There you are on the ground, eager to get airborne and put your new instrument rating to use. Now here you are in cruise, ensconced in the small, gray universe you have created for yourself. Everything is fine; it’s just what you expected—with one slight difference. You are acutely aware now that every action you take, every decision, is motivated by a single overriding goal: getting out of the weather and back onto the ground in the most efficient manner possible.
You’re a new instrument pilot—congratulations! It’s understandable that you’d be pumped to function in this exciting milieu that once was forbidden territory. Fresh from training, your head is full of planning and procedures, all begging to be exercised. Once-exotic questions about weather minimums, freezing levels, routing, alternates, and instrument approaches can now be answered for real.
Caution: Anticipation can be seductive. You are about to come face to face with a paradox of instrument flying. Although an instrument rating gives you the tools, and the consent, to fly in officially “bad” weather, it should never cause you to linger there out of an exaggerated sense of your new capabilities. Got humility? Now’s not the time to discover any deficit.
No need to take my word for it. A higher authority offers this caveat. “Holding the instrument rating does not necessarily make you a competent all-weather pilot. The rating certifies only that you have complied with the minimum experience requirements, that you can plan and execute a flight under IFR, that you can execute basic instrument maneuvers, and that you have shown acceptable skill and judgment in performing these activities.” That quote is from the preface of the FAA’s Instrument Flying Handbook. That’s right—a hedging strategy is woven into the very fabric of your training. You’ll be glad it’s there someday if you feel provoked into action by truly bad weather.
So it’s never necessary to be disappointed if filing and launching isn’t the solution to every weather scenario. A pledge and plunge policy isn’t the ideal way to work through the questions you will now face. A better strategy is to slice off your exposure to instrument meteorological conditions a little at a time, just as you took on small slices of flying when first soloing under VFR as a student pilot. That’s an especially good idea now if your instrument training did not include much “actual” weather—and for most instrument students, it doesn’t. Going it alone now is a pricier game than it was in your sunny solo days. When flying IFR, the question isn’t whether you may run into bad weather. The questions are: How bad? Worse than expected? At times the answer to that second question will be an unqualified “Yes.”
Talk about a learning curve: You can be an ace at instrument procedures who has never punctured a cloud. Now you will discover just how well your skills serve you. An oft-overlooked point about actual conditions is that cloud flying taxes your basic attitude-instrument skills in ways that simulation doesn’t. Whether you’re “solid” or in and out of clouds, this is a new ballgame requiring intense focus. And if the weather forecast missed by a mile, you’ll be the one to break the news to everyone else.
You remind yourself that at least instrument flying is an orderly process. An instrument flight is the product of massive research and long deliberation. Well, usually. But here’s another reality check: Did your training include any pop-up clearances—that is, picking up an IFR clearance while you are already in flight? That’s not an uncommon option for an instrument pilot if you are proceeding under VFR and discover that the weather up ahead is horrible. The expected 3,000 scattered at the destination has become 300 broken, 500 overcast—and, according to an amended forecast that you have just received, the fun’s just getting started.
What to do? Retreat? Or join the Polar Bear Club? My Uncle Ruby wasn’t a pilot, but he was a member of the Polar Bear Club. These are the hardy folks who strip down to their bathing trunks and take a plunge in icy water. Less known about the PBC is that they do this every Sunday from fall through springtime, and that their chilly challenge focuses public attention on the charitable work they support (at a place called Camp Sunshine). When one considers joining the PBC, certain questions arise concerning the activities in which one might have to participate. The club recognizes this, and addresses the issue with frankness and humor. That’s where the pledge and plunge idea comes into play: “We suggest that participants go into the water up to their neck for the full experience, but if you then choose to run out or stay in as long as the seasoned pros, that is your business.”
For an instrument pilot, pledge and plunge has one significant drawback: choosing to run out of the water may not be an option. Even with better conditions behind you, ATC may not be able to turn you around or put you at the appropriate altitude just yet. That could be a rude surprise.
The casual term notwithstanding, pop-up IFR should be the product of preparation. It’s pointless to air file with absolutely no idea about possible routing, MEAs, or approaches at the destination. Nor should you have to rummage for charts, flight data publications, equipment, or a pencil to copy your clearance. Make yourself a solemn promise that you won’t fly IFR unless you can meet the same standard of preparedness as if you’d picked up your clearance before taxi. Doing otherwise is no different from continued VFR flight into deteriorating weather, except perhaps in name.
Planning to make some instrument flights to build experience? Good. Doubtless you have pondered the components of a good method of progression into IFR flying. On those first flights, bring along a friend who acts as your safety pilot. Assign her or him specific duties, but emphasize that you are pilot in command at all times.
Plan some short flights—local area is fine—with brief segments of cloud flying. Climbing through a deck into clear air above, and back through on the descent, is a good start. Leave yourself 1,500 feet or more below the ceiling. Climbing to top cloud decks for cruise takes less out of you than flying along in those clouds, but still taxes your instrument flying skills. Remember from your weather study that if a system such as an approaching warm front is responsible for the cloud layers, those clouds will lower as the front moves in. That’s where alertness to any early deterioration of your forecast will pay big dividends. (That visual approach you are expecting at the end of your day’s flying could turn into an ILS to minimums through clouds, fog, and rain.)
Next, increase the lengths of your flights or lower the ceilings—but not both, please. Flying with a more capable aircraft or on-board equipment, such as a switch from round gauges to glass, is a temptation to take on tougher conditions. But that’s only a persuasive case if you’re already a virtuoso on the installed systems and can bring up data on a PFD or MFD—and input routes, waypoints, and approaches—quickly and accurately.
Bottom line: Progressing into more intense instrument conditions does not have to have as its final goal bringing yourself to the point of making long flights under IMC to socked-in destinations. That day may never come. Somewhere in the continuum between My instrument ticket is just an insurance policy for my VFR flying and so-called “hard IFR” lies your comfort zone. If you choose to stop at that point, fine.
Drawing that line also provides the formula for your future recurrency training, when your CFII can nudge you out of your comfort zone into deeper (or colder) waters. The Instrument Flying Handbook speaks on this: “Your instrument rating is issued on the assumption that you have the good judgment to avoid situations beyond your capabilities. The instrument training program you undertake should help you to develop not only essential flying skills but also the judgment necessary to use the skills within your own limits.”
Even if you’re not the type to start chasing every cloud you see from the ground after becoming an instrument pilot, you may sometimes feel the pressure that some IFR pilots confide—to fly beyond comfort because your certificate and the weather make it legal. Here’s hoping that some of these ideas will help you find your way back to clear thinking about IMC and IFR.
Dan Namowitz is an aviation writer and flight instructor. A pilot since 1985 and an instructor since 1990, he resides in Maine.
Practical IFR training
The textbooks for instrument flight cover only the basics. What you need is the real-world experience and expertise of the AOPA Air Safety Foundation. The foundation offers a number of interactive online courses specifically related to IFR, including GPS for IFR Operations, and fun challenges on charts and IFR regulations. So test your skills and learn a thing or two by visiting ASF online.
You can, but should you?
When it comes to instrument flying, safety is the name of the game. While flying general aviation under FAR Part 91 allows us to’re equipped for regardless of weather conditions, consider for a second the airlines. What do two pilots with rigorous training, regular flying schedules, frequent instrument approaches, and mandatory recurrent training have to do with GA? Not much, unfortunately. But those are just a few of the reasons the airlines have a much better safety record than we do.
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