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Trcpilot

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Cjayfly1
Just curious to see what was the average dual time you received for the instrument rating? 15 dual hours seemed super low even for the minimum.

After receiving a few lessons, did you go out and safety pilot right away?

Thank you!
 
I’ll check my logs. It was more than that for me. I didn’t start using a safety pilot until it was more to practice approaches from a flying and procedural standpoint.
I was competent at flying portion safely when I started using a safety pilot to practice. But did need a lot of radio work practice and approach planning practice.

i was fortunate to have a fair amount of IMC time in my training as my CFII insisted on taking advantage of crappy weather.
 
Trcpilot said:
Just curious to see what was the average dual time you received for the instrument rating? 15 dual hours seemed super low even for the minimum.

After receiving a few lessons, did you go out and safety pilot right away?

Thank you!
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I can't recall a single successful applicant out of a couple hundred IRA practical tests which didn't feature 100% dual received for all of the simulated/actual instrument time as opposed to 15 or so hours.
 
Working from memory, I had
3 from ppl
30ish simulated with cfii
6ish actual with cfii
1 with a "safety pilot" who was about to go for his cfii checkride and needed some teaching experience

I felt ready to go to the checkride around hour 35 or so. Before that I don't think a safety pilot would've been beneficial. Actually around hour 30 I remember saying "I don't think I'm smart enough for this". Shortly thereafter it all started coming together. He ramped up the difficulty and then the checkride felt easy. Some people may need less, but I'd bank on 30+ with the cfii as an average.
 
Looks like I did it in 20 hours (2 hours actual, rest simulated) of dual instrument instruction in my plane and 10 hours of ATC610 trainer time.

This was with the PIC ten-day course (well eight actually, I got a couple of days off for good behavior).
 
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For me I never flew with a safety pilot, just CFIIs. It took me at least 40 hours, 3 different CFII and 2 different schools. It took me over a years time as I took a summer off because I didn't want to train in the heat.

It took me 3+ months to take the checkride after my sign off because of the weather. I had to go fly with my CFII again since I couldn't get the checkride done in time. I had to cancel my checkride 3 times. My DPE said it had to be VFR to take the checkride for a IFR rating!! lol Had ice /hi winds a couple scheduled days and got it done finally a couple days before Xmas. I guess if I didn't take the summer off I would not have had the ice problem.
 
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I did 40.4 as part of a 141 school. Which was 0.4 too much.
 
Trcpilot said:
Just curious to see what was the average dual time you received for the instrument rating? 15 dual hours seemed super low even for the minimum.

After receiving a few lessons, did you go out and safety pilot right away?

Thank you!
Click to expand...
Checked logbook. 38.8 hood. 6.2 actual. All with CFII. It was a long time ago. There were no simulators then. None that I’d ever heard of anyway. Some of that would have been during PPL training.
 
Took me much more than the minimum to get my IFR rating. My goal with training after I did my initial ppl years ago has always been to be confident flying rather than just barely passable. I was upfront with my CFII about this, I didn't want to pass the check ride then wonder if I was really capable. I hit a plateau in my training that I still can't figure out to this day why it slowed me down. BUT, much more than half my training was in actual conditions. During my training I experienced low vis, low ceilings, turbulence, rain, snow, ice (fiki sr22), night time ifr, ifr departures in mountainous terrain, dodging t-storms. I gained a lot of useful experience that still helps me to this day. Sometimes the longer road is a better one IMO.
 
Like @Ryan F. 's experience, I've never had an IFR student take much less than the 40 hours all with me. In fact, although I encourage them to use a safety pilot as appropriate during certain phases of training, as far as I remember none (or at least very few) of them have actually done so to any significant amount. Not sure why, must be my scintillating wit and personality.
 
Trcpilot said:
Just curious to see what was the average dual time you received for the instrument rating? 15 dual hours seemed super low even for the minimum.

After receiving a few lessons, did you go out and safety pilot right away?

Thank you!
Click to expand...

Not the recipe for success that I used.

Taking a few lessons, and getting safety-pilot time (a.k.a. fumbling around on your own under foggles) has its own set of problems, the way I see it. I'd call it a good way to learn poor habits, or at the very least not improve. Every hour, or portion of an hour, that I spent with an instructor under a hood was time well spent.
 
I had 54.1 dual. 23 in a Redbird FMX sim and 31.1 in the plane. Of that 31.1, 6.1 was actual IMC. I didn’t do any flights with a safety pilot.
 
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Of the students I’ve trained, almost all of them were checkride ready with 40-45 hours of simulated or actual instrument time. Of those 40-45 hours, nearly all of that time was spent with an instructor.

I’m sure there are a few outliers who have passed the checkride with the minimum required instruction but I think it would be rare.
 
I did my instrument training through PIC (10 day course). I already had 5hrs (PPL) prior to starting, did 10 on their simulator, and the remaining 25 with their CFII in the plane under the hood.
 
Trcpilot said:
Just curious to see what was the average dual time you received for the instrument rating? 15 dual hours seemed super low even for the minimum.

After receiving a few lessons, did you go out and safety pilot right away?

Thank you!
Click to expand...

Outside and accelerated course and flying a couple times a week, you can figure 35-40 hours.
 
With respect to others who are far more experienced than I am, my experience differs than others. I got my IR earlier this year with 40.0 in my logbook (had to put 0.4 in the day before the checkride when I found a math error). I had about 25 hours with a CFII, and 8 of them were from more than 5 years ago. The rest were with a safety pilot.

I also did not condense my training. The last few months I would fly on average once per week, occasionally twice at the end. This is contrary to the advice that many give.

My checkride was extremely challenging, with multiple unscheduled holds (and an unpublished hold) for traffic on a high wind/high turbulence day. The airplane was simple; a Cherokee with no autopilot, a six pack, and KX-155 (GS) / Garmin 300CL. These avionics were simple but did not make life much easier. I do not think I skated by on the rating, and was very confident on the checkride.

I do not think I am a special pilot with amazing skills, but to replicate this there are a few things you should know. I've had been "working" on the rating for 7 years. I completed Sporty's ground school several times. I had the written done before I started training. I would spend a lot of time doing Pilotworkshops IFR mastery sessions and hidden IFR lessons. I listened to podcasts and read books on instrument flying. I had a home sim to run through local procedures after my lessons. And most importantly, I had a really great CFII (who just started at the airlines) who constantly pushed me to be better and never get comfortable. He had a lot of experience with actual IFR which really helped my training too. We never flew the same approach twice, and flew to tons of different, new airports. I got safety pilot hours mostly because of his availability (or lack thereof). He felt I was ready to wrap up before he went to the airlines and I wanted to make it happen.

So I think it's totally possible to do it, but you have to do a LOT of work outside the cockpit. Ideally, everyone should be doing this. If you can learn it on the ground, you are wasting time and money trying to learn it in the air.
 
samiamPA said:
With respect to others who are far more experienced than I am, my experience differs than others. I got my IR earlier this year with 40.0 in my logbook (had to put 0.4 in the day before the checkride when I found a math error). I had about 25 hours with a CFII, and 8 of them were from more than 5 years ago. The rest were with a safety pilot.

I also did not condense my training. The last few months I would fly on average once per week, occasionally twice at the end. This is contrary to the advice that many give.

My checkride was extremely challenging, with multiple unscheduled holds (and an unpublished hold) for traffic on a high wind/high turbulence day. The airplane was simple; a Cherokee with no autopilot, a six pack, and KX-155 (GS) / Garmin 300CL. These avionics were simple but did not make life much easier. I do not think I skated by on the rating, and was very confident on the checkride.

I do not think I am a special pilot with amazing skills, but to replicate this there are a few things you should know. I've had been "working" on the rating for 7 years. I completed Sporty's ground school several times. I had the written done before I started training. I would spend a lot of time doing Pilotworkshops IFR mastery sessions and hidden IFR lessons. I listened to podcasts and read books on instrument flying. I had a home sim to run through local procedures after my lessons. And most importantly, I had a really great CFII (who just started at the airlines) who constantly pushed me to be better and never get comfortable. He had a lot of experience with actual IFR which really helped my training too. We never flew the same approach twice, and flew to tons of different, new airports. I got safety pilot hours mostly because of his availability (or lack thereof). He felt I was ready to wrap up before he went to the airlines and I wanted to make it happen.

So I think it's totally possible to do it, but you have to do a LOT of work outside the cockpit. Ideally, everyone should be doing this. If you can learn it on the ground, you are wasting time and money trying to learn it in the air.
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You said “…. I had a home sim to run through local procedures after my lessons...” While that ‘home sim’ time is not logable, it goes a long way to making a lot, if not most of, your time in the air being devoted to ‘aviating’ and not as much ‘navigating.’
 
luvflyin said:
You said “…. I had a home sim to run through local procedures after my lessons...” While that ‘home sim’ time is not logable, it goes a long way to making a lot, if not most of, your time in the air being devoted to ‘aviating’ and not as much ‘navigating.’
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That's fair. I had a max of 3 hours on FSX Steam with a joystick though, it wasn't exactly a huge part of what kept my head in the game.
 
I did mine with the minimum 15 hrs w/ a CFII, the rest was safety pilot.
 
I'm planning to start the IR flight training in 4-5 weeks and plan on doing the whole 40 hrs with a CFII. I'm sure I'll have a ton of questions after the initial 15 dual, and having the CFI there to advise will be worth the extra cost.
 
Rgbeard said:
@Tom Wells - got yours going yet? Progress report?
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About to sit for ground exam. Flight training so far is minimal. My attitude indicator failed as soon as I started flight training (there's another thread on here where I ask people for help in diagnosing that...). So now my plane is in the shop getting a G5 AI installed and it should be done this week. Then flight training continues!
 
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