What goes into Instrument Training?

[WDD]

I think I have this right. But I probably don't.

Instrument rating requires 50 hours of cross country.

So basically every flight you have with your CFI will be 50 miles out and 50 miles back.

You take off, put the goggles on, do what the CFI tells you, and then at the destination airport do some sort of landing procedures. When you get low enough (IFR minimums?) you take goggles off, land, take off, goggles back on, fly back to home airport, etc.

Your 50 hours of cross country are covered by all of the instrument training.

So...... how close to reality is this?

(And somewhere along the way, you have to study and pass the written test).

 

[iamtheari]

You need:

50 hours cross country as PIC, of which 10 must be in airplanes (for the airplane instrument rating, that is)

40 hours actual or simulated instrument time

15 hours of training with a CFII, of which 3 must be within 2 calendar months before the check ride

250 nm IFR cross country with a CFII, meeting specific approach and airport requirements

Passing score on written test within 24 calendar months before the check ride

CFII endorsement to take the check ride

You can combine some of these. But not all of them. For example, you can’t be PIC on an IFR clearance size the 250-mile cross country doesn’t count toward the 50 hours. But if you are low on hours, you can find a private pilot friend to be your safety pilot and fly 50 hours of PIC cross country time, spending 40 of those hours under the hood for simulated instrument time, and knock out those two items. It probably won’t make you a good instrument pilot to do that, but it will get you across the finish line on these hours.

I only recall taking two flights with CFIIs that were cross country. One was the 250-miler (we flew almost 600) and the other was just for fun. Mostly, we took off, flew a couple hours of maneuvers and approaches under the hood at nearby airports and at home, and then landed at home. I had logged my 50 cross country PIC hours by traveling.

 

[DoubleD]

The 50 hours of cross country PIC for the IR isn't "instrument training", it's to ensure that you have at least some level of experience planning and flying beyond the local area. You will get some x-c PIC on your PPL cross countries. Surely you will have flown some x-c after PPL. The instrument rating requires some x-c, but most of your time will be spent learning to control the aircraft by reference to instruments and flying approaches. Very little "50 miles out and 50 miles back".

 

[midlifeflyer]

I think I have this right. But I probably don't.

Instrument rating requires 50 hours of cross country.

So basically every flight you have with your CFI will be 50 miles out and 50 miles back.

You take off, put the goggles on, do what the CFI tells you, and then at the destination airport do some sort of landing procedures. When you get low enough (IFR minimums?) you take goggles off, land, take off, goggles back on, fly back to home airport, etc.

Your 50 hours of cross country are covered by all of the instrument training.

So...... how close to reality is this?

(And somewhere along the way, you have to study and pass the written test).

The hours 50 cross country is not 50 hours of training, instrument or otherwise. Most pilots, unless they are in a great rush, accomplish most of that just flying. $100 hamburgers, just exploring new sites, flying to the beach.

Every instructional flight being a cross country would actually be counter-productive for most. The nature of the beast is that the flying part of instrument training is very approach intensive. That's mostly local, not flying long stretches of straight and level. A misprint seems to work best for most.

 

[RingLaserGyroSandwich]

I was part 141 but once I was fairly solid on the ACS skills we switched to filing IFR for >50nm round robins every flight. It gave me good practical IFR experience while supervised from the right seat, but is probably uncommon for part 61.

 

[WDD]

Great insights - I had the process wrong.

Sounds like I need to spend this year flying X country to get those 50 hours, and then kick into instrument training.

The training will be flying with the CFI to the local practice area, putting goggles on, and doing what not. Practice landing approaches, holding patterns, and other things beyond my limited knowledge of what constitutes instrument skills and tasks.

So, between where I am now and Instrument Rating, I'm looking at:

50 hours or so VFR X Country
25 -30 ? hours with CFI
10-15 hours with a safety pilot or a simulator? (I'm assuming BTW simulator time doesn't count toward PIC time LOL).

All in all about 100 more hours. Sounds about right?

 

[iamtheari]

Great insights - I had the process wrong.

Sounds like I need to spend this year flying X country to get those 50 hours, and then kick into instrument training.

The training will be flying with the CFI to the local practice area, putting goggles on, and doing what not. Practice landing approaches, holding patterns, and other things beyond my limited knowledge of what constitutes instrument skills and tasks.

So, between where I am now and Instrument Rating, I'm looking at:

50 hours or so VFR X Country
25 -30 ? hours with CFI
10-15 hours with a safety pilot or a simulator?

All in all about 100 more hours. Sounds about right?

If you look at accelerated instrument rating programs, they usually have prerequisites to begin their courses. The typical requirements are a passing score on the written test (use a self study program or ground school to get the test authorization) and about 20-30 hours of PIC cross country time. An independent CFII might want to see about the same.

 

[midlifeflyer]

Maybe maybe not. Go through some of those requirements again. Take the time to understand them. You may already have some of them. And there aren't pluses between the requirements.

50 hours PIC cross country. If you got your private pilot certificate yesterday and hate flying anywhere beyond the traffic pattern, you have at least 5 of them - your student solo cross countries if all you did was the absolute minimum.

Add to that the required 250 NM dual cross country required for the rating and you are probably up to 8-10. Plus, your instructor may well include an extra cross country or so if they feel there would be a training benefit. Those count toward both the 50 hours cross country and toward the 15 hours of instrument training.

 

[WDD]

Good points. I'll go home and look at my log book summaries.

Still looking at a minimum 80 hours or so though from this point. This puts it all into perspective, and helps with planning the up coming year.

Do Instrument student typically spend a lot of time on the simulator? Really odd question - besides being cheaper than tach time, what's the upside?

 

[Larry in TN]

Really odd question - besides being cheaper than tach time, what's the upside?

*IF* the CFII uses the simulator effectively, it is a more efficient, controlled training environment that allows you to concentrate on learning concepts, procedures, and practicing skills without the distractions and inefficiencies involved in an actual flight.

 

[luvflyin]

I think I have this right. But I probably don't.

Instrument rating requires 50 hours of cross country.

So basically every flight you have with your CFI will be 50 miles out and 50 miles back.

You take off, put the goggles on, do what the CFI tells you, and then at the destination airport do some sort of landing procedures. When you get low enough (IFR minimums?) you take goggles off, land, take off, goggles back on, fly back to home airport, etc.

Your 50 hours of cross country are covered by all of the instrument training.

So...... how close to reality is this?

(And somewhere along the way, you have to study and pass the written test).

 

[denverpilot]

Do Instrument student typically spend a lot of time on the simulator? Really odd question - besides being cheaper than tach time, what's the upside?

*IF* the CFII uses the simulator effectively, it is a more efficient, controlled training environment that allows you to concentrate on learning concepts, procedures, and practicing skills without the distractions and inefficiencies involved in an actual flight.

Larry answered the second part. Sim can be used well or poorly.

For the first part, “a lot of time”... not really. The entire rating doesn’t take “a lot of time”.

??? Perhaps define what you mean by “a lot”. ???

Many have answered with the pre-requisites and hour minimums, but the question posed was what is involved in it.

You’ll find that in the ACS and the Instrument Flying Handbook.

Free to download...

 

[murphey]

Good points. I'll go home and look at my log book summaries.

Still looking at a minimum 80 hours or so though from this point. This puts it all into perspective, and helps with planning the up coming year.

Do Instrument student typically spend a lot of time on the simulator? Really odd question - besides being cheaper than tach time, what's the upside?

More important than trying to summarize the IR, go read, in detail, 14 CFR 61.65 then download the Instrument ACS FAA-S-ACS-8B, which you can find here:
https://www.faa.gov/training_testing/testing/acs/
Don't forget to download all the test guides and supplements for the instrument from here:
https://www.faa.gov/training_testing/testing/

 

[WDD]

Appreciate all the comments. The ACS is one thing, but knowing what the overall journey is to get there is helpful with planning on what I'm doing this year. The ACS tells you a lot, but doesn't tell a person how he/she goes about the training and getting the requirements.

 

[Jim Carpenter]

Along with what everyone has said above, IMHO, the number one factor to efficient instrument training is frequent lessons. I recommend to instrument students, to schedule and budget a minimum of 2 lessons a week, with 3 or 4 per week, at least, or more if desired, even better. I'm not talking about the intensive 10-day immersion programs, that's another method, but just average lesson scheduling. It's do-able for the once a week student, but it takes much longer, and costs more, many lessons taken up with review time and regaining the skill level met at the previous lesson. And, the usual one a week routine, doesn't end up that way, weather, maintenance, personal reasons that may cancel a lesson, then the next, then the next, pretty soon, it's been 3 weeks, and you're starting way behind.

 

[WDD]

Ah.. good advice. Think of it as similar to getting the PPL. Schedule 2 -3 a week, knowing you'll get 1-2 probably. Probably will be April before I could train. I work full time and they for some reason expect me to be in the office, so until the day's get longer, I'm stuck with flying only on the weekends. But I still have the problem that I need to get X country hours. I wondering if I'll have time to get those hours by July / Aug. At which time I won't have enough days with enough daylight to do the instrument training.

Maybe fly VFR X Country this year, do the classes and instrument written this end of this year, and IFR training starting April 2021.

 

[Pugs]

Ah.. good advice. Think of it as similar to getting the PPL. Schedule 2 -3 a week, knowing you'll get 1-2 probably. Probably will be April before I could train. I work full time and they for some reason expect me to be in the office, so until the day's get longer, I'm stuck with flying only on the weekends. But I still have the problem that I need to get X country hours. I wondering if I'll have time to get those hours by July / Aug. At which time I won't have enough days with enough daylight to do the instrument training.

Maybe fly VFR X Country this year, do the classes and instrument written this end of this year, and IFR training starting April 2021.

For some timeframes. I did all my cross-country time required from PPL in May to Dec before I started instrument. Your solo X/C student time counts so it's not hard to get to 50 and it's a great amount of fun picking spots on maps and going to them alone (or with your spouse or a buddy). Jan-April I did my instrument training. I had some vacation in there, my instructor did too and likely lost a month due to that. Lost some due to mid-Atlantic winter weather but scheduled 2-3 times a week generally. Coordinated the DPE early so I had no delay waiting.

However, virtually all I did in that instrument training was train. I don't think I did a single go fly for fun flight.

 

[WDD]

This real world experience is exactly what I find helpful - appreciate the advice!

 

[MacFlier]

In my case, I've "double-dipped" on some XCs by having a safety pilot, so I can log XC PIC time and hood time. Sometimes, we're flying on an IFR clearance so it's great practice.
I do sprinkle some VFR XC time because, like others said, it's important from an experience perspective and also to keep VFR skills sharp as well.

 

[denverpilot]

Appreciate all the comments. The ACS is one thing, but knowing what the overall journey is to get there is helpful with planning on what I'm doing this year. The ACS tells you a lot, but doesn't tell a person how he/she goes about the training and getting the requirements.

Great point and sorry to start at the ACS, but lots of pilots don’t start there.

All CFIIs I trained with would go over their typical plan of action and frankly, there were similarities but none was identical. (I started and stopped the instrument at least three times over many many years.)

I think you’ll get some good commentary from the -II rated instructors here, but you’ll really have to mini-interview your local ones to truly know how they approach it. Pun intended.

I’d say for busy non professionals to look for:

An instructor who:

Has access to a good sim and likes using it when appropriate but isn’t married to it if the student has basic instrument control down already. Most students don’t but some do from other work or attempts to get the rating done.

Has availability. Go as fast as possible through this one as time and funds allow. Concentrated training and practice back to back pays off. You’re connecting body to brain in a new way, so a regular workout is really good. Same holds true after the rating is earned.

Does things by the numbers. By this I mean teaches basic control and numbers first. Building blocks. If a student can immediately set a power setting and configuration for whatever is thrown at them ... “500 ft/min descending left turn, 90 knots”... without having to think about it at all, using that skill to fly approaches becomes far easier. If the student provides the aircraft and it’s not a common rental, filling out a cheat sheet with power settings and such for various common maneuvers is the first flight. Not approaches.

And do the flying in an aircraft equipped as close to what you’ll actually fly in the soup as possible. Save the GPS buttonology transition and flying different types for after the rating and some time getting the ticket wet. Don’t learn how to play baseball and then play hockey. It just adds time and frustration. That said if you can’t and have to transition, get the rating then hire them to do a solid transition. Just do a full IPC and sign it off. Doesn’t matter if it’s only been a month since the rating checkride.

Along those lines, the age old debate about steam vs glass crops up. I do think steam is harder and will result in more easily transferable skills to glass — but — if all you’re ever planning to fly is glass, fly glass.

(The caveat here being if you’re headed into commercial flying, learn steam. You WILL be flying steam somewhere most likely. Then glass. Learn both but start on steam. Controversial, but my opinion. Take it or leave it... there’s still a lot of old junk in the commercial fleet. This goes for older vs newer GPS systems too. There’s a lot more Garmin 430s out there than 600/700 touch screens, commercially.)

There’s a few to chew on. Maybe think of some more later.