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TRAIN IFR IN THE AIRPLANE YOU
FLY.
Caveats:
1. know the airplane inside and out before
you start your IFR.
2. have your basic airwork skills honed in
that airplane before you start your IFR.
If you're behind the airplane VFR, you'll be
even farther behind IFR, but if you have it well under control in visual
conditions, the transition should be relatively smooth. If you need to
start out in something more docile to get the flow of scanning and
basic IFR headwork, for gosh sakes, do it in a simulator. You don't even
need an instructor for that. Use Microsoft Flight Simulator or Xplane
if you don't have access to a complete flight simulator. All you
need is to get the hang of using the instruments to make
the airplane go where you want - it doesn't much matter what simulator it
is. Then the only thing added in your glass rocket is airwork and
speed. If you've attended to the above caveats, this won't be a
problem.
The military puts its pilots into the
instrument program in high performance airplanes and they do just
fine. No reason why you can't do the same.
One respondent says some folks aren't meant
to be IFR pilots -- that's certainly true, but most of those folks aren't meant
to be Lancair pilots either. If you have the eye-hand coordination to fly
one of these slippery devils well, there is absolutely zero reason why
you can't learn to fly it IFR.
Another says he wouldn't fly IFR without two
engines, or where there is any risk of ice, etc. Often times the second
engine is only there to get you to the scene of the crash. Usually that's
in a takeoff situation where all the engines you've got are stressed to the
limit - the most likely time for them to break. That's the time when
having two engines can be a negative. While the airplane is heavy,
close to the ground, slow, nose up, if one engine quits, it's damned difficult
to keep the airframe flying. By many accounts, that's the situation where
it's better to be a glider than to have one engine that's about to turn you over
on your back. I'm not an NTSB investigator, but I've hung around airports
since I was a kid, and I've seen quite a few fatal twin crashes on takeoff with
an engine failure.
Single engine airplanes fly just fine in IFR
conditions; the engines don't stop running just because they encounter the
clouds. A healthy respect for ice is a wise approach, but our airplanes
will fly just fine with a bit of that stuff on them. If you do encounter
it, keep the airplane clean and keep the speed up. Find a long runway to
land on. Try to find one that has warmer temperatures, so the ice will go
away before you have to put down the gear.
While caution and moderation are valuable
attitudes for pilots, I find it disturbing to hear so much fear and trepidation
spread about regarding IFR flying and ice encounters.
Regards,
John Barrett
Barrett/Garrett Enterprises, Inc.
PO Box
428
Pt. Hadlock, WA 98339
www.carbinge.com
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