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Articles on IFR flying

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Training Tips

| March 4, 2025

Sporty’s acquires PilotWorkshops

Longtime AOPA partner Sporty’s announced on February 3 its acquisition of another longtime AOPA partner, PilotWorkshops, a provider of online training courses since 2005.

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On Instruments

| December 1, 2024

What's true?

By Bruce Williams.

You’ve seen the message blinking on your GPS or primary flight display as you approach a waypoint along your route: “Left to 180 degrees in 10 sec.” If the autopilot is flying, you watch as it smoothly intercepts the next segment of an airway, feeder route, or other course, usually without a second thought about the flashing number.

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Flight Training Magazine

| November 1, 2024

Head in the clouds

Instrument flying is a refined orchestra of coordination—and it is fun to be part of the music.

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Flight Training Magazine

| October 22, 2024

'Festina lente' (Hasten slowly)

By Bruce Williams
Like most flight instructors, I rely on a limited phrasebook: “More right rudder.” “You’re left of centerline.” “My controls.”

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Pilot Magazine

| October 1, 2024

Not a readalong

By Bruce Williams

The approach briefing is a rite of passage for IFR pilots. For decades, instructors have taught instrument students a mantra that typically begins: “This is the ILS Runway 36. The chart is dated September 5, 2024….”

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Pilot Magazine

| August 1, 2024

Resolving a database dilemma

By Bruce Williams

You have carefully planned an IFR flight from Hillsboro, Oregon (HIO), near Portland, and before you get to the airport, a message in your EFB confirms that the expected route to Boeing Field (BFI) in Seattle is what you filed: SCAPO V165 OLM, along a preferred low-altitude IFR route that you anticipate joining from the SCAPO SEVEN departure procedure that ATC often assigns to northbound traffic.

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Flight Training Magazine

| July 1, 2024

May I put you on hold?

By Bruce Williams

Today ATC rarely puts us in a hold, and even when the need arises, the challenge usually is making a graceful entry onto the racetrack via the methods (direct, teardrop, or parallel) recommended in the Aeronautical Information Manual (AIM). Laps around the hold are straightforward unless the wind is howling.

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Flight Training Magazine

| June 1, 2024

Beyond bare minimums

By Bruce Williams

Reviewing approach minimums is an essential part of planning an IFR flight, as is briefing the decision altitude (DA) or minimum descent altitude (MDA) and required visibility when you prepare for descent and landing.

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Pilot Magazine

| May 23, 2024

Circling approaches

By Bruce Williams

IFR pilots train for an event that they rarely perform in normal operations—circling approaches.

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Flight Bags

| April 12, 2024

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Pilot Magazine

| April 1, 2024

Failure is an option

As a designated pilot examiner, my job is to throw applicants the occasional curveball to ensure they can maintain aircraft control within standards during an uncomfortable or emergent situation.

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Pilot Magazine

| April 1, 2024

Partial-panel in the PFD era

By Bruce Williams

The most unrealistic task in the Instrument Rating-Airplane Airman Certification Standards, the standards for IFR-related practical tests and instrument proficiency checks, is VII D, “Approach with Loss of Primary Flight Instrument Indicators.”

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Pilot Turbine Magazine

| March 27, 2024

Hayden,Colorado RNAV (GPS) 28

One of the advantages of RNAV (GPS) approaches was supposed to be the ability to build straight-in approaches and produce lower approach minimums. By and large, that has been the case, but there are exceptions. One of them is the RNAV (GPS) 28 into Yampa Valley Airport (HDN) in Hayden, Colorado.

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Training Tips

| February 27, 2024

Instrument landing systems

Instrument landing systems enable pilots to make safe landings in both visual and instrument meteorological conditions.

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Pilot Turbine Magazine

| January 31, 2024

Runway Visual Range

By Rob Mark

An instrument approach in instrument conditions normally ends in one of two ways: Either the pilot flying visually spots enough of the runway environment to safely land the aircraft, or they don’t. If not, a missed approach is the only option. FAR 91.175 (d) 2 stipulates that no pilot “may land an aircraft when the flight visibility is less than the visibility prescribed in the standard instrument approach procedure (IAP) being used.”

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Pilot Magazine

| January 24, 2024

A recipe for IFR flight

By Bruce Williams

Glass cockpits and electronic flight bags (EFB) have transformed IFR flying, but managing the tasks associated with an instrument flight remains a challenge.

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Pilot Magazine

| December 26, 2023

Flying blind

“I will say that in those days the pilot was very important, and his skill in manipulating the airplanes, which were not as reliable as they are today, was very important indeed.

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Flight Training Magazine

| December 15, 2023

Ready or not, IFR is IFR

Pilots make a distinction between IFR and “hard IFR” that makes little sense.

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Flight Training Magazine

| October 30, 2023

Like a good neighbor

Operating at a nontowered airport can be a complex melting pot of all types of aircraft, flown by pilots of vastly different levels of experience. Throwing your IFR training flight into the mix can be tricky.

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Pilot Magazine

| August 11, 2023

What’s the point?

By Bruce Williams

The electronic horizontal situation indicators (EHSI) in today’s primary flight displays (PFD) include a navigation indicator that can instantly improve your situational awareness and help you quickly comply with ATC clearances, which otherwise might require editing the current flight plan or switching the GPS to OBS mode.

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Flight Training Magazine

| July 11, 2023

Using VNAV on an approach

By Bruce Williams

When connected to GPS navigators such as the Garmin GTN series, modern autopilots like the Garmin GFC 500 and GFC 600 can use vertical navigation (VNAV) to fly smooth, precise profiles through a series of step-downs prior to the final approach fix during instrument approaches and while descending via standard terminal arrival routes (STARs).

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Pilot Magazine

| May 1, 2023

PBN bingo

By Bruce Williams

Aviation doesn’t need more abbreviations, acronyms, and initialisms, but the adoption of performance based navigation (PBN), with all its advantages, has added squares to the aviation lingo bingo card.

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Flight Training Magazine

| April 12, 2023

How to stop chasing the needles

By Bruce Williams

During the early stages of instrument training, new IFR pilots focus their attention on the flight instruments as they learn basic attitude instrument flying: maintaining straight-and-level and performing turns, climbs, and descents.

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Pilot Magazine

| March 21, 2023

Flying beyond the FAF

The pressure is on when you decide to fly a trip with known low IMC weather at your destination. What is “low IMC,” more commonly called “low IFR”?

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Video

| March 8, 2023

Beyond Proficient: Elements and Variations of IFR Approach Clearances

Instrument flying expands our world and adds depth to our primary piloting skills. This second episode in the AOPA Air Safety Institute's Beyond Proficient: IFR series emphasizes honing one's aptitude concerning IFR approach clearances.

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Flight Training Magazine

| January 11, 2023

When the screens go dark

By Bruce Williams

If you use an electronic flight bag in the cockpit—and these days who doesn’t?—you probably have considered what would happen if your iPad’s battery died, or if the device overheated.

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Video

| December 20, 2022

Early Analysis: Mysterious crash

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Video

| December 1, 2022

Early Analysis: Power Line Strike on Final Approach to Montgomery County Airpark

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IFR

Articles on IFR flying

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IFR

Articles on IFR flying

Sponsored by Aircraft Spruce Training and Safety Tip: Read the fine print

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