Instrument Proficiency Check

[PeytonM]

Besides the usual 3 approaches and holding, what else do you do? Partial panel, I presume. How about sim electrical failure w/glass? (I understand Garmin has a recommended protocol for instructors which I have not seen, but do not pull CB). Comm failure: approach using a handheld. Approaches w/ iPad (never done it). Recovery from unusual attitudes. How much w/AP vs hand flying? Other ideas?

[Marc_B]

FAA IPC Guidance

Advisory Circular 61-98D

Two good resources pertaining to IPC's.  But I typically just make sure that I've gone over the things that I do regularly, the things that give me issues, and hand flying while task saturated to work on drift and good scan.  If you can find some "good" aka wicked approaches in your area that's always a good idea.  i.e. we have a few VOR approaches that I'd never fly in real life, but they have quirks that DEMAND that you're ahead of the aircraft. 

For example, KAKO VOR Rwy 29.  it has a short final approach segment that's steep and it looks like it's lined up with the runway but it isn't exactly.  So it's easy to look at it quickly and think it's the same as every approach, but it's definitely not.

[bigmo]

I'm assuming you're asking as someone taking an IPC and not giving one? Just making sure.

I follow the ACS to the T. All the tasks for an IPC are clearly articulated in the ACS. For ease of reference, those are:

III. B. Holding Procedures
IV. B. Recovery from Unusual Flight Attitudes
V. A. Intercepting and Tracking Navigational Systems and Arcs
VI. A. Nonprecision Approach
VI. B. Precision Approach
VI. C. Missed Approach
VI. D. Circling Approach
VI. E. Landing from an Instrument Approach
VII. B. One Engine Inoperative (Simulated) during Straight-and-Level Flight and Turns (ME Only)
VII. C. Instrument Approach and Landing with an Inoperative Engine (Simulated) (ME Only)
VII. D. Approach with Loss of Primary Flight Instrument Indicators
VIII.A. Postflight – Checking Instruments and Equipment

How the instructor has the learner perform the tasks is up to each instructor. To me, this is a skills validation, not a game of gotcha. I'm not there to prove that the pilot shouldn't be in the plane - and that's where some of these silly things I've heard about come from. I've read stories about guys pulling breakers on the DL etc - and that's just dangerous to me. 

As far as use of autopilot, I generally have the pilot keep autopilot on about 60-70% of the time if they prefer. It's just another tool that needs to be used effectively. I will have them demonstrate one hand flown approach, and I'll generally have them fly a missed by hand. As far as failing equipment, the ACS is pretty clear. My most common task is a simulated vac system failure (which is a very realistic scenario). If the a/c is glass, I'll find a suitable way to simulate a comparable scenario.

One of the most frequent questions I get is how long? There's no minimum time set by the FAA, but I generally spend two hours on the ground and two in the air. The air is rarely done in less than two and can go a bit longer depending on airspace, approaches, etc.. If I get people instructor shopping wanting a one hour signoff, I'll politely pass. 

 

[midlifeflyer]

 

1 hour ago, PeytonM said:

Besides the usual 3 approaches and holding, what else do you do? Partial panel, I presume. How about sim electrical failure w/glass? (I understand Garmin has a recommended protocol for instructors which I have not seen, but do not pull CB). Comm failure: approach using a handheld. Approaches w/ iPad (never done it). Recovery from unusual attitudes. How much w/AP vs hand flying? Other ideas?

As in instructor, I start with the Instrument ACS which has a table of the tasks what are required. That comes down to 2 nonprecision approaches, 1 precision approach, and unusual attitude recovery. At least one of the approaches must use a course reversal or TAA. At least one approach needs to be to a missed. Loss of primary flight instruments, circling, and lack of autopilot must be incorporated into one or both of the nonprecision approaches. 

Beyond that, it depends on my student and their equipment. 

Yes, Garmin has guidances for loss of primary glass instruments. Depending on what glass, it might be everything from diming the screen to sticky notes to turning something off to, yes, even pulling a breaker. 

I mix hand flying and autopilot use. I generally allow the autopilot for setting things up. That's mostly about efficiency when finishing an approach and setting up for the next, although I have been known to put a very short time/distance between approaches and say the AP is inop. The loss of primary is without the AP (in many glass aircraft, they are tied together). At the opposite end, if the airplane has an autopilot, I require a fully coupled ILS.  You may think that's easy, but I've seen repeated errors on that one. 

That fully-coupled ILS is part of my list of six "GPS Tasks Pilots Don't know How to Do." It's the one I always do if conditions permit. One or more of the other might be incorporated into the flight portion of the IPC, but it's more likely they will be the subject of a ground discussion. 

Aside from meeting the requirements and the coupled ILS, it's mostly about the trainee.  What do they feel they need? Are there things they would like to cover? Have they had any issues come up in their IFR flying they want to review. That kind of stuff.

 

 

 

[N201MKTurbo]

I could do all that with two approaches at the stack.

We would do the unusual attitudes on the way to the stack and fly an arc to POTER.

It would be about an hour.

[Vance Harral]

It's helpful not to confuse an instrument proficiency check with instrument proficiency training.  As @bigmo notes above, meeting the requirements of 61.57(d) for an IPC is specifically and legally tied to a list of tasks in the Instrument Rating ACS, and all of them must be covered.  The instructor (and their client) get to choose how those tasks are covered, and you can of course add extra stuff.  But there's something of a cultural expectation that a proficient IFR pilot can accomplish an IPC in one session.  If you start getting too creative in that one session, you wind up with a fatigued pilot at the very far realistic corner of the unusual situation/emergency envelope.  That's not necessary helpful to anyone, and it doesn't meet the spirit of law that requires the IPC in the first place.  So I don't try to "pack" an IPC with much more than the ACS task list itself.

When I conduct IPCs these days, really the only item of much discussion is how to conduct an "Approach with Loss of Primary Flight Instrument Indicators" in an airplane with redundant EFIS displays.  This is increasingly the default situation, because even the most pedestrian IFR airplanes tend to have at least a dual G5 or similar.  I have a couple of comments about that.

First, I'm not opposed to pulling a circuit breaker.  I'm aware of the guidance from Garmin not to do so, but you've got to understand what's behind that guidance, which is more about confusion of pilots, instructors, and maintenance personnel than it is about any damage to the expensive gizmos.  I've written about this in other threads, so I won't go into it here except to say that an electrically powered device can certainly lose power, and pulling a breaker is a way to simulate that.  Like all abnormal situations, it's best to experience this on occasion in training, so you can see how small things can be quite disruptive.  e.g. most dual EFIS setups will revert the primary attitude display to the backup display if the primary display loses power.  This is great, but I've found that pilots tend to underestimate just how distracting it is to have their primary attitude information in even a slightly different location, even though it's the same display.  In the case of the smaller EFIS instruments like the G5/GI-275, they may also not realize how hard it is to do without an HSI, even though the primary ADI shows course guidance information (in a different manner) at the bottom.  But all of those things are less distracting on the first attempt than abandoning everything in the panel in favor of Foreflight on an iPad.  To be clear, Foreflight on an iPad is a reasonable backup plan, but you've got to practice with it.

Anyway... having said that, I also like the technique of simply using backlight controls to dim an ADI display down to the point of it being invisible (working perfectly fine, you just can't see it).  There are a couple of reasons I like this approach.  One is that while we tend to be enamored of the "redundancy" of dual G5s or whatever, that redundancy only kicks in when a device loses its bus link to the other device - typically due to a complete loss of power.  That is not the only - or I suspect even the most common - failure mode.  It doesn't help you if the sensors feeding the device quit.  Also, LCD backlights can definitely malfunction, and if they do, they don't fail in a way that a secondary display could detect.  In addition to considering these "partial failure" scenarios, I also think the whole point of partial panel work is just to get the pilot used to the idea of using all available instrumentation to control the airplane when something goes wonky.  It's not so much that you're trying to simulate a "realistic" failure, as it is that you want the pilot to be thinking about things like the fact that airspeed is a somewhat decent indicator of pitch (at a given power setting), GPS groundspeed is a somewhat decent indicator of airspeed, that a good old wet compass really does show heading, and that GPS track is a fine proxy for heading in all but the most extreme circumstances.  That a standard rate turn as shown on an old TC really does change your heading 3 degrees per second, and so on.  All of those things make you a better instrument pilot even in non-emergency situations, and the better you are individually, the better the system works for everyone.

One of my airplane partners calls this sort of stuff "mental pushups", equating them to physical push-ups.  We don't do push-ups because the push-up motion is something most of us often (or ever) need to do in real life.  We do them because they help you be generally strong, and being generally strong is good for your overall health, even if the exercise that got you strong isn't directly applicable to your life.  Once I started thinking of things this way, I got more creative about simulating failed equipment.  Partly because it's fun and helps me learn more about the complex systems we fly these days.  But also because it wholly and legitimately dismisses pointless fights over what is a "realistic" failure.  The vast majority of pilots flying behind EFIS panels are - understandably - never going to be able to understand the nuances of all the possible failure modes.  I can tell you that as a hardware/software engineer, even the people that design the systems can never completely guarantee they understand all the failure modes.  If they can't, you can't.  And if you can't, mental push-ups is the best strategy.  But getting back to the original topic, this is not the sort of thing you knock out in a single IPC.  Again, an instrument proficiency check is not instrument proficiency training.

[midlifeflyer]

36 minutes ago, N201MKTurbo said:

I could do all that with two approaches at the stack.

So could I but then it wouldn't be an IPC.

[N201MKTurbo]

6 minutes ago, midlifeflyer said:

So could I but then it wouldn't be an IPC.

Why not? It will do everything on the list.

 

[midlifeflyer]

31 minutes ago, Vance Harral said:

But there's something of a cultural expectation that a proficient IFR pilot can accomplish an IPC in one session

I've definitely been able to accomplish an IPC in an hour with a competent pilot. I've even head of the flight portion of an instrument checkride being accomplished that quickly. 

32 minutes ago, Vance Harral said:

It's helpful not to confuse an instrument proficiency check with instrument proficiency training. 

That's a very important point. One of the big problems these days is pilots passing the instrument checkride without really being proficient. I think that's a function of modern avionics. You can pass a checkride or an IPC barely brushing the surface of what our avionics do. That's where my "Six" comes from and why a dialog between trainee and instructor comes into play. I once had to withhold the endorsement from a very good pilot. Had just upgraded the panel and really didn't know how to use the new equipment. A lesson or two would have been in order, but they insisted on an IPC.

[midlifeflyer]

3 minutes ago, N201MKTurbo said:

Why not? It will do everything on the list.

 

Because the ACS says, "The evaluator must select and the applicant must accomplish at least two different non-precision approaches" in addition to the precision approach.

[N201MKTurbo]

1 minute ago, midlifeflyer said:

Because the ACS says, "The evaluator must select and the applicant must accomplish at least two different non-precision approaches" in addition to the precision approach.

OK, Fine, we will do the approach back into KCHD.... It's just a pain, you have to talk to Phoenix to get that one. Probably faster to just do another in the stack.

[Marc_B]

1 hour ago, midlifeflyer said:

2 hours ago, Vance Harral said:

It's helpful not to confuse an instrument proficiency check with instrument proficiency training. 

That's a very important point.

This is an interesting point.  I've completed a couple IPCs with a CFII even though I was IFR current, not primarily for the checkoff, but rather as training and maintenance of proficiency and to reset the clock so to speak.  I certainly understand the difference of basic components and requirements of an IPC to reset currency after a lapse as a minimum requirement of entry into the IFR system.

But I don't think there's any reason why Instrument Proficiency Training can't also meet the minimum criteria set forth for an IPC and get a sign off by a CFII in the process.  This is exactly what the MAPA PPP training does with both BFR and IPC after course completion.

vs. a pilot who is proficient and capable but not Instrument current so needs a CFII check off in the form of a basic IPC.

I guess what I mean is that just because there is a minimum list of criteria for an IPC, doesn't mean that it has to cover only basic minimum items.

[Marc_B]

One other thought...A checkride vs an IPC are two entirely different things.  Given that the FAA doesn't require a DPE to conduct an IPC, it is my opinion that the intent is different.  Flight check as well as instruction; same idea as BFR.  Meaning when I fly with a CFII for an IPC, as a customer I'm expecting to demonstrate elements of proficiency, but I'm also expecting to learn things and brush up on things as well.

[Vance Harral]

4 minutes ago, Marc_B said:

I guess what I mean is that just because there is a minimum list of criteria for an IPC, doesn't mean that it has to cover only basic minimum items.

Of course not, but the question is how much "gas in the tank" the pilot has left, cognitively, to perform tasks above and beyond what's required for the IPC.

As you note, lots of pilots wind up getting an IPC signed off not because they need one, but essentially by coincidence.  Such pilots are active, proficient, and able to accomplish all the tasks required for an IPC without being mentally taxed, and therefore can meaningfully accomplish more than the required items in a single flight (I wouldn't call the IPC task list just "basic minimum items", there is quite a lot there).  And in almost all cases, such pilots don't actually "need" the IPC because they're already instrument current, and very likely to remain instrument current for the forseeable future just by conducting training and/or real-life operations that gets them the 6 approaches, holding, and intercept/track.  For pilots like these, the concept of "getting an IPC" is really just shorthand for wanting a high level of proficiency training.  Whether there is an IPC signoff in their logbook is academic.

As you might guess, only a subset of the pilots who come to me for an IPC fall in this category.  The others are rusty, trying to regain currency, and I'm just trying to do my best to give them the best odds at making use of their rating (and frankly, keeping them alive).  If I press too hard on the idea that an IPC includes more than the bare minimum, most of these clients are entirely game for it, because they understand that the end result makes them a better pilot.  You would think that's a good thing.  But that's just theory.  In practice, the result is sometimes that the "IPC plus" flight goes somewhat poorly, I never see them again, and I'm left to wonder if the net result was actually an overall decrease in safety.

[PT20J]

Another instructor and I used to fly together monthly and we always completed the tasks and signed each other off for an IPC afterwards. 

[midlifeflyer]

27 minutes ago, Marc_B said:

But I don't think there's any reason why Instrument Proficiency Training can't also meet the minimum criteria set forth for an IPC and get a sign off by a CFII in the process.  This is exactly what the MAPA PPP training does with both BFR and IPC after course completion.

Once can certainly use an IPC for proficiency training, but there are some stumbling blocks. One is what @Vance Harral mentioned - overload. Aside from that, Depending on where, IPCs tend to be local for efficiency. That mean a few things. The pilot is familiar with the approaches; probably has flown them many times. In many areas, it means not utilizing ATC services, let along doing an IFR cross country to a less familiar area. (OTOH, I do have clients who insist on doing exactly that.)

Until the new ACS, another issue has been the requirement for at least one ground-based navaid nonprecision approach.   Combines with the desire to stay local, that has lead to a lack of realism in the name of IPC expediency. For example, the nearest VOR approach 34 NM northwest of us. Not too bad, but it required DME. That's true of several nearby LOC options as well. Many aircraft no longer have DME, so we fudged them by using GPS. Definitely permitted but not related to the real world of IFR flight. 

[midlifeflyer]

22 minutes ago, Marc_B said:

One other thought...A checkride vs an IPC are two entirely different things.  Given that the FAA doesn't require a DPE to conduct an IPC, it is my opinion that the intent is different.  Flight check as well as instruction; same idea as BFR.  Meaning when I fly with a CFII for an IPC, as a customer I'm expecting to demonstrate elements of proficiency, but I'm also expecting to learn things and brush up on things as well.

There is a difference many have pointed to. A flight review is, by regulatory definition, training. The IPC doesn't use "training" anywhere. Many have therefore taken the view that an IPC is a check of competence, not training to competence.  IOW, a checkride. 

[Marc_B]

@Vance Harral sounds like when I got back into flying after 10 years off...I flew with a CFI probably 5-6 sessions (in air, not counting ground time and I also requested a night flight) before he signed me off on a BFR and I was upfront with my intention for training to get me back where I was and not just a signature.  So maybe an Instrument Proficiency Check turns into Instrument Proficiency Training which finishes as an IPC...not necessarily on the same flight or maybe even the same day.

By "minimum," I mean the basic requirements for completion, not the size of the list.

[midlifeflyer]

1 hour ago, Marc_B said:

@Vance Harral sounds like when I got back into flying after 10 years off...I flew with a CFI probably 5-6 sessions (in air, not counting ground time and I also requested a night flight) before he signed me off on a BFR and I was upfront with my intention for training to get me back where I was and not just a signature.  So maybe an Instrument Proficiency Check turns into Instrument Proficiency Training which finishes as an IPC...not necessarily on the same flight or maybe even the same day.

By "minimum," I mean the basic requirements for completion, not the size of the list.

That is not unusual. A series of training sessions culminating with a FR and/or IPC.