Instrument training is a “rating” to be added to our license. You already know how to fly. You know if you pull back it goes up, push forward it goes down and all the rest of the control problems. What you don’t know, if you don’t have instrument training, is how to move the aircraft from “inside” the aircraft, not outside. It is not about flying, it is about procedures. P-r-o-c-e-d-u-r-e-s.
We see instrument students that come to us late in the training or after failing a check ride and they need to get to the root of the problem. We start an evaluation process to see what they know. In almost every instance, we see a pilot who never got the basics. They are moving the simulator around without any idea why, what or where they are going. It goes back to the beginning, attitude instruments. So what happened?
The beginning of instrument training is all about placing the plane in a position based on what is in front of the pilot. Consistent and stable climbs. Stable standard rate turns. Speed changes with turns to heading and climbs built in. All of this has to be done to perfection and done without thinking about it. It has to be automatic. Until the pilot can do this, nothing else can take place. I repeat, until the pilot can move the plane on the gauges to perfection and do it in all phases including partial panel, you don’t go to the next step.
Anyone who has been in the military knows it is drill, drill and drill. Do it over and over and over until you can do it to perfection. Can you do it in the airplane? Yes you can. Can you do it in the simulator better, quicker and cheaper? Absolutely!. Simulators are for procedures.
You can do twenty (20) hours of simulator instrument training in high end training devices. Not only can you get the basics, but you can get all the procedures done in the simulator faster, easier and cheaper than you can in the plane. That is truth to training in a simulator for your instrument rating. And did I mention you can do it in bad weather and without a hood? We can evaluate you and tell you where you are as a pilot before you hit the wall and can’t figure out why you are not getting it.