 next time I’m up VFR by myself.

My next training flight is in 17 days...ima suck bad.
 
I did pretty well in my IR training, once things started clicking. One thing that helped a lot was that I did it over the winter, and there was so much IMC that I didn't often have to actually use a hood.

I had the check ride from hell and passed it. For starters, the home field ILS was NOTAM'd out of service and I didn't know about it until we were already in the plane ready to go (bad start.) Secondly, winds were 20 gusting to 30 (try doing a hold in that wind.) The first go around I corrected in the wrong direction. The second I figured it out and he decided I knew what I was doing. Then there was the direct crosswind landing after a circling approach that I nailed. In all, it took almost three hours.
 
455 Bravo Uniform said:
182. White arc starts at 95. I’m at 200 agl when the foggles come off and 90 kts.

VFR I’ve been 80 on downwind, turning final at 70, and short final 60.

My last dozen landings have been instrument approaches, until today, which was VFR. I forgot how to land slow.
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To agree with many other posts, one thing you will forget while learning to fly IFR is how to land an airplane. And don't feel too bad about having trouble holding altitude. I needed a re-ride for my IR as I got too low on a non-precision approach and the DPE properly failed me.

Be aware of where you are. I remember on the ride that while doing the ILS approach I had the needles centered and had IDed the localization when the 430W was telling me to go back to an point on the approach that was behind us. I told the DPE that I had messed up the button pushing, but was established on the approach. He agreed and we continued on. Situational awareness is critical.

Remember Captain Ron's advise when you are taking your ride. Remember the first rule of Italian driving - what's behind me doesn't matter. Your DPE must tell you when you fail and as long as he doesn't, you're golden. That final approach to landing was great. I kept reminding myself of what Ron had posted and knew that as long as I didn't screw up the landing, I had my IR. Just remember the point above, you will forget how to land an airplane while learning to fly instruments. :p
 
Has anyone’s IR taken a year to complete?!

Started Nov 5 2019.

Took about 2.5 months off in the spring due to COVID-19 restrictions (CFI-I following his flight school’s rules), and then 1.5 months in the summer due to the annual and some additional squawks awaiting a part.

So between time off and rebuilding proficiency twice, coming up on a year now. About 50 hrs IR training, with about 5 actual. Hoping for checkride next week though!

Thanks again for everyone’s help here!!
 
455 Bravo Uniform said:
Has anyone’s IR taken a year to complete?!

Started Nov 5 2019.

Took about 2.5 months off in the spring due to COVID-19 restrictions (CFI-I following his flight school’s rules), and then 1.5 months in the summer due to the annual and some additional squawks awaiting a part.

So between time off and rebuilding proficiency twice, coming up on a year now. About 50 hrs IR training, with about 5 actual. Hoping for checkride next week though!

Thanks again for everyone’s help here!!
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It takes what it takes, as long as you get it done. :) Good luck!
 
rav said:
20 hours in, my holds suck :(
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I sucked at them all the way until I realized I needed to find a way to teach them. A lot more than 20 hours! Beats me how I ever managed to do it right on the checkride! I could find a way to screw up the simplest direct entry. Then one day the light came on (no it wasn't' magenta!) and all the problems disappeared at once.

It's a common rant from me but the "standard" way holds are taught is far more complicated than holds actually are. There are plenty of tips and tricks out there, some of which work better than others, depending on how your brain processes information. My best advice: Get an instructor who knows how to teach holds from a simplified situational awareness standpoint and spend 15-20 minutes with them and a whiteboard. They will teach you what a hold actually is and work with you on the best way for you to visualize it in the cockpit.
 
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