It’s not often a new craze sweeps the aviation nation, but over the past couple of years just such a phenomenon has taken hold at airports large and small across the country and, increasingly, around the world. The IMC Club is, just as it sounds, a club that provides a fertile ground for pilots to gather and discuss what IMC Club founder Radek Wyrzykowski calls “the art of instrument flying.” As we at Flying know all too well, the subject is one that needs little additional fanfare, and with the IMC Club, there isn’t any. There are now almost 50 chapters around the world, and the monthly meetings at any one of them consist simply of the gathered aviators talking about the subject, usually by way of a suggested topic. One meeting it might be hold entries, the next it could be missed approaches. It’s an idea that will probably sound like dull times to nonpilots and like high entertainment to those of us who love flying on the gauges.
The idea for the club came to Wyrzykowski soon after he completed his instrument training and realized that, in his words, “the instrument rating wasn’t a license to do anything.” Instead, he concluded, “you learn from other people as you go.” Wyrzykowski said he was so moved by the uncertainty he faced as a new instrument pilot that he started doing research and soon learned that more than 70 percent of new instrument pilots never actually use their rating. They are, in his words, orphaned by the process, with nowhere to turn.
