FAA Recends AATD Direct Final Rule

[SpiceWeasel]

I did my instrument training outside of Riddle. When I came back to Riddle I had the whopping sum of 10 hours actual. When I overheard instructors bragging to each other about their 1.2 actual in 3-4 times as much flight time as I had, I just had to shake my head.

I never saw a cloud at ERAU.

 

[killbilly]

I have made it a standing order with my CFII that if we have actual we can fly in, we're going flying in it. It's too damned cold lately here to do that with the icing risk, but when it gets warm enough, even if it's after my IR ticket, we're going flying in the soup. I WANT actual.

 

[KSCessnaDriver]

I did my instrument training outside of Riddle. When I came back to Riddle I had the whopping sum of 10 hours actual. When I overheard instructors bragging to each other about their 1.2 actual in 3-4 times as much flight time as I had, I just had to shake my head.

I never saw a cloud at ERAU.

The only rating I did at ERAU was my instrument ticket, and I must have got lucky with instructors, as we'd go IMC. Heck, even the first flight of the syllabus, we went IMC, landed on 7L at near minimums.

 

[SpiceWeasel]

The only rating I did at ERAU was my instrument ticket, and I must have got lucky with instructors, as we'd go IMC. Heck, even the first flight of the syllabus, we went IMC, landed on 7L at near minimums.

7L???

Oh you went to the "other" Riddle. Meh.

 

[JustinS]

to say a simulator does not feel real? I actually had students in the airplane reach up to find the pause button after being in the Sim for a while and had a student cover his face and go in the brace position in the Sim when he forgot to turn at the FAF resulting hitting a mountain.

The sim is a great trainer for things you would never do in a real airplane. I've had a student flying partial panel (no big fancy G1000 attitude indicator or speed/altitude tapes) pancake the plane in the sim into the ground because he misread the altimeter while descending down to the MDA. It was a very eye opening experience for that student about the importance of properly reading round dial altimeters AND on a side note having the proper altimeter setting put in.

How many of the puppy mills don't even allow for flights in IMC? I know when I did my instrument ticket at riddle in 2008, only a handful of instructors would even consider taking a student in IMC.

I find this surprising. Where I teach, the company has minimums of 400' and 1SM. Anything less then that we won't go, but those minimums are plenty to get some good actual experience. I've got about 20 hours of actual while teaching at the school. I'll get actual whenever I can!

Even in the late '90s the aversion to allowing students (even with instructors) in actual IMC was starting to become prevalent. Most of the Part 141 schools were starting to prohibit it (along with other stupid rules like providing a list of only a few approved airports for cross countries). So you won't let them practice in a sim, and you won't let them practice in real IMC, so the only thing left is foggles or a hood? Yeah, that's ideal.

After reading @KSCessnaDriver 's comment, and your comment I feel lucky to teach at the 141 school I teach at. We're not restricted by a list of airports. If the airport complies with Part 141's requirement for what an airport must have, and the runway length meets the calculated required runway length, we'll fly there. Furthermore as I said above we can do all sorts of IMC, the only limiting factors are ceilings or visibility below company's minimums, embedded convective activity, or icing. My favorite is flying night IMC in the twin on a cross country. Nothing but clouds then descending through the soup until you break out to see runway lights in front of you. It's such a cool feeling!