Easier than you think

More than half of pilots in the United States go on to earn an instrument rating. The ability to plan, file, and fly a flight under instrument flight rules (IFR) is a hugely satisfying experience. Instrument training is rigorous, but the basics can be broken down into three easy steps.

Step 1: The foundation of all instrument flying is the ability to control the aircraft solely by reference to instruments--a skill learned while working on the private certificate but honed with the instrument rating.

Step 2: Once instrument basic skills are solid, it's time to move on to advanced navigation techniques with VOR, GPS, and ILS. Again, you'll be building off a skill set learned during primary training.

Step 3: The final component is instrument approaches. An approach gets you from the cruising phase of flight to landing through detailed instructions on an instrument approach procedure chart.

Debunking the mystique of an instrument rating

Just like airplanes and flying were foreign when you took your first lesson, chances are that instrument flying is just as mysterious now. There's nothing wrong with that. But instrument training can be broken down quite simply.

You really only need to know how to do three things to get an instrument rating:

1. How to fly using basic instruments. This means controlling heading, altitude, and airspeed using only information on the instrument panel, without looking outside. Basic instrument flight is nothing more than simple climbs, descents, left and right turns, airspeed changes-and combinations of these basic tasks-to precisely control the airplane.

2. How to use navigation aids. This is the combination of basic instrument flying with specific tracks, courses, and bearings-obtained from navigation aids such as GPS, VOR, and instrument landing system (ILS)-so that you can determine where you are, where you want to be, and how to get there.

3. How to fly approaches: Flying an instrument approach is nothing more than combining basic instrument flying with the use of navigation aids to fly the prescribed headings, altitudes, and other instructions printed on an approach chart. The goal is to reach a specific point near the end of a runway so you can land. If you can't see the runway when you get there, follow the instructions on the approach chart and try again.

Not too complicated, is it? Those three simple steps make up what I call the 1-2-3 method.

Someone who has already earned a private pilot certificate only needs to polish and tighten up what they already know and have been tested on. So that means you'll only have to do "two and a half more things"-not three-to earn an instrument rating: 1) basic attitude instrument flying (with your private pilot certificate in hand, you're already halfway there); 2) flying specific tracks and patterns guided by radio signals; and 3) flying instrument approaches.

If that sounds a little too big-picture, let's talk more about what you'll actually experience during instrument training.

A little more detail

Basic instruments. Being able to fly basic instruments, sometimes called attitude instrument flying, is really the foundation of all instrument flying. You've already been introduced to this in the private syllabus and proved that you could do it. Basic instruments is nothing more than learning to perform left and right turns, climbs, descents, and airspeed changes, perhaps a bit more precisely than you already know how to do from the private pilot training-and without looking outside the airplane.

When you have honed these simple, previously acquired skills, you will be well on your way to achieving an instrument rating. Essentially, you will be able to fly the airplane referring only to instruments just as well as you can by looking outside. Nothing tricky. Just a little more precise and focused, but it's a lot of fun when you get the hang of it.

The building blocks of basic instrument flying are: cross-check, instrument interpretation, and aircraft control. Cross-check is nothing more than seeing what's going on as you look at the instrument panel-what's happening to the airspeed indicator, altimeter, attitude indicator, turn coordinator, heading indicator, vertical speed indicator, and the peripheral navigation and engine instrumentation.

Once you develop your cross-check well enough to quickly see what's happening, the next step is instrument interpretation, which tells you what it all means. If you're at 4,800 feet and you want to be at 5,000 feet, you need to do something-climb 200 feet. If the airspeed is 10 knots high, you need to do something about that, too-maybe at the same time you're climbing that 200 feet. If your heading is 352 degrees and you want to fly 360 degrees, you have to turn eight degrees to the right. Instrument interpretation tells you what you need to do.

Taking action is where aircraft control comes in. When you understand the need for change (by cross-check and instrument interpretation), actually making the change is the final step in the cycle. Seeing the instruments, understanding what they are telling you, and making the airplane do what you need to get it where you want it to be are all that's involved.

You'll instinctively know you can do a pretty good job of flying basic instruments when you can fly simple drills and feel that you're really controlling the airplane almost without consciously thinking about what you're doing.

You'll be trimming the airplane unconsciously so you can take your hands off the controls and the airplane stays where you want it to be. When you become proficient, the airplane will be in equilibrium and your job will be to keep from messing it up. Most airplanes are built to be pretty stable. Our job as pilots is to let them stay that way.

The ability to fly good basic instruments is, by far, the most important part of being a good instrument pilot. Once you can do that, the rest is downhill.

Tracks and patterns: The next step is to apply your basic instrument skills to flying specific tracks and patterns using VOR, ADF (if it's installed in your airplane), ILS, and GPS to guide you. Most of this you've done as a part of basic navigation training for the private pilot certificate. Instrument training calls for more advanced radio navigation, more practice, and more precision than what you experienced during your private training.

Tuning and manipulating radios while you fly good basic instruments along prescribed tracks, courses, and bearings helps you transition between just flying an airplane on instruments and flying it to actually do something and get somewhere, including to a point in the sky or near an airfield where you intend to land.

Approaches: Flying instrument approaches is simply a matter of taking specific flight paths and tracks you learned in step two and following a series of directions. Approaches are flight paths and tracks, combined and published in specific approach diagrams called instrument approach procedures, and flying them properly means looking at the instrument approach and following the directions.

A simplified instrument approach procedure is shown in the figure. A lot of detailed material has been removed and labels have been added to identify some of the important features of an instrument approach.

There are three primary sections of the approach chart: 1) the plan view, portraying an overhead view of the required approach route; 2) the profile view, a side perspective depicting the altitudes to be flown during approach; and 3) an airport view showing the layout of runways, taxiways, and other information. There's also a section at the top called a briefing strip that logically depicts, for ready access, radio frequencies and other critical information.

Significant points on the approach are also identified on the graphic. These are milestones along the approach at which checklists are accomplished or other actions take place. They are the initial approach fix, final approach fix (at which the final descent is usually begun and final checklist is accomplished), missed approach point (MAP) near the runway's threshold (in the case of an ILS such as this the MAP is not a fix, but rather an altitude called decision altitude), and missed approach holding point, to which the airplane turns and climbs toward if the runway is not in sight at the missed approach point. In this ILS, the IAF serves double duty as a MAP if the pilot can't make the runway.

A published approach procedure is nothing more than a well-controlled and sequenced series of straight-and-level segments, climbs, descents, turns, tracks, courses, airspeed changes, and other basic maneuvers put together to get the airplane from its cross-country cruising altitude and direction to the end of the runway on the right heading and altitude for landing-regardless of what the weather happens to be.

So, that's what an instrument rating teaches you: basic instruments, tracks and courses using navigation aids, and instrument approaches. Those three fundamentals add up to pure fun and a great sense of accomplishment.

Study and flying practice let you put everything together. When you can fly good approaches, you're almost done. Finish the knowledge test and ace the practical test, the requirements of which are clearly spelled out in the instrument practical test standards, and you've done it-three easy steps to an instrument rating.

You'll be a better pilot for having literally dispelled the fog, widened insurance options for the rest of your life, acquired the ability to go places that VFR-only pilots can't go, and vastly opened up your flying horizons for bigger and better things to come. Yes, an instrument rating is your personal ticket to all of that. When you take that first step of signing up, you're on your way.

Wally Miller is president of an aviation training, consulting, and marketing firm in Monument, Colorado. He is a Gold Seal CFI who has been instructing for more than 30 years and flying for more than 40.