Russels Aviation IFR Adventure..

[jrh]

To answer the original post, I don't know anything about Russels Aviation specifically, but I'm a big fan of accelerated long cross country training for IFR. It is the most realistic form of training possible.

Speaking from personal experience, I wasn't comfortable flying IFR cross countries when I first earned my ticket. I could shoot approaches all day, but I hadn't learned the "big picture" of instrument flying in the real world. Getting a lot of IFR XC experience would have prevented that.

Only thing is you also got to feed and house the cfii, and pay the examiner $400 bucks on top of that.

Well, the examiner gets paid no matter what, so I don't see how that factors in to the style of training.

As for the cost of feeding and housing the CFII, two points I'd like to make.

First, I don't think it's any more expensive. My day rate is $294/day + expenses. Let's say we do a seven day trip. That's a flat rate $2,058 + expenses. Let's say we stay at moderate hotels with a continental breakfast, spend $6 for lunch and $14 for dinner, you're looking at an average of $100/night for lodging and $20/day for food. That's $840 for the week. Throw in $100 for some extra charts and we're looking at $3000 total for the whole week.

Compare that to training locally. It's entirely possible to spend 61 hours with an instructor throughout the rating. That's, say, 36 hours flying and 25 hours briefing/debriefing/prepping for the oral. At my rate of $49/hour, that's $2989 total...almost identical.


Second, let's suppose it does end up being an extra $1000 to take a trip for a week versus staying in the local area. If the whole rating costs $8000, we're talking about a 12% cost increase. Is 12% worth the fun you'll have seeing most of the country, doing something completely unique, and having the confidence to go fly hard IFR, any time, anywhere, after you're rated? To me it would be, but everybody has to decide that for themselves.

 

[bdhill1979]

Speaking from personal experience, I wasn't comfortable flying IFR cross countries when I first earned my ticket. I could shoot approaches all day, but I hadn't learned the "big picture" of instrument flying in the real world. Getting a lot of IFR XC experience would have prevented that.

:yeahthat:

I was in the same boat, my students wont be.

 

[youngflyer]

You make a good point jrh. The one thing I don't want to do is putter around with my instrument rating.

 

[DPApilot]

Yeah man, i flew to florida, logged 22 TT 15 simulated and 5 actual, shot a crapload of approaches and it was only 2500 including hotels (motels haha) and food.


and that was with my cfii friend!

 

[bdhill1979]

You make a good point jrh. The one thing I don't want to do is putter around with my instrument rating. Someone else told me the problem of these courses is not seeing a long enough period of the ifr world with the accelerated courses. Anyone know what he meant?

my problem with "accelerated" courses is that there is no room for the student to "take it in", to mentally process what it is they are doing and why it is important.

Sure I can fly you 8 hours a day under IFR and do 8 approaches and cross a few states, but if it is more than your brain can process all you are doing is padding the log book.

I also see a lot of "canned" flight plans. Because you are so hurried the course has one pre made. Flight planning is one of the most important skills to develop as an IFR pilot, and when you are handed a flight plan, that kind of defeats the purpose.

 

[jrh]

Someone else told me the problem of these courses is not seeing a long enough period of the ifr world with the accelerated courses. Anyone know what he meant?

Might have meant all of the experience comes during one season as opposed to seeing spring, summer, fall, and winter weather patterns? If that's the case, I agree on one level, yet if training is spread out over three or four months, the student is still limited in the weather they're seeing.

Other than that possibility, I don't know.

 

[jrh]

my problem with "accelerated" courses is that there is no room for the student to "take it in", to mentally process what it is they are doing and why it is important.

I agree. I've found the best way to do accelerated training isn't to slam it all in to the pilot start to finish at the same time, but instead use accelerated training to complete the bulk of a rating that has already been started.

For instance, with an accelerated instrument rating like this, I would want the pilot to have the written exam completed, 6 or 8 hours of basic attitude flying and holding patterns with a CFII, and 10 or 20 hours of solo cross country experience completed before showing up for the trip. This would lay a lot of solid groundwork at a relaxed pace...build up a tolerance to flying under the hood, get them familiar with all the procedures, etc. Then the cross country is only used to teach the real world applications for everything.

I also see a lot of "canned" flight plans. Because you are so hurried the course has one pre made. Flight planning is one of the most important skills to develop as an IFR pilot, and when you are handed a flight plan, that kind of defeats the purpose.

Again, I completely agree. But that's a function of the specific course, not the concept of accelerated cross country training itself.

I wouldn't fly more than 5-6 hours/day during a course like this, and there'd be no pre-made plans. If you start at 8 a.m., plan/brief for 2 hours, fly for 3 hours, stop for lunch, then repeat the cycle again, you'll be ending the day at about 6 or 7 p.m. with only 5-6 hours of flying. That's plenty.

 

[bdhill1979]

I agree. I've found the best way to do accelerated training isn't to slam it all in to the pilot start to finish at the same time, but instead use accelerated training to complete the bulk of a rating that has already been started.

For instance, with an accelerated instrument rating like this, I would want the pilot to have the written exam completed, 6 or 8 hours of basic attitude flying and holding patterns with a CFII, and 10 or 20 hours of solo cross country experience completed before showing up for the trip. This would lay a lot of solid groundwork at a relaxed pace...build up a tolerance to flying under the hood, get them familiar with all the procedures, etc. Then the cross country is only used to teach the real world applications for everything.



Again, I completely agree. But that's a function of the specific course, not the concept of accelerated cross country training itself.

I wouldn't fly more than 5-6 hours/day during a course like this, and there'd be no pre-made plans. If you start at 8 a.m., plan/brief for 2 hours, fly for 3 hours, stop for lunch, then repeat the cycle again, you'll be ending the day at about 6 or 7 p.m. with only 5-6 hours of flying. That's plenty.

:yeahthat:all of it

 

[youngflyer]

For instance, with an accelerated instrument rating like this, I would want the pilot to have the written exam completed, 6 or 8 hours of basic attitude flying and holding patterns with a CFII, and 10 or 20 hours of solo cross country experience completed before showing up for the trip. This would lay a lot of solid groundwork at a relaxed pace...build up a tolerance to flying under the hood, get them familiar with all the procedures, etc. Then the cross country is only used to teach the real world applications for everything.

I would come into the program with all of that. As with the canned FP's, wouldnt they make you plan it on your own anyways? I know I would much rather do that than have them handed to me..... I guess that is something to look into..