Actual Instrument

This comes as an extension to my last post and something that has always kind of bugged me with the requirements for a private pilot. On the last XC flight I did we ended up landing at our 2nd airport, filed and picked up an IFR clearance back to GFK because of a low layer of clouds that was coming in. Taking off we entered the clouds at around 1,000' agl and were in the clouds for approximately 2,000' before breaking out on top. We flew the entire flight above the clouds and re-entered them shooting an ILS approach into GFK, which the student flew.

Now I usually have the student do instrument work on the third leg but it's usually under the hood. This turned out better than I could have wanted. Sure, while your under the hood you aren't supposed to be able to see anything else but there are subtle hints as to how you are doing. Peaking out the sides, having the hood a little too high so you can see out the front, or even the shadows on your legs and control panel as you maneuver. The difference with being in the actual conditions is now that you have none of these to rely on and actually have to trust your instruments.

So why does this topic come up? Well the requirements for a private pilot to get his rating include 3 hours of flight by reference to the instruments, actual or simulated. Sure this is good, but considering the amount of deaths that occur because private pilots get into clouds and loose directional control is it enough?

Looking back through my logbook, after all of my flights getting my private, instrument, commercial, multi, instructor, and instrument instructor ratings guess how much actual instrument time I had. 5 hours! 5 hours! Now take a private student who might only have 3 simulated hours of instrument time, put them in an airplane by themselves and in the clouds is this enough training? Possibly, if they just did there 3 hours recently, but what about the private pilot who hasn't flown instruments for the past 2 years? Now what?

I know it isn't always possible but I believe it would help if there was a requirement for actual instrument time during your private training. If not your private training the for sure during your instrument training.

Hopefully my next post will be about some of the exciting future options for pilots!