FlyingAggie

Congratulation Mitch! Of course you realize you have put yourself in a no win situation with Jolie? My goal was to have taken the written on Monday, but unexpected events at work interrupted my plan, so maybe I'll find time next week. All I can say is that you have certainly set a high bar for the rest of us to actually post our scores online. How many hours under the hood do you have?

What makes you think the FAA test needs to be modernized? I liked flying back in the 1970's. I like the questions about contacting the FSS located at the airport after the control tower is closed for airport advisories! I also really like Figure 120 in the test supplement. It is the ILS35R IAP for Denver's Stapleton Airport, which has been closed for over 15 years. Quote: flyboy0681 I guess it would be asking too much for the FAA to modernize the test.

Would you slip your short or mid body Mooney while in IMC?

This is one of the non-precision approaches, I flew yesterday. http://flightaware.com/resources/airport/KLMO/IAP/VOR_DME-A It was the first thing we did after taking off from KBJC. We intercepted the approach at 7300' at the FAF and I had trouble getting down in time. I can't imagine doing it starting at 9200' over the BJC VOR. It is a good illustration of why you need to be able sustain a 800 to 1000 FPM descent and control your airspeed for non precision approaches and off course not over cool my turbo'd engine. Talk about "chop" and "droooooooooop"!!! Edit--insert link

Roberto,

No problem Bob, "PZ" survived the high winds over the weekednd and should be waiting for you to bring her home. While Bob was in Denver, we flew a safety pilots for a Bravo owner, who is a seasoned IFR pilot. I think we both learned several things about the difference of a practicing IFR pilot vs a training IFR student. The next day, I invited Bob to ride along in the backseat during my lesson. Bob commented he learned so much just by watching me. (Learning from all my mistakes no doubt! ) It was good to have someone to debrief about both flights over a cold one at the end of the day and getting their "take" on the lesson. What went right and what I could do better next time. Mitch and Jolie are lucky by being training partners for the IR's. You can learn a lot by not being "in the fire", but being "next to the stove." I bet they are on a expedious route to their IR's. Quote: Bob Well guys, you are all advancing at a fantastic pace with your instrument training. Keep up the good work! I was working in Phoenix for a few months and managed to get in only about 10 hrs of hood time in. On the way home, to Chicago, I was stopped due to a thin wall of IMC. I was forced to leave the Mooney in Denver and fly commercial home. No I did not enjoy my first full body scan! Well my return flight to get the plane is still a week away. So I decided to do some sim time this week. I am scheduled for a couple hours three days this week. Then I go get Papa Zulu and hope to have a great basis to really fine tune everything in the plane and get my IFR training done. Alan, thanks for keeping an eye on Papa Zulu!

I flew one at OSH this summer and thought it was pretty neat. I talked to Red Bird and found a FBO at Boulder (BDU) has one. I was interested until I found out they only had two configuration options: Cessna C172/G1000 or C172/steam gauge. They charge $60/hrs and will only allow their instructors to instruct in it. I pay $33/hr for the non-motion sim that can be configured as either a M20J or M20K and can use my instructor. If I didn't have my own airplane and was renting a C172 for training, I think the FMX or MX would make a lot of sense. My primary interest in the sim is to do the procedures work, which the ones that don't move are fine. EDIT: Here are some pictures of the type of flight simulators in which I am doing my some of my training. http://www.mooneyspace.com/index.cfm?action=gallery&userGallery=18&currentAlbum=502

Hold Everyting! Last night was my first lesson in a week due to work and bad weather. I did 2.7 hrs in the sim and about 1 hr of ground school. We worked on holding patterns and holding pattern entries. The neat thing about using the sim is the instructor is able to warp space and time. She would move the airplane to various locations and distances from the fix and I had decreasing amounts of time to figure out the hold and entry. My CFII taught me a neat trick of splitting the the difference between the needle deflection and the desired course with the heading on the HSI to smoothly follow the localizer or VOR needle in. Precision with Non-precision approaches! After taking a break for dinner, I was back in the sim for nonprecision approaches. I flew VOR and Localizer approaches at the airports around CO and most of the time went missed and entered the holding pattern. One goal is to become familar with all the local approaches that I may be flying during the checkride. However, my instructor used the sim to "transport" me and my simulated 231 to KBMI to fly the backcourse localizer there, since we don't have any in the area. Interesting mind game, I learned during a BC LOC approach is to think of the "airplane becoming the needle." That is another advantage of the sim, being able to fly interesting approaches in any part of the country, at any time of day or season of year and in any type of wx condition. One disadvantage of the sim that I discovered during flying the KBJC 29R Loc approach with a Circle to Land to 11L. The minimums for this approach are 510' AGL. Even though the sim has five screens and covers about 180 deg field of view, I found it very difficult to keep the runway insight. I found it disconcerting to fly the traffic pattern that low. I lost sight of the runway and had to go missed. Not sure I would want to do that for real on a dark night with 600' ceilings! My greatest frustration is busting altitudes in the sim. The sim is much harder to fly than the real airplane and it is so easy to knudge the yoke just a little while messing with the radio or something else, resulting in a 500-1000 fpm descent and busting through a limit. Anyone else having that problem and what have you learned to keep from doing it? My next lesson is scheduled for Monday afternoon, where I will trying doing the above in my Mooney.

Jole/Mitch, Haven't seen the King DVD's, although that is what my wife is using for her PPL. When are you taking your written? I remember from your FB post that you taking your lessons in a 182 instead of your Mooney. Are you planning to continue that? Quote: mooneygirl As Mitch posted we are working on our IR. We have the Sporty's DVDs and they have been the basis of our 12 week ground school we are finishing up next week. I do have to say that we also have the King DVDs. I feel they are superior in terms of explanation and details that will be on the test. Of course we have a bunch of books, Gleim, ASA, Machado and King. The King DVDs for me are much better than Sportys. They give detailed examples, and helpful aids for the questions. That is my two cents. Mitch and I have about 1.5-2.0 of time with our CFII, and 3-5 hours of time with each other as a safety pilot. It does help to be married to your safety pilot, well most times! HA

I used the Sporty's IFR package and supplemented it with information from books. I did very well on the written the first time and it must have sunken in, because over two years later, I am able to pass practice FAA exams with high scores. I am also reviewing the parts of the DVD before each flying lesson. My last lesson in the plane covered DME arcs. So to prepare, I watched the Sporty's video on DME Arcs, flew the next day as a safety pilot for a Bravo owner and he flew the DME arc as part of the ILS GXY approach and then flew the same approach on MicroSoft Flight Simulator the morning before actually flying that approach with my instructor in my plane. Talk about being well prepared. and feeling double deja vu! I wished I could be as well prepared for each lesson. Quote: trjymr Well Im determined to get my IR in 2011 too! Dont have much time in the plane, but I did buy the DVD set from sportys for $265. Im not really a good book learner so I thought this would be better for me. So far im about 1/3 of the way through and seems to be going good. I'm hoping to have my written out of the way soon and hit the sky...

Quote: Nemesis I did find some pictures of N231NF that I purchased last week. They are in my gallery.

Quote: jpusser If you are not going through a 141 school, I think you can only use 10 hours in the sim. Might want to check that out. Even if you are a 141 school the max is 20.

Austin, Your plan sound good and I bet you will be successful. I thought long and hard about the benefits of an an accelerated course vs flying two or three times a week over a period of three or four months. Everything I have read from those who have done the accelerated training, say you need to regularly fly instruments immediately after the course to retain those skills. The latter approach takes longer and is more suceptible to lifes interruptions. Maybe the best approach is a combination of both. If my current plan doesn't work and I have accumulated the required hours, I may undertake an intense two or three day finish up session to finish-uo the rating. Good luck and keep us posted on your progress. Quote: AustinChurch I've been working on mine off-and-on the last few years and life just keeps getting in the way. I'm up to 21 hours IFR with 7 of those being actual and none on a simulator. I was going to go to GATTS but it's hard to take time off from work that isn't a vacation with the family, so after a very short talk with the wife (she did not want to vacation in Manhattan, KS), she agreed to let me book the next 4 weekends with a CFII friend of mine that owns a flight school. We have set up 8 hours per day to get this finished. Yesterday, I went and shot 2 VOR approaches with an IFR certified safety pilot and actually felt pretty good so I'm cautiously optimistic!

Several Mooney Space members are currently working on Instrument Ratings in their Mooney's. I thought it might be of value to start a thread where we could share our training experiences, discuss what working well and/or not so well, interesting observations and lessons and perhaps learn from comments from those who are already instrument rated. So please post how your training is going. Below is my summary. My New Year’s resolution is to obtain my IR in 2011. This will be my third try. The first time was in 2007 while in VA, I did about five lessons in a Warrior, before my training was totally disrupted by a relocation from VA to CO in 2008. I attempted a restart my training after we moved to CO and did a couple of instrument lessons in a C172XP, but put that on hold when I decided to wait until I bought own Mooney so I could do most of my training in it. So all totaled I have had about 7.5 hrs of simulated instrument conditions, before starting again on Jan 17th, 2011. So in the last three weeks, I have done the following lessons. 17 Jan, Simulator, Pattern A &B, timed turns, climbs and descents. (1.0 hrs) 21 Jan, Simulator, Preflight checks, IFR take offs prep, constant A/S climbs/descents, unusual attitudes, Emergencies: electrical, gyros, AI, mag compass turns, climbing & descending turns. (1.3 hrs) 23 Jan, N262MB, Pattern A, constant AS climbs & descents, turns. (0.9 hrs) 29 Jan, N262MB, Pattern A, constant rate turns, VOR orientation & tracking, ILS BJC 29R. (1.1 hrs) 30 Jan, N262MB, Pattern B, config table, DME arc, ILS34 GXY missed, ILS 29R BJC. (1.4 hrs) 5 Feb, Simulator, sim power config table, steep turns, timed turns, holding patterns, VOR time, speed and distance, BJC VOR/DME approach (X2). (2.1 hrs) At the conclusion of yesterday's lesson, my CFII said she was pleased with my progress, that I was performing within PTS standards and we were done with Stage I. She gave me my study assignments for next week when we start Stage II. FAA Written Test: I passed it in 2007, but it expired in Dec 2009, so I will need to take it again. Studying for it is like re-reading a novel: you kinda know what’s going to happen, but have forgotten a lot of the details. It was more fun the first time. So while on travel last week, I downloaded ASA's Test Prep Software and have been using it to test how much I remember from 2007. I am studying Rod Machado's "Instrument Flying Manual" to bone up on my weak areas. My goal is to complete the written by the end of February. My biggest problem so far has been the weather and trying to schedule lessons in the airplane. The 500 fpm up and down drafts made holding altitude very interesting during my first session in the airplane and that was the best day in weeks. Fortunately using the simulator has given us the options of training in spite of the weather and the simulator is a better learning environment for some lessons than the a/c. I am using one of the simulators at Advanced Aviation Simulators (AAS) at KAPA (http://prosimtraining.com/pr/airportjournals200704.php). The simulator can be configured as a Mooney 231, runs the FAA certified version of X-Plane and is equipped with an actual Garmin 430. Although AAS is on the other side of town and quiet a drive, they allow you to use your own instructor in their sims and with block rates their sim costs $33/hr, which is less than just fuel cost in my Mooney. Amazingly there are students who do most of the 40 hrs of IR training in these simulators and even take most of the check ride in them. The only part of the check ride that they do in the a/c is recovery from unusual attitudes. I plan to do about 15 hrs in the sim. One other activity that I have found very beneifical and recommend is serving as a safety pilot for other instrument rated pilots needing to fly in simulated instrument conditions to meet currency requirements. So far I flown as safety pilot in a 201, Bravo and Bonanza. Please share how your training is going.

I guess in one context "tail" art might be more descriptive of "nose" art. After WWII, my dad flew B29 named "Leaking Lenna," because the self sealing fuel tanks leaked so bad in the Alaskan temperatures, they had to set 55 gallon drums under the wings. I will leave it to your imagination to the Nose Art on that one. That might be a good name for a Mooney with fuel tanks problems. Hope I don't have the need to use that name.

This afternoon, I visited with another MooneySpace member and saw his M20K and he has exactly the same antenna as my plane. His has both sides of the dipole. He has two seperate G/S antennaes: the diplole in the windshield and the "towel bar" antenna on the side at the top of the vertical stab. I need to find out if my broken one is connected to both rcvrs via a diplexer.

Outstanding accomplishment! CONGRATS

Two more have signed up for Quad City at Davenport. So that leaves two more spots.