Originally Posted by
max_reason
I can answer that for myself. I only fly VFR. So far I have never gotten close to IMC conditions. However, after watching endless flying video on youtube, I can see that maybe someday I might possibly get suckered into IMC conditions. I VERY much doubt this will happen, because I don't fly unless the weather is awesome, because I'm flying to see awesome scenery and go to gorgeous places. Plus, I want my flying to be fun, not scary. Also, I almost NEVER fly to IFR airports. For that matter, I almost never fly to an airport with ATC. I hate those kinds of airports and I hate dealing with ATC, so I simply avoid them. Another reason is... I hate cities in general (and in every possible way), and stay as far away from them as I can.
Okay, that's the context. I may be a bit more extreme case than other rural pilots, but a great many pilots exist who are moderately close to my situation.
Oh, I'm not sure this is very relevant, but when "under the hood" during training, I'm one of the few who intuitively trust instruments more than my own senses... assuming the instruments aren't wildly contradicting each other.
Now. From my perspective, the part of IFR training that deals with all sorts of complex approaches and departures and such is of absolutely zero value to me... and will remain of zero value to me permanently unless I have a stroke and my personality and values completely change.
What would be of value to me is dealing with IMC... in the unlikely event that is ever necessary.
I'll give a few examples to illustrate, just in case:
#1: I'm stupid enough to get my butt trapped above a cloud layer that weather forecasts swore would not exist at my intended destination. But I stupidly believed the weather reports would be somewhere remotely near true... and was wrong. What I'd like to be able to do is be safe descending through a cloud layer in situations where I can talk to pilots or controllers on the ground and confirm for sure that the bottom of the clouds is far above the ground where I want to descend. Or, if I'm double stupid and getting low on fuel, where I must descend under power to avoid having to descend without power (out of fuel).
#2: I'm flying down a mountain valley and encounter a big honking unexpected cloud in front of me that totally fills the valley. So I make a 180 degree turn and find out that so magical weather phenomenon has filled in the valley behind me. This sounds impossible, and I've never seen anything change so quickly myself, but I've watched two youtube videos in which pilots claimed this happened to them. In such a case my airplane might not be capable of sufficient rate-of-climb to get out of the valley without passing through a portion of one of the clouds.
#3: I am flying at night in a very rural area (over a national forest or wilderness area) and could not even see clouds in front of me due to the absolute blackness ahead. Note that the clouds ahead would necessarily have a fairly low upper altitude, because the only way I could be surprised like that is if the sky full of stars ahead of me was visible to me. If that wasn't true, if I couldn't see a sky full of stars ahead of me, then I'd know there was a cloud there. But if the cloud tops out at roughly my altitude, I could see the sky full of stars ahead, but could not see anything below the horizon because... well... there just isn't any light there in any case (civilization or otherwise). In this case a 180 degree turn would almost surely solve the problem, or a climb above the top of the cloud layer. Nonetheless, it is again possible I'd find myself inside a cloud for several few seconds or even a few minutes.
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The bottom line is... I can see great value in being able to fly by instruments in situations like these. Just in case. The key point for me is... I will never fly IFR approaches, IFR departures, or IFR routing. Never. Period. And so, I see absolutely no reason to take that part of the IFR training. For me, that seems to be 80% of the difficulty of IFR... though that's just me guessing based upon watching youtube videos of pilots flying IFR.
I'll say this too. When I watch these youtube videos of pilots flying IFR, they seem to love it! But what they seem to love is:
#1: Being able to understand absurdly complex instructions from ATC (that typically come so rapid-fire that I have no idea what is being said).
#2: Enjoying the prospect of following ATC instructions like an abject slave or puppet.
#3: Being able to program all sorts of complex goober into their avionics at breakneck speed sometimes.
#4: Perform all actions that make the airplane obey all the ATC instructions given.
Remember... the C in ATC is control (or controller).
When I fly, I want to be in control. And I want to evaluate my situation. And I want to make decisions.
I very much advocate the X-Files theory of life, namely: TRUST NO ONE.
I'd rather trust my own observations (of everything including the outside world ... and my instruments), and my own judgements.
Note that I very much have a "live and let live" philosophy, which means I have absolutely no problem with pilots who love IFR more than life itself. And for sure, pilots who fly commercial airplanes with passengers to major airports... have very little choice. Whether they like it or not, the must be expert in all those other aspects of IFR that I have zero interest in (and zero need for).
Seriously, why would I need IFR takeoff, IFR departure, IFR routing, IFR approach, IFR landing ... when I will NEVER be at an ATC airport?
Okay, it is conceivable that someday I'll need to get some repair on my airplane that I can only get at an ATC airport, and I'll have to "grin and bear it" (fly into an IFR airport).
Maybe once in my life. Maybe twice. Hopefully and probably zero.
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In my view, there could be two variants of "limited IFR training".
The first would be for pilots of airplanes with minimal avionics... basically what they call "six packs" or "eight packs".
The second would be for pilots of airplanes like mine that have a glass cockpit with:
- dynon skyview HDX1100
- reasonable autopilot
- ADS-B out
- ADS-B in
- and etc.
In an airplane like that, a pilot can push a button called LEVEL to instantly tell the autopilot to immediately "fly level" (meaning straight ahead (no roll) and level (no pitch)).
Furthermore, the autopilot can be told to fly at any altitude and towards pretty much any airport (which are stored in memory in the device).
Furthermore, the database gives the pilot all the ATIS and other frequencies on which to listen (or ask for) weather reports at endless airports within range.
Furthermore, the skyview displays a 3D synthetic vision display of wherever the airplane is headed (including color codes to show low clearance and negative clearance of topography), plus a moving map that shows everything in every direction from the current position of the airplane (complete with an icon of the airplane showing which direction it is flying on the moving map).
For people with this kind of avionics, one can probably get themselves to nearly any non-tower, non-ATC airport and land safely in just about every situation except pea-soup thick fog right down onto the ground.
A friend of mine did this with a hood and copilot watching where the airplane was relative to the ground, and his conclusion is, he probably could have landed safely and without damage even IN pea-soup fog. I would never suggest anyone try any such foolish thing... unless of course they ran out of fuel and had to glide to an airport in such horrible conditions.
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The fact is, maybe the second kind of IFR is pointless. I have a feeling that every VFR pilot who has semi-advanced instrumentation like I describe learns how his instrumentation works precisely because he knows this instrumentation can safely get him into, through and out of IMC conditions as necessary, and even right to the threshold of his runway of choice at his airstrip of choice... including every little dinky airstrip in the area. Over 95% of airports/airstrips have no control tower, and presumably more than 95% have no IFR services. Many of us have no need or desire to deal with the 5% (or less) of airports that support IFR. The chances are always much greater that one of the 95% of airports/airstrips without IFR has good (or at least tolerable) weather conditions.
Nonetheless, hopefully the above indicates a small aspect of IFR that could be very useful to VFR pilots who have no need whatsoever to go through the massive quantity of knowledge involved in IFR takeoffs, IFR departure, IFR routing, IFR approach and IFR landing. What they need to do is get their butt into, through and/or out-of IMC.
Again, there is NOTHING wrong with full-bore IFR training. In fact, it is necessary for some kinds of flying and some kinds of flying jobs.
But the rest of us riff-raff don't need that. All we need is to be able to get through a short stint of IMC without getting into a spin, or flying the airplane into a mountain or the ground... or otherwise lose control and/or run out of fuel. Especially with modern avionics, including ADS-B out and ADS-B in that lets us monitor all nearby aircraft, we can be more independent.
Oh, and incidentally, when flying down mountain valleys, pilots are often shielded from radio contact with ATC... including IFR services. It doesn't hurt to be able to survive without outside advice, intervention or instructions.