Online Training/Course for IFR ???

[Remington4Life]

Looking to get into a plane soon and hope to do my IFR in it. 

In the meantime I would like to continue to learn! Anyone have a recommendation for online training? MZeroA and Fly8MA are a couple I have looked at recently. Thinking it would be a nice change from the Sportys or King training style based on their YouTube videos. 

 

[toto]

People tend to say that Sheppard is the best course for passing the written test. I’ve never used them, but I’ve never been super impressed by any of the test prep courses tbh. I normally use a combination of the ASA software and the FAA books. The FAA publications are free, and the ASA software has a decent test bank for practice. 

 

[toto]

For whatever it’s worth, I use these guys for my CFI renewals. They’re very old school, with a video recording of a classroom presentation. But I actually find it more interesting and less boring than standard webinars. 

https://www.aviationseminars.com/online-test-prep/

[RoundTwo]

For my IR, I used King. Say what you want, but their process teaches you the material. For my commercial, I bought Shepard. It feels like legal cheating. There is no intent of teaching the material. Their program is built on you memorizing the questions and answers. They tell you that if you take the test and get a question you hadn’t seen previously, you should memorize it and as soon as you leave the test site, send them an email with the question and answers so they can add it to the question bank.

[Rwsavory]

I used King. They are good teachers, both for the written and for the knowledge aspects of actually flying IFR.

[201er]

Flight Insight might be worth a shot. I never tried his paid courses but I find his YouTube videos well made and I’d probably buy his course if I needed a ratting

https://www.flight-insight.com/ifr

[Remington4Life]

Thank you for all the great input. 

[kortopates]

This is very new online course and Rod is very good - hr doesn’t focus on memorizing question-answers but makes it easy to understand so you can apply it.

https://rodmachado.com/products/rod-machados-instrument-pilot-eground-school


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[PeteMc]

57 minutes ago, kortopates said:

This is very new online course and Rod is very good

Love Rod and obviously he knows his stuff!!!  But is his delivery as slow as some of his other stuff?  I had trouble watching some of his other videos because of his slow delivery. 

 

Edited January 28, 2023 by PeteMc

[RLCarter]

I used Sportys for my PPL & Instrument, King for Commercial and CFI. Not sure about Sportys online (only had the DVD’s) but once you purchase the King online ground schools it’s always available and they keep them updated as things change. Not a big fan of the test prep stuff out there, their goal is to get you through the written. The FAA’s handbooks can be downloaded in a PDF format or purchase the printed edition(s), “Instrument Flying Handbook” (Errata sheet and Addendum A& B), “Instrument Procedure Handbook”, an the “Aviation Weather Handbook” Link to FAA Handbooks. Read the regs. (FAR’s), the 50hrs of X-country is missed by a lot of newly minted PPL’s that go straight into the Instrument rating. Grab a “Safety Pilot” and go log 20+hrs of “Hood Time” in VMC, once a CFI-I shows you a procedure you can practice that procedure with a Safety Pilot. Also practice “Partial Panel” before and after you get your rating, most don’t after the rating. If your not proficient on the radio, practice that as well…. Trust your instruments and have fun, to me the instrument rating was more rewarding than the PPL

[Jerry 5TJ]

5 hours ago, RLCarter said:

the 50hrs of X-country is missed by a lot of newly minted PPL’s that go straight into the Instrument rating.

Seconding this:   I tell new Private pilots to seize every opportunity to do a landing >50 miles from their home base & log XC PIC time. 

I had lunch with a DPE just yesterday who observed that he has seen a recent increase in poorly prepared candidates, we speculated that increased isolation during the pandemic has reduced the one-on-one ground training time.  

I also recommend the FAA handbooks. They’re inexpensive (free as pdf), very carefully written, well-illustrated and excellent sources of broad knowledge. 
 

[Pinecone]

Two different tasks.

1) Learn the material to prepare you for the flight portion and to understand what you are doing and why.  Not only during training, but as you use your instrument rating in the future.

2)  Passing the written test.

Doing #1 is very important for Private and Instrument.   And is the basis for #2.

But, a test prep before taking the written is a good review, plus lets you know you know the material well enough to pass.

[exM20K]

Both of my spawn used the Sporty’s PP course and did very well with it.  It is multi platform and well produced.  However, the teenage mind may absorb information differently.  I was impressed with what I saw and the results.

Private and instrument are courses where you want to master the materials and not just the test.  I did Sheppard for ATP because that was a master-the-test situation.  I’d not go that route for the foundational stuff.

Good luck and enjoy the journey. Instrument rating will transform you flying so much.

-dan

[good2eat]

12 hours ago, PeteMc said:

Love Rod and obviously he knows his stuff!!!  But is his delivery as slow as some of his other stuff?  I had trouble watching some of his other videos because of his slow delivery. 

 

I purchased this program.  I’m having a difficult time getting through it - way too much bad campy humor for me.

[toto]

3 hours ago, Jerry 5TJ said:

I also recommend the FAA handbooks. They’re inexpensive (free as pdf), very carefully written, well-illustrated and excellent sources of broad knowledge.

It’s probably also worth noting that the FAA handbooks are the official source of information for the knowledge tests, and ultimately every company that is producing an online learning resource is just organizing this information in different ways. If the FAA publications are updated, the online test prep companies change their content to match. And you should find every answer to every knowledge test question in the FAA publications. 

[Brandt]

On 1/26/2023 at 10:52 PM, 201er said:

Flight Insight might be worth a shot. I never tried his paid courses but I find his YouTube videos well made and I’d probably buy his course if I needed a ratting

https://www.flight-insight.com/ifr

I think Flight Insight is fantastic.

[RLCarter]

10 hours ago, Jerry 5TJ said:

Seconding this:   I tell new Private pilots to seize every opportunity to do a landing >50 miles from their home base 
 

Part 61.1 says you can log x-county time by landing any distance from your departure airport. When working on a cert or rating they specify distance and/or time….. kinda seems like pencil whipping your logs to me, I would rather go somewhere…….. lol

[toto]

3 hours ago, RLCarter said:

Part 61.1 says you can log x-county time by landing any distance from your departure airport. When working on a cert or rating they specify distance and/or time….. kinda seems like pencil whipping your logs to me, I would rather go somewhere…….. lol

And for ATP cross country, you don’t need to land. Just fly >50nm from origin. 

[jlunseth]

As far as an online course is concerned I used King. It was a long time ago now. But when you are actually prepping for the test there is no substitute for getting the current Gleim book and taking the test over several times until you get it right. Among other things, the tests always have questions that involve reading graphs and coming up with numbers, and the graphs are really hard to use and get a number accurate to the tenth. The tests have probably changed since I took my IFR, but at the time they included quite a few outmoded questions on systems that almost no one was using like RMI's (that rely on VOR's and ADF's) and types of calculations that were not very relevant to then-current navigation. To pass the test it is important to be prepared on anything they might ask you, and the Gleim book went over all the possible questions, including the outmoded stuff that would show up. For example, you could work out some of the graph problems and then find out if your answer of "14.5" was correct or the real answer was "14.8", the difference on the graphs between the two would be tiny. 

I know the FAA has upgraded the test since I took it, which was about 12 years ago, but they always seem to be behind in doing upgrades, so the questions are always behind. 12 years ago they were still asking a couple of LORAN questions and LORAN had been turned off in favor of GPS, and they had almost no GPS questions although that was what we were all learning. They hadn't gotten to that yet. 

[Greg Ellis]

About 20 years ago I took the written for my Instrument rating.  I used King.  It prepared me to take and pass a test which I did (scored a 96 or 98 if I recall).  I use other places like Rod Machado, or Sporty's, etc... to continue to learn and remind myself of information I may have forgotten.

Gleim and King will help you pass a written exam.  Rod Machado will help you actually apply information to flying in the IFR system.  Just my opinion.