PDA

View Full Version : Accelerated VS. Old Fashion Flight Training



Glory Aulik
05-04-2016, 11:00 AM
Do you think accelerated instrument flight training provides more, equal, or less value than regular "old fashion" flight training?

FlyingRon
05-04-2016, 01:08 PM
Do you think accelerated instrument flight training provides more, equal, or less value than regular "old fashion" flight training?

I think if you can tolerate the pace of the accelerated program, it's an excellent plan. You don't go through as much learn-disuse-forget cycle. "Old school" or Accelerated" your instrument rating means nothing if you don't invest in the effort proficient (or at least current) at it.

Marc Zeitlin
05-04-2016, 04:28 PM
Do you think accelerated instrument flight training provides more, equal, or less value than regular "old fashion" flight training?Way more value, unless you've got a friend teaching you for free and he's only available on alternate Saturdays. I did my Instrument Rating in my COZY in 7 days, including the practical test. Commercial in 3 days, including the test. As Ron says, no time to forget stuff.

Who goes to college for 3 days/month for 17 years? How much do you think you'd remember? Flying is the only training I can think of that does things with the "old fashioned" drip/drab methodology. It's ridiculous.

Mike M
05-04-2016, 05:24 PM
Concur with Marc. Other factors include the familiarity of the instructors with the current practical testing hoohah and having an examiner available when you're ready to test.

FlyingRon
05-04-2016, 06:21 PM
I should disclose that ten years ago I did the PIC course. For me, it was exactly what I wanted. I'd been studying instrument flight for over a decade. I had taken my written several times and let it expire but never booked more than a couple of flight lessons in a row.

PIC was absolutely great. My instructor kept asking me if I thought the pace was OK. I asked why and he said that in the first time since he'd been doing this he thought that he was holding a student back. Anyway, I completed the course in 8 days, the eight being a mock checkride and filling out the IARCA, etc... The checkride was a breeze.

As I said, you need to keep continually proficient. I'm actually one of those who doesn't tend to lose learned skills, but I can still tell when I'm on my game because I've practiced and when I've slacked off.

Learn in the style that works well for you and your circumstances, but understand that instrument flight requires a time investment beyond just getting your certificate.

Auburntsts
05-05-2016, 04:16 AM
The material is the material no matter how its presented. The real question isn't which provides the better value, but rather which method suit's you better as a student. The accelerated programs are intense and the pace over 8-10 days isn't for everyone, but if you can carve out the time and drink from the firehose, it works. Conversely the traditional method works too -- thats the route I went because I used my GI Bill to pay for it so I was forced to use a part 141 program and none of the accelerated outfits (PIC, Gatts, etc) are 141. Also there is nothing stopping a student from going traditional and flying more than a few times a week to create their own hybrid accelerated program.

martymayes
05-05-2016, 10:00 AM
Also there us nothing stopping a student from going traditional and flying more than a few times a week to create their own hybrid accelerated program.
That's what I was thinking. I trained a lot of instrument students and we simply didn't limit training to 3 days a month. I'm probably "old fashioned" no matter how I do it.

rwhite
06-30-2016, 07:22 PM
I went to an accelerated school for my instrument ticket. We accelerated the accelerated program slightly and I flew over 7 hours a day for 5 days. On the sixth day we had to file to the airport where my DPE was and we had to file to get back to his home airport to drop him off. Then I had to file to get back to the airport where I had left my wife with her family for the week.

We were IMC every day and the experience was akin to drinking from a fire hose. The fact that I was a 25 year air traffic controller in a busy approach control helped a lot. On the first day I called RDU on the remote frequency, obtained my clearance and release before we launched into a 700 foot overcast. I handled all of the comm with approach. Later that day my instructor told me that he usually handled the radios for the first couple of days. I didn't even have to think about that part since I had experienced it so long from the other end and that let me concentrate on the rest of it.

I feel as long as someone has a good grasp on a handling radio communication with the approach control and is comfortable with it, the accelerated option would be a good way to go. It is definitely cheaper.

Andre Durocher
07-10-2019, 01:53 PM
What about aneasier IFR rating for private pilots? The european EIR (Enroute IFR Rules= T-Oin VMC, fly in or above the clouds and land in VMC). Maybe not less intrumentsin the cockpit but less study and training. Who needs an IFR ticket when 80% ofthe time the IFR flights are done in VMC.
Transport Canada and COPA are studying the case. Andre.

FlyingRon
07-10-2019, 03:35 PM
Answered in the other thread you brought this up in. Not going to happen in the US, and I think it's a good thing.

2ndsegment
04-30-2020, 01:37 PM
I'm going to pop in here with a much larger view. In 1968 I was asked to examine USAF Navigator Training with a view to using some of the C-9A options or contract extensions to replace T-29 aircraft used in Undergraduate Navigator Training (UNT). T-29's were used at the time for Proficiency training in all the commands. I went to Randolph AFB to meet with the Director of Navigator Training and his staff. There was pressure to replace all of the (UNT) with simulator training or remove all Navigators all the seats they had in bombers, transports, fighters, and reconnaissance aircraft, etc. I spent most of the summer with a retired USAF colonel who knew the staff at Mather and later got us in to Castle AFB where Combat Crew Training Systems (CCTS) was done with Navigators and Radar Bombardiers. The B-58 was in inventory then and the FB-111 was coming fast. I soon had not just costs, course times and grades, I had syllabi including expected syllabi for simulators on the latter aircraft. The B-52 at the time had an inertial navigation system and a star tracker as well as a ground mapping radar each of which had it's own procedures trainer. Any calculations were strictly up to the individual navigator in precomps or along the route during dead reckoning. The KC-135 had a Doppler radar for drift and the boom operator took sun shots for azimuth. Add it all up and the "learning curves we made to help decide what the simulators could take over and what could simply be dropped as mechanized in later systems" soon became a --- well they wre not exactly the same product cures used in production planning so the report was suppressed. Boeing won the proposal with it's 737 to become the T-43. They are all out of the inventory now. The navigators were removed from USAF F-4 "Phantom-II"s which had two stick positions and --- Nowadays I read Aviation Week about ADSB-IN/OUT and the Atlantic routes, and Air Force for military as well as Tail hook for Navy/Marines with Proceedings to tie in non-Aviation and Aviation. The Berlin Air Lift showed what Ground Controlled Approach could do for C-54's. We've been to the moon as pilots and to Mars as cargo and beyond to the limits of the Solar System as instruments and communications gear.

Auburntsts
04-30-2020, 05:50 PM
WTF? Exactly what does this rambling exposition have to with the OP’s 4-year old question?

2ndsegment
05-01-2020, 10:38 AM
At one time pilots used railroad tracks and water tower town names. Flight training includes situation awareness as well as traveling point to point where at one time there was a very distinct difference between homing on the expected landing place and navigating by dead reckoning involving plotting a track. What my post does is say in 1968 the military services decided to get rid of everything except homing on the expected landing place. That didn't exactly happen which leads to the "rambling." Do you know what the difference is between a VOR/TAC and a TACAN? What DME means. Now where do these questions come from? Definitely not out the window. Sometimes the flight is in segments.

Auburntsts
05-01-2020, 01:21 PM
At one time pilots used railroad tracks and water tower town names. Flight training includes situation awareness as well as traveling point to point where at one time there was a very distinct difference between homing on the expected landing place and navigating by dead reckoning involving plotting a track. What my post does is say in 1968 the military services decided to get rid of everything except homing on the expected landing place. That didn't exactly happen which leads to the "rambling." Do you know what the difference is between a VOR/TAC and a TACAN? What DME means. Now where do these questions come from? Definitely not out the window. Sometimes the flight is in segments.

the question, which apparently you missed, was whether to use the traditional approach to IFR training normally done through a local flight school vs one of the 10-day accelerated programs like PIC. The information and skills germane to the IR are the same under both, just the manner of presentation differs and one might suit an instrument student better than the other.

What you did back in ‘68, while interesting, doesn’t have any relevance to the OP’s question. IOW how does a trip down memory lane help out a prospective instrument student today? Do you know the difference between TSO 129 and TSO 145/146 IFR GPS navigators or the significance of the FAA’s MON infrastructure initiative?

2ndsegment
05-01-2020, 02:36 PM
Nope and that is why I need to go to the best school. I am pleased my huge thunder cloud did not dampen your interest in flying on instruments overall.

2ndsegment
05-02-2020, 05:21 PM
I looked at your builders log and was especially interested in how the vacuum pump mount was used to install a secondary Alternator as a backup. Very thorough overall.