Mailing List lml@lancaironline.net Message #20916
From: Hamid A. Wasti <hwasti@starband.net>
Sender: Marvin Kaye <marv@lancaironline.net>
Subject: Re: [LML] Re: IFR training in a IV-P?
Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2003 11:52:53 -0400
To: <lml@lancaironline.net>
VTAILJEFF@aol.com wrote:
How many of you got an instrument rating in anything bigger or faster than a C172 (military crowd excepted)?
Got my instrument training in a Mooney.  Started when I had 20 hours in Make & Model, 200 hours total time.  Training on weekends only, finished in a little over 2 months.   If I had to do it over again, I would not change a thing, except taking fewer weekends off.

I know that a Mooney is not the same as a IV, but I did not find the IFR training in a Mooney all that demanding (the wing leveler was off during the training).  Learning in the same plane that you would be flying all the time far outweighs any advantages that a spam can provides with its increased stability and lower speed.  I have about 3 hours of actual time in C172s since getting my IFR rating.  Having trained in a Mooney and being used to that, I found those to be some of the more stressful IMC hours.
In my limited experience as a Designated Pilot Examiner-- it is also the one with the highest failure rate.
That speaks to the quality of the CFIIs you are working with,  more than anything else.  The CFII needs to make sure that the student is competent enough to pass a check ride before signing them off for it.  If a student fails a checkride, the instructor has failed as well.
Learning to fly instruments is not going to be facilitated by doing the training in a LIVP. Could you do it? Probably-- but it ain't going to be pretty.
There is no argument that learning to fly IFR in a C172 is going to be easier than learning to fly IFR in a IV.  But will you recommend that a freshly minted IFR pilot trained in a C172 launch into IMC in a IV?  I would not.  The reality is that such a pilot is going to end up spending a large number of hours practicing IFR flying in a IV before they can be safe.  Why learn twice?  My feeling is that if you can not learn to fly IFR in the plane you will be flying IFR in, you have no business flying IFR in that plane.

Hamid

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