Jimmy B. wrote:

I would
recommend getting some actual IMC during your training. There is a huge
difference between you wearing foggles and being in actual IMC.

I would have to concur *strongly*. You don't want your first experience
in actual to with your family in the plane.

In my training, I never experienced any vertigo or disorientation with
the foggles on, but I still experience it to this day in actual. I
learned very quickly to ignore it and trust my instruments.
Fortunately, my first experience in actual was while I was still
training. To make it extra special, it was at night and we departed
with ceilings about 700' AGL. We entered IMC in a climbing left turn
that quickly turned into a descending left turn. Had I not been with an
experienced instructor, I may not have been able to recover as I
wouldn't have realized the problem until I broke out again at 700' in a
1,000 - 1,500 fpm spiral dive. As it was, my instructor made a comment
like "are you going to correct that?" and immediately I realized the
situation and corrected it.

Which is the other thing. You need to have an instructor that is
confident enough and experienced enough to let you get into trouble and
let you get out of it again. If your instructor takes control every
time you get into trouble, you won't learn much. Recognizing that you
are in an unusual attitude and then recovering is, in my mind, the most
important skill in instrument flying. Being able to keep the needles
exactly centered or flying a perfectly wind corrected hold is nice for
showing off, but you have room for error in those operations. You don't
have to fly them with autopilot precision. On the other hand,
recognizing that you're entering a descending left turn instead of the
climbing right turn that you intended or that from straight and level
you have somehow managed to get into an increasingly steep climbing turn
is far more useful. You don't get to learn this properly under the
hood. It takes the real thing to truly learn it. If your instructor
won't do it or your instructor takes control too quickly, you are
missing out on training that could save your life one day.


-m
--
## Mark T. Dame
## VP, Product Development
## MFM Software, Inc. (http://www.mfm.com/)
"I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer."
-- Star Trek: Dr. McCoy, "The Devil In The Dark"