We’ve got new material for the Instrument student who is looking for an easier way to learn real life IFR procedures!
Our new IFR training e-lessons include:
Aircraft Control for Instrument Flying talks about IFR Scanning and Correction Techniques that will help you stay ahead of the airplane by showing you how to anticipate deviations and correct for them before they happen while flying in IMC. Knowing how to anticipate and fix deviations before they happen will reduce your workload and make flying IFR much easier. Learn about straight and level flight, constant airspeed climbs and descents, turns, airspeed and vertical speed control and more.
Holds is an e-lesson that breaks down IFR holds into steps you can understand! Visualizing holds and hold clearances will be much easier for you. You’ll learn how to enter holds without difficult calculations. You will also learn about published and non published holds, holding at intersections and over VOR’s, wind correction, time correction and more.
IFR Clearances and Radio Communication talks in detail about how to pick up your IFR clearance on the ground or in the air, at airports with & without a control tower. It covers various different methods so you don’t get stuck wondering what to do. You will also learn how to communicate with ATC, Tower Controllers and on the CTAF with examples of exactly how you need to say it. It will also cover clearance void times, valid times, clearance on request and hold for release situations.
IFR Emergencies and Instrument Failures explains in detail many different dangerous scenarios that could happen to you while flying IFR. It will teach you exactly what you need to do when things go bad while flying IFR. Learn how to recognize instrument and equipment malfunctions, and anticipate how their failure will affect what you see and do to maintain control of the plane. You will learn how to recognize all the warning signs and maintain control with vacuum failures, gyro instrument failures, electrical failures, pitot static, icing and more.
Managing Single Pilot IFR Approaches discusses the details of what you should be doing and planning during your IFR flight to help you stay ahead of the plane by properly managing your workload. You will learn how to anticipate what the controller will say to you before he says it and to visualize where you are easily. Reading back approach clearances and setting up your approaches will be much easier for you.
Preparing for your IFR Flighttakes you through everything you need to check in preparation for an IFR flight, where to find it and why it is important. You will learn how to choose a destination airport, how to choose an alternate airport, things you need to know before taking off or landing at an airport from a legal and a safety standpoint, Stars, DP’s, Obstacle clearance requirements, weather requirements, etc.
Low Altitude Enroute charts Covers commonly seen and used symbols and information during IFR flight that will help Instrument Students to be able to interpret what they see easily.
IFR Approach Plates and Approach Types discusses the many different things you will see on Precision & Non-Precision approach plates such as: MSA, DA, MDA, VDP, Circling & Straight in Approaches, Missed Approaches, Procedure Turns, Transitions, Feeder Routes, IAF, IF & FAF & More. Covers things you need to know at a glance that will keep you safe while doing an approach.
If your current Instrument training material isn’t explaining things in enough detail and you need steps that take you by the hand and walk you through the process, then this is for you!
You have faa.gov weather publications and can find weather charts on aviationweather.gov but do you understand aviation weather good enough to make safe, “go/no go” decisions as a pilot? General aviation pilots preflight weather planning and decision making is important to your safety.
Aviation Symbols and Abbreviations
The first step to learning weather is to learn to read the weather charts. There are many abbreviations and symbols on aviation weather charts and if you don’t know what they say, then how can you analyze the weather properly? Learning aviation symbols and abbreviations takes time but it must be done. There are many FAA weather publications out there as well as private publications addressing weather symbols, abbreviations and charts. You won’t remember every single one, especially the ones you will never use or see such as dust storm if you live in the Midwest, but you should know quite a bit.
The Problem With Weather Information
Once you have a good knowledge of aviation weather symbols and abbreviations you will be able to look at the charts on aviationweather.gov or other weather sites and know what information is on them. Knowing what information is on them and knowing what they mean or how it affects you is different. The problem is that most aviation weather books out there are all the same. They explain things very technical, boring and hard to understand. That’s great for passing a written test with boring technical questions that need an answer, but it would be nice to know what it means in real life.
Learn to Anticipate Weather
In order to make good weather decisions as a pilot, you have to know how things can affect you. You have to be able to anticipate what will happen and know whether a weather forecast could change or how reliable it is. Do you cancel, just because there is an airmet for possible thunderstorms or snow in the area? Do you fly if it’s marginal VFR? You have to know the legal limits of whether you can fly to help in your decision making but just knowing the limits isn’t good enough. If the ceiling is 2000′, are you legal to fly? You may think to yourself “I can fly as long as I’m 500′ below the clouds and I have 3 miles visibility because I’m in class E airspace”. That’s great, you know the legal limit, but is it ok to do? Can it be done safely? Should you attempt it or cancel? Most publications don’t talk to you about this.
Options to Learn to Make Safe Go/No Go Decisions
It takes years of experience, comparing actual flight conditions with the weather forecasts and hands on experience to start getting real comfortable with it but there are ways you can get a head start. You can pay an instructor $30-$50 an hour to walk you through detailed steps of analyzing weather. Start reading weather charts and forecasts and comparing actual weather to forecast weather to see how accurate it is. You should know the risks and how they affect you. These are all good ways to start. Your instructor can help you with this but there are many people out there that can’t afford to pay an instructor for more hours of training so they choose to study at home to save the money. I’m all for home study as long as you are dedicated and the material is easy enough for you to understand.
An Easy Way to Learn Aviation Weather Decision Making
I know there isn’t much out there to choose from for real life thought processes to help you in your aviation weather decision making and I see students struggle with it all the time so I have written and e-book explaining things with easy to understand, simple steps to understanding how to make weather decisions. You will learn all about different types of weather and what it means to you in real life terms. You will learn what weather is dangerous and why. Do those icing airmets or snow showers affect you and if so, how? You will learn that too. It’s written in a format to help avoid all the confusion and take out all the technical terms. You still have to know what information the chart is showing you by learning the symbols and abbreviations but the rest will become very clear if you read this e-lesson. I haven’t seen anything like it and I’m sure it will really help you to understand, make safe decisions and to feel more confident in your choices. For the price of less than 30 minutes of instructor time this is a perfect solution to learning how you really need to think to make safe weather decisions.
Only $14.95
Eliminate confusion with simple steps to easily understand aviation weather
I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it for you. I’d love to hear how it has helped you, please let me know.
As in any relationship, communication is key to resolving problems. If you’re considering leaving your flight instructor for another, then there is obviously a problem. For example, if your instructor is too hard on you, let them know how you feel. This will usually resolve the problem. Sometimes instructors get comfortable with their students and think that just because they can talk and joke with their students that their students will understand them as well as their friends do. They then become relaxed to the point of getting harder on their student as if they are close friends, letting their professional guard down. I’ve seen it with many instructors and have done it myself. Sometimes there’s truly a friend connection but other times the students take offense to it.
When a student takes offense to it, they usually just leave. The instructor is sitting there totally confused and wondering what happened, thinking how well they got along and feeling betrayed after getting along so well. I can say from my perspective that if I knew I was offending someone, I would feel terrible. I would want my students to communicate any feelings with me right away so I can be sure they are happy. If you’re a student who feels mistreated in any way, just talk to your instructor about how you feel. If they continue, then leave. If they stop for awhile and then all of a sudden start again, it could be because they are feeling comfortable around you after having flown with you for several lessons and really care about how you are doing and are just being too passionate about it. No instructor wants to hurt or offend anyone. We became an instructor to help people, not hurt them. Sometimes you may just want to remind them again that something is offending you. Why leave on a bad note if something could have been resolved with a simple conversation. If it continues, then of course you should leave.
If you’re having problems learning to fly
There are always problems when it comes to learning to fly. No one gets it perfect every time and everyone has problems with some part of learning to fly. As a flight instructor, if you’ve tried everything you can think of to teach someone to do a flight maneuver and they are still having problems, don’t be afraid to let them fly with another flight instructor to see if they can think of something you may have missed. You’re not giving up your student, you are just letting another CFI see if they can figure out the problem.
Many students don’t realize how much is involved in learning to fly and quickly become overwhelmed. When they do, they struggle to advanced and instead of understanding that it is a normal part of learning to fly, they quit (thinking that it is too hard and they will never be able to learn) or blame their instructor and change instructors. If you are a flight student and are getting frustrated, please understand that it is normal and it will pass. Don’t be so hard on yourself and don’t be so quick to blame the instructor. Give it time and understand that it is normal. Some flight students take long and some catch on fast. Everyone learns at their own pace.
Your flight instructor is not prepared
If your flight instructor is not prepared and doesn’t seem to know what they are talking about, then leave right away. You want someone that knows what they are doing to help you become the best pilot you can be. Not every flight instructor knows every answer to every question but if they don’t know the answers to many questions, it’s time to leave. My personal focus is on safety and knowledge. I want my students to have the ability to handle anything that comes their way.
I’m a believer that being honest, open and understanding will solve most of these issues but if one person isn’t then it creates an uncomfortable situation that can be easily avoided. If you have a particular situation that you don’t know how to handle, either as a student or an instructor, send me an email and I’d be happy to help in any way I can.
I haven’t been posting much recently but that doesn’t mean I’m not listening to your feedback or watching what is going on! There seems to be 3 popular subjects that I hear quite a bit about that people would like to see added to the site. One is instrument flying stuff. The site was originally designed for students or new pilots but I’ve noticed many experienced pilots visit too. Those pilots and private pilots would like to see some posts or training on instrument flying. Feel free to comment and let me know what you’d like to learn with IFRflying.
Real World Cross Country Training
Many pilots out there have never flown far from home because they are nervous about doing so. They’re weak in aviation weather, flight planning or navigation in general so they never leave their local area. Some are unsure of how to plan a long trip or don’t know how to handle things along the way when stopping for fuel or overnight due to weather.
I’ve been asked if I’ve thought about actually offering real world VFR or IFR cross country training. This is an internet business so I had never really thought of it but I do love flying and after thinking about it, I thought it probably would be fun to do. I do love teaching people after all. I am considering adding this to my site as an option for plane owners. I would offer either a day trip or an overnight option with detailed training covering every aspect of planning and flying cross country. I’d really like to hear more feedback before I work on adding this to see exactly what you would want to get out of it.
Flight Instructor Help
I have to say, I was very surprised to see that many of the people that have bought my flight training products are Flight Instructors. Flight instructor training is important too. As a flight instructor, you should always keep up on the latest technology and look for ways to help your students understand better. I’ve done very well and had great success with my students pass rate. There are many new flight instructors out there with limited experience that are still unsure and are looking for better ways to do things. They are still trying to figure out how to handle a certain situation or student and don’t have the experience to figure it out.
There are also older, more experienced flight instructors that don’t teach regularly and don’t know all the new regulations. They also don’t realize how tough things have gotten since they got their license many years ago. There may be experienced flight instructors that teach regularly but just can’t figure out how to get the message through to their student. Any way you look at it, instructor are always learning.
These are some of the reasons instructors are buying my flight training products. Most of the flight training materials are dry and hard to understand. I know I teach different than that. I try to make things more visual and easy to understand. I’ve had good luck with it so far. As a matter of fact, I just had an instrument student pass his check-ride yesterday and the examiner said that he was very well prepared. She said that she doesn’t see applicants come in that often that were as well prepared as my student was. I focus on what seems to work with most.
Due to all the CFI’s out there buying my stuff, I am considering putting together a coaching program of some kind to help you with real world flight instructor training. It won’t be the same old boring FAA technical stuff. It will be designed to help you pass all your student with no problem. They will be better, safer pilots because of it and the examiners (yes, even FAA) will love you for how well you prep your students. If you’re as tired as I am of all the poor pilots being put out there, then my goal is to help you make a difference. I’d love to hear from flight instructors, whether this is something you’d be interested in. This would be a very time consuming project to work on but if you guys really want it, I’d put something together and I’d try to keep the cost as reasonable as I could.
For you guys that are uncomfortable flying into control towered airport, here’s a video for you.
Hopefully you will feel a little more at ease after watching this when you realize that there really isn’t much to flying to a towered airport.
Now don’t laugh because it’s my first real attempt at making a video. I was really nervous making it and I felt really weird talking to myself but hopefully you’ll like it. There are controls in the lower right corner to raise the quality of the video and make it full screen if it’s too hard to see. Sorry if it’s too long, I will try to make them shorter!
Please leave a comment below and share this with your pilot friends if you like it. Thanks!
We have a contest going on until August 31, 2012 for the best and most complete answer from a student pilot or new pilot. See details on our Facebook page and “Like” our page while you’re there. Read the details to make sure that sure you meet the requirements to qualify. Thanks and good luck! SEE DETAILS ON OUR FACEBOOKPAGE HERE
UPDATE: A winner was chosen today (September 1, 2012) See our Facebook page for details of who won and why!
Brand New IFR Student Training Material!
I haven’t been posting much recently but that doesn’t mean I’m not listening to your feedback or watching what is going on! There seems to be 3 popular subjects that I hear quite a bit about that people would like to see added to the site. One is instrument flying stuff. The site was originally designed for students or new pilots but I’ve noticed many experienced pilots visit too. Those pilots and private pilots would like to see some posts or training on instrument flying. Feel free to comment and let me know what you’d like to learn with IFR flying.