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!

Cross Country Flight

First off I would like to thank scheets for being the first to comment on my blog. It really means a lot and motivates me to know people are reading what I'm writing about. So nothing to exciting to write about tonight so I figured I would talk about how I like to do my first XC flight with a private pilot student. Having done quite a few of these I've kind of got it down to a science and have a way that flows really well.

First off the XC flight consists of three legs. For the one I will talk about the last XC flight I did departing Grand Forks(ND) to Warroad(MN) to Hallock(MN) and back to GFK. Each leg on this particular flight was relatively the same length with the longest being the first leg which works out very well, allowing me to really get a lot of teaching in during the first leg.

So for any VFR pilot there are multiple ways to navigate, pilotage, dead reckoning, VOR's, GPS, or NDB. I've found that it works best to start off the cross country using pilotage. Pilotage is basically drawing your course line on the VFR sectional and the picking out prominent landmarks along that route. So departing Grand Forks we start out by first getting on your course heading and trying to find our first checkpoint, usually within 5-10 miles from the departure airport. After we find this point you fly over, to the left, or to the right of that landmark according to where your course line is. After that you work on flying your magnetic heading and start looking for your next landmark. If you can see your landmarks easily pilotage is the easiest form of flying, all you have to do is fly to your next point.

This leg is the perfect time to get your student using the E6-B to figure out groundspeeds between checkpoints, estimated times to your next checkpoints, estimated time in route to your destination and estimated time of arrival at your destination.

The second leg is where I like to bring in the concept of dead reckoning, using whatever means necessary to navigate between point A and point B. In our airplanes I like to teach this using the CDI needle and GPS distances to figure out when your over your checkpoints. This is a perfect opportunity to give your student some experience navigating using the CDI needle and GPS. Again another great opportunity for the student to use the E6-B to figure out all of the above mentioned items.

The third leg is where I really like to tie in dead reckoning with a real world situation. I also usually use this leg as an opportunity to get some simulated, or in the case of this flight, some actual instrument flying experience. So after we take off I will have the student put on the hood as soon as we are established on your course. Now I usually say something like "Okay, well now that we can't see outside how the heck are we going to know when we reach our checkpoints?" Hopefully they remember what they just did on their last leg and will use the CDI needle to keep us on course and the GPS(or DME) to figure out when they are over their points.

This is just one way of millions to accomplish a XC flight and one that I've found works, and flows, really well for me. Thanks again to scheets and I hope you all enjoy what my experiences. I've got a few more story ideas to write about and more and more come to me(usually while I'm in the air!)