Instrument Flying by Richard Taylor

[DrBill]

I took the ground school course at our local airport.  Was great and scored real well on the test.  During the oral exam the examiner remarked that I was well prepared.. "Who taught your ground school?"  she asked.  I told her and she said "OH, I figured it might have been him".

Bill

[WardHolbrook]

I recommend the following to my instrument students (all instrument pilots actually)...

 

I consider the latest editions of the following books to be mandatory reading and suggest they be reviewed periodically:

Weather Flying by Robert Buck

Instrument Flying by Richard Taylor

Severe Weather Flying by Dennis Newton

 

As far as ongoing training goes most pilots will benefit from one of more of the courses that are offered here:

https://avwxworkshops.com/index_guest.php

 

I don't know how much time I'd recommend you spend with this stuff while you're working on your rating. You'll probably have enough to do without it. However, once you've passed that checkride jump in with both feet. Perhaps more than any other rating, the instrument rating is a license to learn. 

[kmyfm20s]

Excellent recommendations on the above books. Taylor's book I though was good for me, I read it after taking a few years off and it was great for getting my head back into the game. I also really enjoyed John Eckalbar's book "IFR A Structured Approach". Neither book was appropriate for studying for the exam but great after you get your ticket.

 

I am currently working on my commercial rating and using the Gleim online series and I am not impressed. Its boring the tears out of me! I might have to take a look at the King products especially since they are neighbors to me at my home field and not to mention Martha sounds waaaay hot on the radios.  

[flyboy0681]

Any other recommended readings like this one?

[slowflyin]

+1 for King

[BigTex]

I started out my IFR training using a book by Peter Dogan entitled "The Instrument Flight Training Manual." I found if really good.  It takes out all the fluff and covers all that's required and nothing more.

http://www.sportys.com/PilotShop/product/13218

 

If you'd want the complete body of work for Instrument and commercial training then you have to have Jeppesen's "Guided Flight Discovery Instrument / Commerncial" manual.

 

http://www.sportys.com/PilotShop/product/9590

[Amelia]

Richard Taylor's books, though now a little dated, technology-wise, are fun to read, and full of useful integrative hints, ways to pull those King factoids and answers to test questions into smooth real-world instrument flying. To learn about ads-b and the latest iPad apps, Prof Taylor's book isn't going to help much, but his easy, pleasant writing style will help lots on thinking through a flight, getting instrument flying tasks done in a logical and coordinated fashion. I still go back and read his chapters on approaches before an IPC, because an ILS is still an ILS.

I talked him into speaking at a pilot's meeting at my home Ohio airport back in the 80s, and he was just as delightful, knowledgeable, and engaging in person as his books had led me to suspect he must be.

[22 others]

I continue to be impressed by the depth and breadth of the Mooneyspace collective knowledge.  Thank you all for the recommendations.  I'm still waiting on Taylor's book to arrive.  It looks like I'll be adding another book or three to my list.

 

Maybe we shouldn't joke about Martha so much. She might google herself one day.

Does the oral portion of the checkride typically review missed items from the written?  i.e. If I slack off on ADF's (which I don't ever expect to use), is the examiner going to want to talk about them for a while?

Josh

[carusoam]

The oral portion of my IFR test was mostly about the current environment.

There is not enough time to cover everything in deep detail.

They can cover anything that was weak on your written.

Their is not that much information that can be left out.

ADFs are still part of the system and can be asked about as fair game.

I was hoping to be tested on my plane and how I use it.

Their plan was to test me on the whole system and how it is used.

I scored a 98 on the written, back in the day... Now I am free to travel the world in IFR.

At least when I get my currency back in line I will be able to...

There are no shortcuts in that system...

Best regards,

-a-

[Hank]

I continue to be impressed by the depth and breadth of the Mooneyspace collective knowledge.  Thank you all for the recommendations.  I'm still waiting on Taylor's book to arrive.  It looks like I'll be adding another book or three to my list.

 

Maybe we shouldn't joke about Martha so much. She might google herself one day.

Does the oral portion of the checkride typically review missed items from the written?  i.e. If I slack off on ADF's (which I don't ever expect to use), is the examiner going to want to talk about them for a while?

Josh

 

Do you have an ADF installed in your plane? If it's there, you may be asked to fly an ADF approach. Personally, I have never knowingly seen what one looks like, much less had to use one. Just had to plow through those stupid test questions. At least they have removed the questions from the old A-N beacons.

 

My oral in 2010 was rather conversational in nature, systems, etc., then onto the flight I had been asked to plan. There was one thing we discussed prior to the start--I had done my W&B as if leaving my home field with full tanks [the DPE gave me his weight, and the flight to meet him was 42 nm], but when I arrived at the airport the fuel pumps were locked and nobody was around to open them for me. So we went over the previous calculations, and I showed him my stick and how much fuel was in each tank, and that it would suffice for his projected flight and to get me home again, with the Golden Hour untouched.

 

Little things like that go a long way. My DPE is a freshly-retired USAFR Col. who commanded the WV ANG unit in Charleston, and his emphasis was safety. Since fuel is a safety issue, and affected the calculations I had done, I led with that and he took it from there.

 

Good luck, and let us know how things go!

[flyboy0681]

After 10 minutes of pleasantries my oral was 2.5 hours and covered a little of everything. When I scheduled the ride he asked how the plane was equipped and I told him there was no ADF onboard and as a result he didn't ask any questions about it.

 

While making some small talk we found some middle ground (one of them being that we lived a few blocks from each other in Los Angeles at the same time) and that broke the ice considerably. I was over-prepared and it showed.

[22 others]

No ADF on my bird. It and the DME were removed around the time the 430w was installed by a previous owner.  Sometimes I wish the DME still had a home on my panel.
 

I'll learn it enough for the test....

[kmyfm20s]

For my IFR practical I put a very noticeable INOP sticker on my ADF. I always missed the AM radio after I took it out, that was back when people thought "Country wasn't cool" and I could get it on all my cross countries(no pun intended) and loved it. I also could brush up on my Spanish listening to it just about anywhere to. Now it requires a XM subscription.