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IFR

What IFR flight simulator software should you buy?

A pilot named George has recently posted a question on on Ask a CFI about what the best flight simulator software to buy for home computer use:

My set up now is CH ruder CH yoke CH avionics panel windows XP.

Looking for software to practice IFR

Don’t care about the big airplanes just single engine steam gages user friendly.

Carl Tyler responded by writing that he personally uses Microsoft Flight Simulator (FSX) because it supported all his plugin accessories right out of the box e.g. rudders, radio panel etc. He had also tried XPlane but he didn’t like the user interface while trying to get it to work with his pedals and other accessories was “way too difficult.” Of course, Microsoft has ceased development on the Microsoft Flight Simulator but Carl still thinks its a great piece of software and perfect for practicing those IFR approaches.

A quick Internet search reveals a few other sources for commentary about flight simulators for IFR practice, including a Best IFR Sim software thread from the Pilots of America Message Board and another webpage entitled Using Flight Sims for IFR Practice which appears to date from over a decade ago but made the interesting observation that:

In real IFR flying, radios must be retuned in real time. Sometimes there isn’t a lot of spare time to do this. You can’t pull over and stop while you twiddle knobs. (But you may be able to activate an autopilot, which is almost as good.) Very high end sims have radios that work just like the radio stack in a real airplane.

Finally, another good and very comprehensive source for information about flight simulator software is AVSIM Community Forums which calls itself the largest repository of flight sim information available as it has over 2 million messages and over 200 forums.

Are you a pilot who cancels too many flights?

John Zimmerman has written an interesting post for Air Facts Journal in response to comments from their “Go or no go” series to ask the question: Do you cancel too many flights? To first put things in perspective: John says that the comments the series has received are revealing because a number of pilots appear to be uncomfortable flying in anything less than clear skies and unlimited visibility. In fact, he might even go so far as to say that the aviation community has beaten everyone over the head with the risk management stick so much that some pilots are afraid to fly in IFR. 

John then outlined what he thinks are the three major reasons for canceling flights:

  • We put too much stock in forecasts. John wrote that to delegate flight decision-making authority to an hours-old text forecast is “lazy, naive or both.” On the other hand, he also added that many pilots think that as long as the weather forecast is good, there won’t be any danger when flying. 
  • We’re afraid to “go take a look.” While John acknowledges that get-home-itis is a major cause of accidents for VFR pilots, he also adds that it can be safe for an IFR pilot – when it’s done properly. Pilots just need to have “ironclad rules” for when to quit and must always have an out. Specifically, John noted a late afternoon flight he did where the tightly packed thunderstorms on the ground-based radar actually turned out to be scattered enough in the air to allow for wide gaps between the cells and for an uneventful flight.
  • Instrument training doesn’t expose us to weather. John wrote that many pilots spend the majority of their instrument training practicing procedures and paperwork and never actually get much real in the air IFR flying to see real weather systems from the cockpit.

Of course, John did write that pilots should make decisions based on personal minimums as a legal trip may not be a safe trip but he also pointed out that pilots by their very nature are risk takers:

It’s simply what IFR flying is all about: accepting some level of calculated risk in exchange for great utility. If you’re not doing that, you’re not using the rating you worked so hard for. In fact, if you’re not doing that, you might not be getting out of bed in the morning.

In other words, you could easily find a reason to cancel every flight but then there would be no point to having spent so much money, time and effort to obtain a pilot license in the first place.

Top 10 weather rules to fly by

Richard Collins has written a great article for Air Facts Journal listing his top 10 weather rules for flying which were the following:

  1. Distrust any weather forecast calling for an improvement at a location covered in fog because you don’t want to be stuck in the air above a foggy airport without enough fuel. Moreover and if its overcast ABOVE the fog, you are going to run into even more problems.
  2. When the wind aloft forecast is substantially wrong, don’t trust any other forecast.
  3. Scattered clouds can end up causing the same effect as overcast approaches in IMC. Moreover, they could form into broken clouds or cause overcast conditions.
  4. Turbulence can tell you plenty about what is going on in the clouds – which can either be wind shear turbulence that can make flying a chore or convective turbulence that make it difficult to maintain altitude and air speed.
  5. There is no such thing as getting trapped by the weather as there are always signs that a system or something is forming.
  6. Cloud tops are always 1,000 feet greater than the ceiling for the aircraft you are flying in according to former Senator (and General) Barry Goldwater who was also a pilot – a point worth remembering.
  7. A windsock is the most reliable indicator of a gusty crosswind during a takeoff or landing.
  8. Early birds be warned: Substantial weather changes can happen shortly after sunrise – including the appearance of fog or frost on the aircraft.
  9. The onset of rain while flying VFR is bad news as it will cut visibility and lower clouds will tend to form after the rain starts. Rain can also make visibility from the aircraft much worst than the visibility being reported on the ground.
  10. If the wind shifts from northwest to north to northeast after the passage of a cold front, it means the front has stalled and has turned into a stationary front – meaning VFR flying may be off the table for awhile.

Richard went into considerable detail about each of these rules and he concluded by saying that a VFR pilot has the easiest time figuring out weather conditions as its always in plain view outside the windshield.

However, are there any weather rules for flying that Richard may have left out – especially any specific rules specific to UK or European weather conditions?

Radio navigation iPhone app

I remember doing my IMC training and struggling hard to get my head around VORs and NDBs and how to interpret the instruments to figure out where I was in relation to them. I used a program called RANT to try to figure it out and it help a bit. Now there’s an app for it – Radionav Sim -  written by a friend of mine, Vincent Lambercy. It’s pretty cool and much cheaper than RANT. Well worth getting if you’re studying for an IMC or IR or just trying to learn radio navigation.

iPhone Screenshot 1

Three top PC flight planning tools

I have been using Jeppesen FliteStar for about ten years for my VFR and, later, IFR flight planning. It takes a bit of learning but it is a powerful tool for flight planning and viewing instrument approach plates.

However, there are two big problems with it. First, it is hellaciously expensive. For VFR and IFR planning with digital IFR and VFR plates for Europe, it was costing me around €1,800 a year. Even in the context of an expensive hobby, that’s a lot of money. Bill Gates thinks that’s a lot of money.

Second, their billing is so obscure and their accounts department so incredibly unhelpful that it is impossible to change plans or figure out what, exactly, you are paying for. Or at least, that was my experience. For example, when I changed plans last year (it took three months to do this), they kept sending me an invoice even though they actually owed me money.

As a side issue, I was using Homebriefing.com to actually file my flight plans. I can’t get my head around AFPEx (even though I work with computers all day). Also, it doesn’t work on my iPhone which makes it useless if I’m abroad. Homebriefing is great and they have helpful people at the end of the phone to sort out problems but for an infrequent user, it feels like you have to hand over money every time you log on. Either my annual subscription has expired or I have run out of coupons for flight plans. Arghh.

So what am I using now? I looked at a few things but here is my plan from now on:

VFR Flight Planning

I’m going to use SkyDemon. It’s easier to use than Jeppesen, integrates NOTAMs and weather to produce a lovely trip kit and really attractive maps that filter out information you don’t need (e.g. airspace above your planned cruising altitude). It includes charts for most of Europe and they look very clean and easy to use.

Map view from SkyDemon

It feels like a simple, quick, efficient way to pull together everything you need for a VFR flight without wasting time or hopping between programs. It costs £119. You can (optionally) renew your subscription to charts etc. for £59 a year after the first year.

IFR Flight Planning

I’m going to check out RocketRoute. It combines IFR route planning with plates and online filing for flight plans. It is like a combination of the functional bits of Flitestar, Jeppview and Homebriefing.

Jeppesen’s tool for automatically planning an IFR airways trip never really worked very well and I often ended up refining them manually. This is why I really like RocketRoute’s AutoRouter. It produces valid routes between airfields quickly and then automatically validates them with Eurocontrol (which Jeppesen did not do). I think I’ll need to buy Jeppesen paper airways charts  in case it generates routes that don’t work for my circumstances but that’s not a big expense – £10 a year or something. Once you have set up your aircraft, you can reuse them in flight plans cutting down on the amount of time it takes to file plans in future.

RocketRoute

RocketRoute supplies two types of plates: Pooleys iPlates which are the familiar VFR plates in electronic form. It also grabs the latest IFR plates from the various European AIPs. This is less satisfactory than using Jeppesen plates because they do not share a standard format from one country to the next. However, they are free, in English and usable. Since the planes I fly have glass cockpits with Jepp plates onboard, these printed plates are belt-and-braces (and a legal requirement).

Once you have filed your plan, you can download or fax a briefing pack with a plog, ICAO flight plan, METAR/TAFs, NOTAMs and plates. Print it out and away you go. It really couldn’t be much easier. I can also access it via my iPhone to send delay notices and change flight plan details overseas.

It costs €144 a year for up to 50 filed flight plans plus €35 for online access to Pooleys VFR plates. Trip support (e.g. telephone filing of flight plans, slot booking etc. costs €5-€35 depending on what you ask them to do. It would be useful to have this to fall back like a personal flight department.

Easier, faster, cheaper

So, I’ve ditched Jeppesen, saving €1800 a year and picked up a VFR and an IFR flight planning system that costs me about €300-ish this year and a bit less next year. That’s a big saving and I think the end result is, actually, a better, more flexible system.

A close call with terrain video

Hat tip to Sulako’s blog for finding this amazing video that shows why its important to obey IFR rules like sector altitudes and how not to use your GPS terrain display. The pilot of this aircraft encountered a cloud but continued to valley-crawl while in IMC – which nearly cost more than just a slightly damaged wing from brushing against some bushes. Its amazing that they made it safely home. This definitely a video every student pilot as well as experienced pilot needs to watch!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Nm8pNgqBAk&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]