Questions to ask while shopping for II

WannFly

WannFly

Final Approach
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My primary CFI left (i have a feeling its because i threatened him with my intention of getting IR this year ), so i am shopping for a CFI II now. When i started training for PPL i was dumb and hadnt discovered POA so i had no idea what to ask. now that i am dumb BUT i discovered POA thought will get some collective wisdom.

here are the requirements i am thinking, tell me what i am missing
  • train as much as possible in actual or under the hood at night (haven't flow at night since little more than required PPL hrs, no PIC time at night yet)
  • fly a few approach to minimums - while i don't plan to intentionally get into minimums anytime soon, i definitely don't want to find myself in one first time all by myself
  • flying missed approach and hold in actual
  • fly VFR on top
  • record my training - my current school doesnt allow this, so i might have to a find a diff school or independent CFI, but i see the value in it. No they wont appear on YT for ya'll to judge :p

what am i missing?
 
In addition to shooting an approach to minimums in actual conditions, if possible, flying an approach that is below minimums, being able to see what that looks like, and of course going missed at that point.

A lot of my IR training was done at night, one of the flights that has really stayed with me to this day (29 years later) was flying the ILS to KSRQ one night in fog. We started out above the fog, my instructor had me take off the hood, and you could look down and see the runway and lights, then as we flew the approach, it went from nice and clear to instant pea soup. Got down to minimums, and didn’t have the required vis or runway/lights in site. Very eye opening experience.

Since we were flying out of KBOW, and the weather was good there, no worries about getting back to an airport were we could land.
 
Most people training for their IR don’t even GET any actual and you’re planning to do all your instrument training in actual? Good luck. Shouldn’t take you more than a couple years..,
 
Might be difficult to do all your training in actual. Mother Nature doesn’t usually co operate
 
Try to get as much actual time as wx will permit.

Use sims.... a lot

File and Pick up a IFR pop up over the radio

File and pick up IFR on the ground at a uncontrolled field over the phone

File get your IFR at a towered field with clearance delivery

Shoot a PAR/ASR approach

Shoot a circling approach to mins and go missed on the base or final leg

Go to a field that has no IFR approach by filing to a nearby IFR field, on the approach get below the cloud deck of say 1500 or so, and break off and fly to the non IFR field.

Ofcourse be sure to do some steep turns and stalls under the hood with your CFI, maybe even a one or two turn spin too if the plane is able

Experince a cruise clearance

Simulate landing with ice, it will be a different final speed and you won't be using flaps, ideally this is a sim flight as you could make the plane handle like it actually has ice on it, from here on out make sure you include your IOAT in your scan.


Make sure your CFII has a decent chunk of IMC time, ideally a current/retired pro pilot CFIing for fun.
 
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You can't just "order up" 200' minimums. You have to take what you get.
 
OP is in Fargo ND. He's got plenty of actual to 'enjoy' for a few more months. Yah, loads of actual in FL, and TX is a dream.

Get the syllabus. Use it. Don't go joy riding.

Maximize sim time. They won't have dual G5's, but scanning with an HSI in a good sim will be money well spent. And you can stop, rewind, restart without burning any fossil fuels. Always remember the environment.
 
Agree with the post to do a fair bit of training at night. The sun angle and shadows in the cockpit are attitude clues that are hard to ignore while under the hood.
 
I will have to start in late spring, too much icing around here this time of the year. Even in late spring, beginning summer plenty of actual opportunities


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Every practice approach should be to minimums, and some should go missed without removing foggles / hood.

Get some actual time with your CFII. Hope for some Spatial D while training, so your first time isn't by yourself.

Shoot an approach in actual with a ragged bottom, and practice transitioning from instruments to visual and back. Doing this one time with raggedy bottoms and virga really helped me.

Now go fly some at night! It's too late for tonight, but how about tomorrow night? And for God's sake, leqve the pattern. You don't need a 50nm XC, but go look around, see some things and come back to land. Speqking of which, since it looks like our murky weather is finalky breaking up (it's been a long 2 or 3 weeks), it's time for me to get night current again.
 
I agree with most of these...I don't do circling approaches...well I haven't in thirty plus years = my company had a 1000/3 min for them and we considered them an emergency procedure...CAT D aircraft. You want to confuse an airline pilot? Give them a cruise clearance...again most of us haven't done or even heard of them in years...Honolulu to Kona at night and we were asking like "when can we start down and the controller is like "you stupid airline guys"...under his breath of course. Understand Climb and Descend VIA Stars and Sids...
Steep turns..ok...stalls...I don't know...spins...your dead. (just kidding)

A retired pro/airline pilot is an excellent idea if they are teaching for the fun of it. I am working on reinstatement now just for that reason. Central Texas is great this time of year for IFR weather.
Stay steady on your training and don't let big lapses in time occur. Sweet talk your butt off and try to fly with some local charter/corporate guys when the weather is down.

Nothing beats sitting next to an old timer and just watching and listening to them fly the weather. I told my F/O's, I don't care how close you get to a thunderstorm...on the upwind side but do not get closer than 20 miles on the downwind side. And if you ever get to fly in weather with a radar...remember this...one peek is worth a hundred sweeps. I would find myself begging for a lightning flash to illuminate the big stuff that wasn't flashing.

Spatial D = worst case of vertigo I ever experienced was a clear moonless night taking off to the west from LAX and making a turn to the left. Pitched up into a star filled sky with lights from the north and south shorelines all started rotating. I was hand flying and I yelled to my F/O..take the airplane I have vertigo and he said "I do too"...my next words were Autopilot on. We both had to close our eyes and then really look at the instruments to get it back but by then we were headed east and all was well. Keep the airplane in trim and let it fly sometimes.

Use the controls like your holding a baby...gentle.


James331 said:
Try to get as much actual time as wx will permit.

Use sims.... a lot

File and Pick up a IFR pop up over the radio

File and pick up IFR on the ground at a uncontrolled field over the phone

File get your IFR at a towered field with clearance delivery

Shoot a PAR/ASR approach

Shoot a circling approach to mins and go missed on the base or final leg

Go to a field that has no IFR approach by filing to a nearby IFR field, on the approach get below the cloud deck of say 1500 or so, and break off and fly to the non IFR field.

Ofcourse be sure to do some steep turns and stalls under the hood with your CFI, maybe even a one or two turn spin too if the plane is able

Experince a cruise clearance

Simulate landing with ice, it will be a different final speed and you won't be using flaps, ideally this is a sim flight as you could make the plane handle like it actually has ice on it, from here on out make sure you include your IOAT in your scan.


Make sure your CFII has a decent chunk of IMC time, ideally a current/retired pro pilot CFIing for fun.
Click to expand...
 
I just relocated to Portland OR and find myself in need of an IPC. It has been shocking to me that it's really hard to find a CFII who is current up here.

I'd start with THAT question. I'd have thought PacNW was full of good instrument sticks, but it's proving difficult to find someone who can even read an approach plate to me.. Scud running expertise par excellence abounds, however -- but I don't play that way anymore. After asking about 12 dudes around the airport, I had 3 recommendations for "the local IFR wizard" who I ended up retaining.

The tip to fly at night is excellent. I did that for my training, and man, it will give you many of the spooky "where am i, wtf am i doing?" sensations you need to learn about.

Actual in winter may involve ice. Make sure your CFII isn't fresh out of one of the mills and will keep you guys out of it. Find one of the old crudgeons at the airport with a gozillion hours to take you underwing "for fun". Ply him with rich foods, wines, and cash stacks. He'll be invaluable to you.

I didn't use a simulator for my training, and I bounced between three wildly different aircraft for my training (C172SP+G1000, 172RG, Bonanza S35). I was actually happy to have done it that way, but it DID lengthen my training time significantly. The slower planes are harder to get approaches right in (more time to F it up), but the fast planes make you ace on enroute procedures, vectoring, and in-flight holds/clearance readbacks since you need to think so far ahead of the thing.

Get a rack of safety pilots to fly with you if you can. Practice helps, the more the better.

Remember to have a little bit of fun -- but of all of the ratings you might undertake, I feel that IFR is the one you want solid, bulletproof training on. Skimp on Commercial as cosmic payback, but get the IFR nailed down right the first time.

$0.02

- Mike
 
If you want to do as much training in actual as possible, ask your prospective CFII how much actual his students get with him, on average. There can be a few reasons why a CFII does very little training in actual. It's a common belief that it's always because they're afraid to, or unwilling, but that is not necessarily the case, and asking a CFII only whether he's okay with training in actual may miss the other possibilities. My first CFII was a professional CFI whose livelihood depended on not standing his students up unless it absolutely could not be avoided. He would never take the chance of needing to divert to a field with an ILS and hitch a ride back to home base, so he had hard and very limiting minimums for going up in the soup.

Of course, if you're based somewhere with an ILS, that may not apply; but I would still ask the question in terms of his experience with students on average rather than whether it is something he is willing to do.
 
Definitely look for someone who will train you in IMC, and who has experience. My instructor did a good job, but we he was only a few months out of ATP. I actually got more tips from my CFI (who wasn't an II but had quite a bit of IMC time) when he acted as my safety pilot. (In fact, most of the IMC time I got during training was with him.) I only got to shoot four or five approaches in IMC, and only one was even close to minimums, but always with bits of visibility to the ground on the way down, which helped a lot.

Here are some examples of why I wish I would have gotten more time in IMC during training:

Days after I got my rating, we had heavy fog at my home drone in the early morning. I went up, expecting to shoot the ILS down to minimums. (Ceiling was 300ft) Unfortunately, the wind changed after takeoff, and they reversed runways, which meant that the only approaches available were GPS approaches, whose minimums were above the current ceiling. I shot the approach down to 400 ft, during which I could see nothing. Scared the crap out of me. I ended up going to an alternate and shooting the approach there and landing to wait out the fog at my home field before returning.

About 2 weeks after I got my ticket, I went for a short cross country, purposefully to make an entire flight in IMC. It was a route I flew regularly VFR, so I was familiar with the airspace and the approaches. I even forced myself to leave the autopilot off and hand fly. It was not fog, but rather regular clouds, with a ceiling of about 800ft. I was at 3,000, and being bounced a bit. I remember struggling as they changed my approach 3 times, and I had to scramble to keep re-briefing my approaches and resetting my avionics. I remember thinking "what the hell am I doing up here?" I made it through, and landed successfully, and even made the flight back in IMC. (But without the constant changes to my approach.)

Both were great learning experiences, but I really wish I had gone through them with an instructor in the right seat, as I probably would have learned a lot more.
 
Rykymus said:
Definitely look for someone who will train you in IMC, and who has experience. My instructor did a good job, but we he was only a few months out of ATP. I actually got more tips from my CFI (who wasn't an II but had quite a bit of IMC time) when he acted as my safety pilot. (In fact, most of the IMC time I got during training was with him.) I only got to shoot four or five approaches in IMC, and only one was even close to minimums, but always with bits of visibility to the ground on the way down, which helped a lot.

Here are some examples of why I wish I would have gotten more time in IMC during training:

Days after I got my rating, we had heavy fog at my home drone in the early morning. I went up, expecting to shoot the ILS down to minimums. (Ceiling was 300ft) Unfortunately, the wind changed after takeoff, and they reversed runways, which meant that the only approaches available were GPS approaches, whose minimums were above the current ceiling. I shot the approach down to 400 ft, during which I could see nothing. Scared the crap out of me. I ended up going to an alternate and shooting the approach there and landing to wait out the fog at my home field before returning.

About 2 weeks after I got my ticket, I went for a short cross country, purposefully to make an entire flight in IMC. It was a route I flew regularly VFR, so I was familiar with the airspace and the approaches. I even forced myself to leave the autopilot off and hand fly. It was not fog, but rather regular clouds, with a ceiling of about 800ft. I was at 3,000, and being bounced a bit. I remember struggling as they changed my approach 3 times, and I had to scramble to keep re-briefing my approaches and resetting my avionics. I remember thinking "what the hell am I doing up here?" I made it through, and landed successfully, and even made the flight back in IMC. (But without the constant changes to my approach.)

Both were great learning experiences, but I really wish I had gone through them with an instructor in the right seat, as I probably would have learned a lot more.
Click to expand...
Not sure you would have learned "a lot more", but you would probably have more positive memories of them now. My first solo IMC was kind of scary too -- I launched for a short flight into local airspace to shoot some familiar approaches, but under conditions -- in mid-winter -- that were forecast to rapidly deteriorate to below freezing in just a couple of hours. At one point I scared myself into thinking I was picking up ice, but probably wasn't (it was warmer both below and above the altitude I was at, so if I was, it didn't stick for long). In the end I made a wise decision to refuse the approach at my destination that ATC offered me, expecting (correctly) that it would not get me in, and asking for an RNAV approach with LPV minimums instead. The return flight was a little more relaxed even though I knew I couldn't afford any delays, and I shot the RNAV into home base, broke out a few hundred feet above MDA, and landed uneventfully.

I think "memorable" first solo IMC flights are the rule rather than the exception. It is, after all, very much a "first" that everyone has to face and go through, very much like your first solo as a PPL student, except that after the IR you are flying it on your own ticket. It would be unusual, I think, to not have some part of that first flight get your pucker factor up a little... maybe even more than a little. The most important thing is to use what you learned in training to make good decisions, and err on the side of safety, if at all.
 
James331 said:
That's the type of II I would avoid.
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My CFII was an airline pilot going back to school full time for a midlife career change--she eanted to be home more. Having flown commuters across PA, she had pretty good instrument skills, and even knew many of the VORs around us in WV.
 
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