In his book "WeatherFlying," Captain Bob Buck offers this advice:

First, fly from good weather to good weather; ceilings should be 1000 feet
or higher, tops 7000 feet or lower. Takeoff and landing, of course, are in
VFR conditions.

Second, bad weather to good weather...take off into an overcast, climb to on
top, land in VFR conditions.

Third, good to bad...take off VFR, shoot an approach in deteriorating
weather. If you can't get in, you can always turn around and go back to good
weather.

Fourth, bad enroute. Take off in decent VFR, fly in nasty conditions
(clouds, no ice), land in VFR conditions.

His fifth step deals with flying in thunderstorm weather, and I draw the
line at that.

Bob Gardner

"Tony Woolner" > wrote in message
...
> I passed my instrument checkride on March 29. How do you start using the
> rating once you get it? Do you have any advice?
>

Bob Gardner wrote:

> His fifth step deals with flying in thunderstorm weather, and I
> draw the line at that.

Bob, what do you mean by this? Are you saying that you do not approve
of this recommendation?

--
Peter

In article <7gJac.151800$Cb.1555816@attbi_s51>,
Bob Gardner > wrote:
>In his book "WeatherFlying," Captain Bob Buck offers this advice:
[five steps requiring fairly specific weather]

You know, if I had that kind of control over the weather I wouldn't
need the instrument rating. :)

--
Ben Jackson
>
http://www.ben.com/

First thing I would do is call my insurance co and let them know you got
your IR and get your discount.


"Tony Woolner" > wrote in message
...
> I passed my instrument checkride on March 29. How do you start using the
> rating once you get it? Do you have any advice?
>

Bob Gardner wrote:

> In his book "WeatherFlying," Captain Bob Buck offers this advice:
>
> First, fly from good weather to good weather; ceilings should be 1000 feet
> or higher, tops 7000 feet or lower. Takeoff and landing, of course, are in
> VFR conditions.
>
> Second, bad weather to good weather...take off into an overcast, climb to
> on top, land in VFR conditions.
>
> Third, good to bad...take off VFR, shoot an approach in deteriorating
> weather. If you can't get in, you can always turn around and go back to
> good weather.
>
> Fourth, bad enroute. Take off in decent VFR, fly in nasty conditions
> (clouds, no ice), land in VFR conditions.
>
> His fifth step deals with flying in thunderstorm weather, and I draw the
> line at that.

At a minimum, I'd put #4 before #2. #2 might require a quick approach to
return in case of a problem.

I just flew an example of #4 this past weekend, and it was easy. I took off
in VFR, climbed into clouds, spent much of the trip in clouds, and dropped
below the ceiling to execute a visual approach at the destination.

Plenty of airports along the way were VMC, so I'd plenty of options.

Pretty dull, actually, but nice for my wife's and son's first IMC flight.

- Andrew

Oh man, here we go again. There is something wrong if you can't take off
with circling minimums, fly the entire flight in IMC and then land at
minimums.

The advice to start off and fly in good weather is BS - it is a crutch to
keep people who are not proficient (whether that means they didn't get
proper training to begin with or they have gotten "rusty" ) from killing
themselves and wrecking an airplane.

To the original poster:

if you did not have intentions about what to do with the rating when you
started training why are you asking a newsgroup. It all depends on your own
needs.

Perhaps people will ask me what to do with their extra money too - I have
some ideas for that.


"Bob Gardner" > wrote in message
news:7gJac.151800$Cb.1555816@attbi_s51...
> In his book "WeatherFlying," Captain Bob Buck offers this advice:
>
> First, fly from good weather to good weather; ceilings should be 1000 feet
> or higher, tops 7000 feet or lower. Takeoff and landing, of course, are in
> VFR conditions.
>
> Second, bad weather to good weather...take off into an overcast, climb to
on
> top, land in VFR conditions.
>
> Third, good to bad...take off VFR, shoot an approach in deteriorating
> weather. If you can't get in, you can always turn around and go back to
good
> weather.
>
> Fourth, bad enroute. Take off in decent VFR, fly in nasty conditions
> (clouds, no ice), land in VFR conditions.
>
> His fifth step deals with flying in thunderstorm weather, and I draw the
> line at that.
>
> Bob Gardner
>
> "Tony Woolner" > wrote in message
> ...
> > I passed my instrument checkride on March 29. How do you start using the
> > rating once you get it? Do you have any advice?
> >
>
>

In article >,
MRQB > wrote:
>First thing I would do is call my insurance co and let them know you got
>your IR and get your discount.

As far as I know only Avemco will pro-rate discounts like that. Are
there other insurers out there who will too?

--
Ben Jackson
>
http://www.ben.com/

"Ben Jackson" > wrote in message
news:lWJac.46272$gA5.579915@attbi_s03...
> In article <7gJac.151800$Cb.1555816@attbi_s51>,
> Bob Gardner > wrote:
> >In his book "WeatherFlying," Captain Bob Buck offers this advice:
> [five steps requiring fairly specific weather]
>
> You know, if I had that kind of control over the weather I wouldn't
> need the instrument rating. :)
>
> --
> Ben Jackson
> >
> http://www.ben.com/

Excellent

Mike
MU-2

I passed my instrument checkride on March 29. How do you start using the
rating once you get it? Do you have any advice?

"Richard Hertz" > wrote
> Oh man, here we go again. There is something wrong if you can't take off
> with circling minimums, fly the entire flight in IMC and then land at
> minimums.

Of course there's something wrong, and we all know what it is. We've
discussed it many times before.

> The advice to start off and fly in good weather is BS - it is a crutch to
> keep people who are not proficient (whether that means they didn't get
> proper training to begin with or they have gotten "rusty" ) from killing
> themselves and wrecking an airplane.

That's exactly right. Most people getting an instrument rating never
got the proper training to begin with. How could they? The absolute
minimum prerequisite to being a minimally competent instrument
instructor is being an experienced instrument pilot, yet the FAA
allows a pilot who has never (or only rarely) seen the inside of a
cloud to become an instrument instructor - and many do. As a result,
we're seeing masses of instrument pilots who are not ready to do
anything more than fly procedures under the hood, and are not prepared
to deal with real weather.

In theory flying under the hood should prepare them to fly IFR in IMC.
In theory, the difference between theory and practice is minimal -
but in practice it's not.

Buck's recommendations have nothing to do with the pilot's inability
to fly published procedures to minimums. Most newly rated instrument
pilots are entirely capable of flying a published procedure to
minimums. The recommendations are structured the way they are so that
the pilot can learn about the vagaries of weather - and not find
himself in a situation where both destination and alternate are below
mins or otherwise unlandable, or where the enroute weather has gone
ugly.

The typical newly minted intrument pilot has learned to control the
airplane by reference to instruments and follow published procedures.
He has had precious little exposure to real IFR weather, and probably
needs to ease into flying in it if he's not to be bitten by it. Sure,
this should have happened in training - but it probably didn't. Those
pilots who were properly trained are not asking these questions here -
they are out there flying in the weather.

Telling the average newly minted instrument pilot that he should be
taking off into a low overcast, flying for hours in the soup, and then
shooting an approach to mins is basically signing his death warrant.

Michael

Andrew Gideon > wrote
> > In his book "WeatherFlying," Captain Bob Buck offers this advice:
> >
> > First, fly from good weather to good weather; ceilings should be 1000 feet
> > or higher, tops 7000 feet or lower. Takeoff and landing, of course, are in
> > VFR conditions.
> >
> > Second, bad weather to good weather...take off into an overcast, climb to
> > on top, land in VFR conditions.
> >
> > Third, good to bad...take off VFR, shoot an approach in deteriorating
> > weather. If you can't get in, you can always turn around and go back to
> > good weather.
> >
> > Fourth, bad enroute. Take off in decent VFR, fly in nasty conditions
> > (clouds, no ice), land in VFR conditions.
> >
> > His fifth step deals with flying in thunderstorm weather, and I draw the
> > line at that.
>
> At a minimum, I'd put #4 before #2. #2 might require a quick approach to
> return in case of a problem.

I strongly disagree. Option #2 puts you in weather for only a few
minutes, and at the very beginning of the trip when the weather
information you have is at its freshest and your weather picture at
its best. Relatively little is likely to go wrong, and if it does you
have an escape path to VFR that you have already planned.

Yes, option #2 makes less of a provision for mechanical failure - but
mechanical failure is far less likely than unforecast weather
deterioration.

Option #4 puts you in weather for prolonged periods. There is every
opportunity for the weather to deteriorate without you catching it.

> I just flew an example of #4 this past weekend, and it was easy. I took off
> in VFR, climbed into clouds, spent much of the trip in clouds, and dropped
> below the ceiling to execute a visual approach at the destination.
>
> Plenty of airports along the way were VMC, so I'd plenty of options.

I've seen options disappear quickly and over a wide area. Sure,
option #4 is TECHNICALLY less demanding - it requires less skill in
aircraft control and following procedures. But that's precisely the
area where the instrument rating curriculum is strongest. Option #4
also puts the most demands on your ability to monitor and predict the
weather - exactly the area where the instrument rating curriculum is
weakest.

Michael