One last comment and then I’ll go away. I still enjoy taking a student from zero hours logged through their private ticket. But today I spend much of my time transitioning pilots up in equipment and sometimes riding along as insurance on some actual IFR, helping them with those first few baby steps after they get their instrument rating.
I’m amazed at how much they have forgotten and lost in the way of basic airmanship skills. Today’s aircraft availability at many of the good FBO’s and clubs in my area have more sophisticated panels then I had available to me in a B727-400 back in the day.
I have them file an IFR flight plan for a round robin and include in the comments Training flight, CFI onboard. I remain dead silent in the right seat as they get the environment ready, request clearance copy and read back . Program that autopilot/flight director , I just watch as they prepare for takeoff. Off we go.
I watch their eager faces as they make that initial contact with ATC and watch them switch on the autopilot just as we are about to penetrate IMC. That’s when I fail the autopilot right after plunging into an overcast and it doesn’t take very long that they are far behind the aircraft, lost with no idea what to do in actual IMC on an IFR flight plan and less than 5 miles from the airport that they just departed from.
Depending on what they do next determines whether or not the flight continues. If they can’t articulate a plan within 10 seconds, I take control and request a return to the airport. Just to shame them I fly needle ball and airspeed with one VOR for the approach to our home base.
Those that have the plan I allow to continue the round robin hand flying the aircraft to our first stop and approach, We have lunch and I let them fly us back home using all their toys.
You would be surprised with the number of guys that are IFR rated pilots that have no business in actual IMC.
Today’s aircraft are truly automated wonders but if you plan to fly IFR you had better be able to take manual control at any time and fly an approach to minimums, if you can’t do that, you have no business in the airspace system and one day you are going to kill yourself and anyone else on board.
You bring back a lot of memories! That is the way I used to help new instrument rated pilots get their IFR legs also. I agree with you, there are a lot of people who have no business flying IFR, except those who fly often enough or do regular training sessions with an instructor!
But, unfortunately, humans being humans, they are going to "mess' up every once in a while.
I once heard a guy in a Piper Apache call Atlanta approach for radar vectors to McCollum field at Kennesaw, now mind you, it was IfR from 1,000 AGL to 15,000 that morning and the guy said he was VFR at 8500! Can you even guess how many pilots on that channel when to max pucker factor in that instance? (I was one of them)
