Not Fair

[0TreeLemur]

OK, so I'm working on the instrument rating.  I did ground school in 1982, then I got (1) poor, then (2) married and pregnant, then (3) busy.  Now I'm (4) comfortable and not too busy, and I own a Mooney, so it is time to finish the IR.   My A&P who also happens to be an instructor strongly suggested the King videos online as did several other people.   Now, it is kind of weird seeing Martha age before my eyes.   I'm almost all the way through the instrument approach lessons, and LNAV has not been mentioned.   I get this question thrown my way just now: 

5148 (Refer to Figure 253.)  While executing the RNAV (GPS) RWY 18 LNAV approach at OSH, how would the missed approach point be identified?

This is UNFAIR.   I paid money for this course.   What they have covered I learned when I did IFR ground school in 1982!   It is a great refresher for IFR techniques ca. 1982 in fact.  BUT there has been no mention in their course at this point of LNAV!!  That is the new stuff that my 430W does, and I haven't learned anything from their course.  It seems to me that if I were using a more current set of instructional materials I could be learning so much more about contemporary IFR flying.   What about the use of EFBs? 

I'm seriously thinking about asking for a refund at this point.   Their course is STALE.   Is there a better alternative?

Thanks,

Fred

[gsengle]

In fairness King actually does a good job updating the videos online. That’s why their ages jump all over.

I’ve used them for instrument commercial and ATP, with good results.

It’s the FAA tests that dont change much over the years...


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[Bolter]

I have also liked the King courses, and having met some of the staff at OshKosh, feel they are a team of genuine aviation fans.  I did a search, and found a King IFR training syllabus.  Lesson 14 is RNAV w/ glide slope approaches, and Lesson 15 is LNAV.  I hope that these lessons are just further along in the course you have.  

-dan

[carusoam]

Fred, that is unfair...

Sounds like a call to king is in order...

GPS/WAAS approaches are sort of new.  They have evolved a lot as did the equipment we use...

See if calling Martha can net you an update...?

Or See if the UND videos cover the IR rating... at the same price as VR...

youtube is pretty amazing at this kind of thing...

Best regards,

-a-

[EricJ]

I used the Gleim ground school, mostly because as far as I could tell they're the only on-line ground school that will give you a completion certificate that the FAA accepts.

It wasn't perfect, was actually a bit frustrating in some places, but was overall pretty good.   I never felt like I wanted my money back.   There were still a couple questions on the knowledge test that looked totally foreign to me, as in, well, that wasn't covered in ground school. 

 

[MB65E]

It’s ok, it’s not taught during initial at certain high doller sim courses either!

And then there is Vnav...

DDP...

CDFA...

ahhhh!

-Matt

[0TreeLemur]

It seems to me that there is certainly need for an up-to-date set of online IFR courses.  At say $300 ea. times maybe 1000 licenses per year, that would be a business opportunity for someone with multi-media savvy and a strong desire to do excellent instruction.

[gsengle]

It seems to me that there is certainly need for an up-to-date set of online IFR courses.  At say $300 ea. times maybe 1000 licenses per year, that would be a business opportunity for someone with multi-media savvy and a strong desire to do excellent instruction.

Slick or dated, the king material is kept continually up to date.


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[jlunseth]

The King material teaches to the FAA written exam, because the objective is to help you pass that exam.  It has always been the exam that remains outmoded, to the point that quite alot of the material you need to learn to pass the exam has very little to do with modern instrument flying.  You nevertheless need to learn the material to pass the exam, and you have to pass the exam to get the rating.  I used the King course when I took the exam, which was nearly a decade ago, and it was the same then.  At the time, there were only about a half dozen GPS/RNAV questions in the whole exam database, and I don’t remember getting a single one on the exam that I took.  

If you want to learn material relevant to modern IFR, you have to do alot of that on your own, King has good courses, for example, on specific GPS units and how to operate them.  So do many others.  Beyond what the FAA teaches, you should learn: how things work in the IFR system, how to communicate and negotiate with ATC, spend alot less on learning “lost comm,” which should never happen, but learn how to “find comm,” learn the buttonology for a specific GPS, get an advanced course on weather and particularly icing, if you are going to fly a turbo learn about unique high altitude weather phenomena such as ice clouds and induction icing, learn good engine management, learn how to read a SkewTLogP, etc., etc.  

[0TreeLemur]

Teach to the test.  a.k.a. "No Pilot Left Behind".

[kortopates]

1 minute ago, Fred_2O said:

Teach to the test.  a.k.a. "No Pilot Left Behind".

Exactly, and as others have said above. But to get a real education on the differences in approach types and all about different WAAS approaches (since LNAV is NOT a WAAS approach) I highly recommend you download the FAA IFR handbooks available to you for free from the FAA website. Back in circa '82 there were no useful technical manuals put out from the FAA - at least my opinion was they pretty much sucked pushing us to other commercial sources. Well now they offer the best and most thorough material out there and I am of the opinion that the other authors out there continue to sell them because they provide an alternate style of explanation some find helpful and other find more entertaining. But if you just want the technical details and explained pretty well you can't beat the FAA publications these days.

Go to https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aviation/ 

And download the Instrument Flying Handbook (IFH) and the Instrument Procedures Handbook (IPH) 

As a CFII and college instructor on this material, these handbooks together with the FAR/AIM are really the bible for instrument training.  

(incidentally Jepp publishes their own version of the IPH using all the Jepp products instead if you are so interested)

[Ned Gravel]

I am going to offer a different opinion here, partly because training complex concepts is what I do now for a living - although not for flying.  As well, we had the same ethos when I was wearing a uniform for a living - the kind that uprooted you to different places in the world to, as Von Clausewitz said: "participate in the continuation of government policy by Other Means."  We were the "Other Means."  Not learning what needed to be done in those days could result in very bad results.  So we Trained what we Did. No exceptions. 

Training to a test was, and will always be for me, a poor second best to "acquisition of the required skill set."  The type of training I do now is about folks producing technically valid results that allows regulators to declare, with some confidence, that things are safe for people to use - seat belts, drinking water, steel, concrete (you get the idea).  Messing up produces bad results - although not normally as immediate as improper use of a military weapon, or a tactical procedure.

So teaching to allow the student to demonstrate the required skill set has always been the goal for me.  

But that is just me, I guess.

[Marauder]

Hmmm. You’re describing a first world problem. It could be a lot worse. You could have a complete King tape series and nothing to play it on and when you did find something to play it on, you be trying to figure out what they meant by TCA, NDB and heaven forbid LORAN.

[jaylw314]

4 hours ago, Fred_2O said:

It seems to me that there is certainly need for an up-to-date set of online IFR courses.  At say $300 ea. times maybe 1000 licenses per year, that would be a business opportunity for someone with multi-media savvy and a strong desire to do excellent instruction.

I'm the ultimate cheap bastard--I used the FAA's Instrument Procedures Handbook and the Instrument Flying Handbook as my only test prep materials.  Total cost for both $0.  For the rest of my training, I used Rod Machado's e-books on instrument flying, about $150 for the bundle back now (I saw it is $170 now, but includes some more goodies than I got).  I also used the free Garmin GNS430/530 trainer.

Edit: oops, I see @kortopates beat me to the punch

Admittedly, I learn poorly by watching other people talk and best by reading reference materials, so a lot depends on knowing how you best learn.  If you know you are the type that learns best by watching other people talk and you do best with a prepared curriculum, unfortunately, you are the most expensive type of learner.  Do you know how you learn best?

 

[jaylw314]

5 hours ago, Fred_2O said:

OK, so I'm working on the instrument rating.  I did ground school in 1982, then I got (1) poor, then (2) married and pregnant, then (3) busy.

Fred

Would I be correct in assuming that it was your WIFE that got pregnant and not you?  

[Marauder]

Would I be correct in assuming that it was your WIFE that got pregnant and not you?  

Fred may be a Frederica and not a Frederick.


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[jlunseth]

2 hours ago, Ned Gravel said:

I am going to offer a different opinion here, partly because training complex concepts is what I do now for a living - although not for flying.  As well, we had the same ethos when I was wearing a uniform for a living - the kind that uprooted you to different places in the world to, as Von Clausewitz said: "participate in the continuation of government policy by Other Means."  We were the "Other Means."  Not learning what needed to be done in those days could result in very bad results.  So we Trained what we Did. No exceptions. 

Training to a test was, and will always be for me, a poor second best to "acquisition of the required skill set."  The type of training I do now is about folks producing technically valid results that allows regulators to declare, with some confidence, that things are safe for people to use - seat belts, drinking water, steel, concrete (you get the idea).  Messing up produces bad results - although not normally as immediate as improper use of a military weapon, or a tactical procedure.

So teaching to allow the student to demonstrate the required skill set has always been the goal for me.  

But that is just me, I guess.

I don’t think anyone here will disagree with you.  The FAA written just has never done that.  And frankly, the whole teaching methodology is driven by the fact that, to become an instructor, one has to learn to teach to the FAA regulations, the PTS, and the FAA way of doing things, so the whole system is keyed to that.  You have to get the rating and start flying before you find out what you don’t know, which is quite alot.

But it is also not completely without basis.  The same IFR course, when passed, will generate pilots who range from commercial airline captains, to us guys in GA who mostly now have at least one IFR GPS, to pilots who fly legacy aircraft and may have a VOR or ADF that they use mostly for operations out of their local airport that until recently only had an NDB, or maybe a VOR.  The airlines use Flight Management Systems that are different from we have, and until the last few years most of those did not have GPS, and most still don’t have WAAS.  So there is a broad range to cover.  We sometimes tend to see their teaching only from our vantage point, i.e. “why didn’t I learn more about GPS? Why isn’t there more GPS on the written?”. 

It is what it is.  All we are saying is that the King video teaches to the exam so you can pass the exam and get the rating.  If you would please tell the FAA they need to teach and test differently, you will have alot of us behind you.

[0TreeLemur]

21 hours ago, jaylw314 said:

Would I be correct in assuming that it was your WIFE that got pregnant and not you?  

You know what the shortest unit of time is in a man's life?  

 

9 months.

 

Yes, "we" got pregnant.  That's the way we described it back in the good ol' 90's.  It takes two if done well and properly.