Instrument Written

I

ilove747s

New Member
Two quick questions. What is the best way to study and prepare for the instrument written (software if you recommend it)? And should I take the written before I start my instrument training or right before the checkride?

One of my buddies just attempted to take the written and was scoring in the 90% range on the practice tests but failed the actual test with a 68%! What a bummer.

Thanks!
 
I always thought the King videos were good preparation for the test. Go ahead and prepare for it and take it now. The more 'book work' you do before you start flying, the more brain cells you can spend on building your situational awareness and learning how it all applies in the real world. Particularly with instruments, if you fly without acquiring the necessary knowledge beforehand, you're wasting alot of time and money. Maybe it's because they hammered us on this point in military flight school, but you really should be able to 'chair fly' every detail of every maneuver/procedure you're going to do in the airplane before you even leave the ground--you'll master it much more quickly and there will be less review and remediation required.
 
The videos are very helpful (e.g. Sporty's IFR)- you might want to supplement your books with them.
 
ilove747s said:
Two quick questions. What is the best way to study and prepare for the instrument written (software if you recommend it)? And should I take the written before I start my instrument training or right before the checkride?

One of my buddies just attempted to take the written and was scoring in the 90% range on the practice tests but failed the actual test with a 68%! What a bummer.

Thanks!
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I highly recommend this product. If you plan on continuing further just buy the 'Takeoff Bundle' so you'll have all your commercial and instructor writtens included in the package as well.

FYI, if you're planning on continuing on and getting your instructor ratings you can take your CFI-I and IGI writtens at the same time as you do your instrument written; it's all the same question bank.
 
ilove747s said:
Two quick questions. What is the best way to study and prepare for the instrument written (software if you recommend it)? And should I take the written before I start my instrument training or right before the checkride?

One of my buddies just attempted to take the written and was scoring in the 90% range on the practice tests but failed the actual test with a 68%! What a bummer.

Thanks!
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You can't beat this company. I used them in '77 for my instrument and scored in the high 90's. I've sent others to their weekend seminars in the last couple years and everyone likes their events.
 
I am a HUGE fan of the Jepp Instrument and Commercial book. It is a blue hard back cover and a tad on the expensive side but great reading and illustrations. Try looking online for a used one.

Also, your training will progress much faster if you get the written done before you start your flying. Best of luck.
 
I'm currently doing the King instrument course. Martha and John are highly annoying, but I'm learning a whole lot as it's very informative. :)
 
The jepp instrument/commercial book is good. I used the sporty's free practice tests and exams4pilots.org's tests to prepare for the exam.
 
Ajax BU said:
The jepp instrument/commercial book is good. I used the sporty's free practice tests and exams4pilots.org's tests to prepare for the exam.
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:yeahthat:

I just take tests on sporty's and exams4pilots.org until I am consistently in the upper 90s. I have used them for every written so far (7 now) and they have not failed me yet with my lowest actual score being an 87.
 
I forgot to mention that the Sportys site only includes private, instrument, and commercial. Also, since their tests uses some sort of scripting it isn't too stable and sometimes it will randomly close; which is really a pain if you are almost done with the test or if it is in the grading process--this happened to me several times :mad:

Exams4pilots, is much more stable and I've found that the results are just as consistent as the sportys tests. I just used it to prep for my FOI, and it worked really well.
 
Want to get 100%?

Get the Gliem book or software. Answer all the questions 3 times. Then go back over all the questions that you missed. If you miss them again, go over them again.

Especially for the instrument written, I wouldn't start studying until after you start flying. The flying gives you the motivation for the studying.
 
Get on sportys study buddy, and study until you're consistently getting 100% on the practice tests, like 4 or 5 in a row, then take the test. That's what I did, and I got a 98% on my instrument written.
 
Gleim book. I toted mine around so in less than a year that it was literally falling apart by the time I took the test. The Sporty's online practice tests are really nice, but be careful that you don't click on ANYTHING outside the little popup test window when you're taking it because it will close the test and you'll have to start over. Nothing more frustrating than that happening when you're on question 59.
 
get the Instrument Gleim, I used the different gleims from private pilot all the way to commercial multi, they are super easy to use and have tons of FAR info as well as practice tests, they are also pretty cheap to pick up.
 
freeflyer said:
Especially for the instrument written, I wouldn't start studying until after you start flying. The flying gives you the motivation for the studying.
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It doesn't really matter when you do it, or what your score is for that matter (other than making sure you pass, which means you'll probably do better than 80%).

You do want to actually know this stuff, so get copies of the Instrument Flying Handbook and Instrument Procedures handbook and read them, hit the Sporty's practice tests, and take it once you are doing about 85% on those consistently.

You might as well do it before you start flying, but hey, I did mine a week before my checkride :)
 
drunkenbeagle said:
It doesn't really matter when you do it, or what your score is for that matter (other than making sure you pass, which means you'll probably do better than 80%).
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Maybe it doesn't matter to some people what they score on the exam, but it is sure nice to walk into the checkride with a 100% report.

I have also seen some jobs that require a copy of all your score reports.
 
Jshutt64 said:
I'm currently doing the King instrument course. Martha and John are highly annoying, but I'm learning a whole lot as it's very informative. :)
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I've gotta to say I've met them a couple of times on the ramp. Just pilot to pilot and they are really nice people. They love GA as much as anyone I know. Once they were flying their jet. Last month just a Cessna 172 on a $100 burger run. They are really down to earth people.

I've never seen their videos as my last rating was earned in 1978.
 
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