Instrument Flying

Any instrument-rated pilot who “grew up” before the mid-1990s probably still shakes their head at the way GPS navigation has revolutionized the way we fly IFR. If, Rip van Winkle-like, that same pilot awoke today after a 20-year snooze, he or she would find many different responsibilities and procedures have resulted. The same is true for someone whos been flying IFR all along but is just now making the upgrade to an IFR-certified GPS. What different rules, techniques and pilot responsibilities do you need to know? How has the workload changed, and are those changes for the better? While no one, including me, would seriously advocate going back to the “old ways” of flying IFR, we also must acknowledge that with the additional capabilities and accuracies of GPS come new and different ways of getting from Point A to Point B, along with skills, techniques and responsibilities for which we might not be trained or prepared.

Where you are, droning along in IMC, when suddenly youre almost on top of the final approach fix and havent planned for the procedure, much less set up the cockpit. How are you going to get safely from the FAF to the runway? It doesnt really matter why you find yourself here. Maybe you spent too much time at altitude without oxygen and it suddenly dawned on you where you are and what you need to do. Maybe the right engine just committed harikari and is dangling from the wing. Maybe a passenger needs urgent medical assistance. It doesnt matter. The problem is youre about to shoot an approach for which you havent briefed yourself or configured the airplane. What are you going to do

Since so much emphasis is placed on approaches during the typical instrument students training, its unsurprising practicing the takeoff into IMC receives little attention. Thats more than a little unfortunate, since the instrument takeoff-especially the zero-zero takeoff-can be much riskier. For our purposes here, well define the instrument takeoff as one in which the aircraft will be in IMC before reaching the lowest altitude specified for crossing the final approach fix of a published procedure for that airport. Well define a zero-zero takeoff as one where the aircraft enters IMC before reaching DH or MDA on a related approach. Often, of course, the zero-zero takeoff is just that: The crew can see neither the end of the runway nor a definite ceiling, and must transition to instruments when the wheels leave the runway. The challenges posed by either procedure arent immediately obvious to those who havent experienced them, which is another reason for greater attention during initial instrument training. Takeoffs are always a busy part of any flight, arguably more so than landings. The aircraft is accelerating, for one, and gathering energy that must be dissipated before stopping if theres a problem. Too, panel gauges, especially mechanical gyros, behave in ways further complicating instrument flight when they are accelerated from a standing stop to climb speed in a few seconds. Various procedures necessary during a takeoff and departure-raising the gear and flaps, for example, or setting power-can wreak havoc with a pilots concentration and the aircrafts trimmed attitude. And it is during the initial climb in IMC when any errors in setting the aircrafts configuration are discovered, at exactly the wrong time for something to be done about it.

Up until about 10 years ago, I was a typical private pilot. Id built up about 1000 hours over 30 years of flying and even managed to add an instrument rating after about four false starts and uncounted times passing the written. I flew as much as 150 hours a year and as little as 10 years between flights. But I kept the passion, the interest, and continued vowing that someday Id actually fly as much as I wanted. Does this story sound familiar? It probably describes a great number of us. Stuff happens. Finances, work, family and other recreational pursuits-life-all get in the way. Yet, somehow, we find a way to keep flying, if perhaps not as much as we might like and certainly not as much as we should. This can create some interesting currency challenges. Consider an all-too-common scenario. A typical instrument-rated private pilot mentioned above finds theres a thin layer between cruise altitude and the destination. Our bold pilot tries to recall all his recent instrument operations and concludes that legal currency is, well, past. Continuing a bit further looking for a hole in the layer, he finally concludes there isnt one. The layer began about 50 miles back and fuel projections raise concern about making the additional 100-mile round trip to get under the layer. Now what? Well, in defense of our friend, the forecast didnt call for the overcast, so this isnt a clear lack of planning. Its not uncommon to fly above a layer and find it has disappeared as you near your destination. Of course, the opposite is true as well. Obviously, there was an opportunity to prevent this problem by simply ducking under the layer when it appeared. But, that raises the whole specter of scud-running for 50 miles-a notorious killer of pilots and destroyer of airplanes. None of this helps the present situation, though, of being on top of a solid layer, not being instrument-current and not having enough fuel to comfortably get under it.

Congratulations! Youve just passed your instrument practical test. A significant achievement, requiring much more discipline and learning than even the private pilot exam. Or maybe youve held your instrument rating for a while, but youve never developed a plan to improve your skills. You may have even let your skills erode in some areas, to the extent you couldnt pass every task if you had to retake the practical test today. Unfortunately, most pilots get handed the proverbial “license to learn” by a pilot examiner, then dont really know what to do next except “go out and fly.” To avoid aimlessness or atrophy of your instrument skills and the life-threatening danger aimlessness breeds, first ask yourself what type of flying-personal transportation, time-sensitive business flying, etc.-you plan to do. Commit to a goal, whether its simply maintaining your skills at basic IFR levels, advancing beyond your current capabilities, or aiming for airline transport pilot standards. Then map out a program for the next 100 flight hours to develop and hone the necessary skills. Emphasis should be on safety, aimed toward what you want to do with airplanes. Be serious, but keep it interesting, challenging and fun.

Theres no question ours is an era of great advances in safety and position awareness. Its the rare IFR airplane that isnt equipped with at least a portable, moving-map GPS; theres not an IFR-certified airplane in production that doesnt include a GPS-driven “glass cockpit” as at least an option-one thats almost always added. The capability of GPS comes with great complexity. There are very different operating interfaces with units from competing manufacturers. Its a little surprising, then, that pilots seem to make the same errors and omissions pretty much regardless of the unit involved. What are these common GPS errors? What can we do to avoid them? David Zitt is the Flight School Manager of Sportys Academy, the flight instruction arm of Sportys Pilot Shop in Batavia, Ohio. He and his instructor staff work exclusively in GPS-equipped airplanes, some with full “glass cockpit” panels but most conventional round-gauge airplanes meeting the definition of Technologically Advanced Aircraft (TAA) through the installation of moving-map GPS. Zitt notes that “each [GPS] unit has its own pitfalls,” but finds common pilot mistakes regardless of the type of GPS installed. Prime among them is “instrument fixation” during the transition to TAA flight, a focused stare and excessive concentration on which button to push when the pilot is not completely familiar with the GPS used.

The Boeing 737 collided with 75-foot high electronic transmission cables, approximately 7000 feet short of the runway. The crew had been flying a Runway 27 localizer back course approach when the first officer misidentified street lights on a stretch of interstate highway along the east airport perimeter, thinking the lights were part of the runway environment. The FOs callout influenced the captain to continue below minimums for the approach and into the power lines. The crew executed a missed approach and recovered successfully at a former military airfield. No one was hurt. The NTSB found several errors that contributed to the mishap. For one, ATC failed to provide accurate weather information to the crew, which might have warned them not to expect visual contact with the runway environment while still more than a mile short of the threshold. Controllers also failed to vector the aircraft onto the localizer outside the Final Approach Fix and “committed other errors in handling the flight,” according to NTSB, contributing to full-scale deflection of the localizer needle inside the FAF that called for a missed approach the crew did not make before impacting wires. Further, an FAA inspector conducting an en route inspection of the flight from the 737s jump seat did not inform the crew of the errors they were committing in the planning and execution of the approach. Ultimately, however, NTSB found the crews lack of approach planning, which among other things would have helped them visualize the type of approach lights to expect and when in the approach to expect them, was the probable cause of the crash.

The standard missed approach is designed around a 200 ft/nm climb gradient. The minimum rate of climb youll need to maintain this gradient depends on groundspeed. For pilots of most IFR airplanes, these climb rates are easily achievable, but if your airplane is heavy, the density altitude is high, or youre laboring with reduced engine power you may have to decide before ever beginning an approach near minimums if youll have the climb capability to miss the approach if needed. In fact, the minimums for many approaches, especially in hilly or mountainous terrain, are driven not by obstacle clearance requirements for the approach inbound to the airport, but the requirements for terrain or obstacle clearance for the missed approach. If there are towers or hills under the missed approach segment you may not be permitted to descend as low prior to the missed approach point as you would be allowed to otherwise. At the minimum 200 foot per nautical mile climb rate (below), youll be two miles from the point you initiate climb before youre 400 feet above your lowest altitude. Theres a lot going on in the first two miles (the first 400 feet) when trying to climb out from a gray hole close to the unseen ground, so you need to properly manage this transition time to safely begin the missed.

Most turbine airplanes have three-screen panels, with a PFD for both front seats. In the event the pilots-side PFD dies he/she is expected to continue using the PFD on the other side of the airplane, although the option of manually selecting PFD information on the center screen always exists as well. Pilots brought up flying traditional round-gauge IFR might not even consider the reversionary mode to be “partial panel” at all. This valuable feature makes partial panel flying easy…if the partial panel results from failure of the PFD hardware. Because it is an important advance in ease of flight in the case of primary flight instrument failure (i.e., those directly in front of the pilot), it gets top billing as a safety advantage of glass cockpit airplanes. Except for a little parallax (viewing the instrument from the side, not head-on) everything is exactly as it normally appears for the partial-panel flyer, and all functions (including the autopilot) remain fully operable. The biggest difference is that large-scale moving map, engine and fuel management, checklists, charts and other functions are relegated to a small window in the corner of the most recent-model MFDs when in reversionary mode, and are not available at all in some earlier installations. Pilots who grow too dependent on these functions, or who eschew paper checklists and navigational charts in favor of electronic versions on the “big screen” will find themselves outside their comfort zones in the event of a PFD hardware failure.

We have a love-hate relationship with cockpit gadgets. On one hand, were strongly in favor of anything that simplifies aviating, navigating and communicating. On the other hand, weve too often seen people get caught up trying to make the gadget work while ignoring the airplane. In the end, we (and our wallets) always have yearned for some kind of inexpensive all-in-one magic box to simplify cockpit chores. Garmins latest GPS portable, the GPSMAP 696, comes about as close as weve seen. Its not perfect, its definitely not cheap and it occupies a lot of space in what might be cramped quarters, but the sheer volume of features and the ease with which they can be accessed pretty much demand anyone shopping for a portable GPS navigator take a close look at the 696. Moreover, having one of these in the cockpit might save what otherwise could be a very bad day. Lets look at what those safety features are and how they work.