"Best" IFR self training kit?

ANy suggestions?
Sporty's, ASA, King, or other?

Would like something that TRAINS me...not neccasarily a brain dump.

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"iliad" wrote in message
m...
| ANy suggestions?
| Sporty's, ASA, King, or other?
|
| Would like something that TRAINS me...not neccasarily a
brain dump.
|
|
|

On Wed, 12 Apr 2006 21:47:21 GMT, "iliad"
wrote:

ANy suggestions?
Sporty's, ASA, King, or other?

Would like something that TRAINS me...not neccasarily a brain dump.

I used the King Schools interactive CD-ROM set that was available a
few years ago. It contained video clips of each section followed by a
test section.

Between this and studying the exam questions, I scored well on the
written, so it did the job.

In retrospect, I would have prefered a DVD that could be watched
without having the questions between. Would have been easier to use.

x-archive-no: yes

Illiad,

The "best" IFR self training kit is the one which best-suited your
leaning style. I started out by reading some books and watch the
Sporty's video but found them a bit dry so I decided to get some
'practical' learning experience by completing the IFR training syllabus
with the Elite flight simulator program. This helped me to visualize
and absorb the books information much faster. The Sporty's video still
put me to sleep within 15 minutes ;-).

My practical training consists of the Elite program and simulated
hood time flying with my husband as safety pilot for few months. We
then took an one-week accelerated training course with Bill Zaleski in
Schenectady (flying about half of the time in actual IMC) and got the
ratings last May.

I'm reposting my reply to an IFR student last year below.
========================================

I had recently taken the instrument written test and scored 100%. Rick,
my husband, took it last year and got 97%. The Gleim`s Instrument Pilot
FAA Knowledge Test is probably the cheapest and most efficient way to
prepare for the written. The book cost something like $15. To practice
for the test on PC, there are a number of free online sites:

1) http://www.sportys.com/faatest/

2) http://www.exams4pilots.org/

3) http://www.webexams.com/ and

4) http://www.ipilot.com/learn/

The first two sites provide answers in agreement with Gleim`s book
(which I believe to be accurate) with the last two sites occasionally
came up with some erroneous answers. The advantage of the webexams.com
site is that you can choose to get immediate answer/feedback on each
question. The ipilot site provides explanations for the answer. However
it is only free for gold membership.

If you want to study on your own and don't have an instructor to sign
off for the test, you may want to consider buying

1) the Gleim software or online ground school (I believe it cost
something like $99) and you can print out the endorsement at completion
of the course or

2) http://www.dauntless-soft.com/ ground school for ~$30.

For IFR knowledge gaining purpose, we recommend Bob Gardner's `The
Complete Advanced Pilot`. In-depth information can be found in Trevor
Thom ASA-PM3 Instrument Flying. This book is like the bible with
exhaustive (and hard to digest ;-) details. The FAA Instrument Handbook
is also a good basic book. You can download the pdf files at
http://av-info.faa.gov/data/training...83-15-1of2.pdf
http://av-info.faa.gov/data/training...83-15-2of2.pdf

the book is relatively inexpensive so you may want to order it instead
of printing out the files.

For practical IFR learning, we liked

1) `Mastering Instrument Flying` by Sherwood Harris and Henry Sollman

2) Ralph Butcher`s Instrument Pilot Flight Training Manual and

3) Peter Dogan`s PIC`s Instrument Flight Training Manual.

Sollman`s book is probably my favorite because it is very easy to read,
they have examples of Northeast airports (which we are familiar with)
and it offers a good instrument training syllabus. Butcher`s book helps
to simplify IFR flying and offered many practical tips/techniques.
Dogan`s book is of course famous for being PIC`s book. It is a blend
between Sollman and Butcher.

There are also two other books recommended by other instrument
students. One is `The Art of Instrument Flying` by J.R. Williams and
the other is `IFR: A Structured Approach` by John Eckalbar.

I had read the first one and found it to offer the most information on
charts, maps and procedures. I had just recently ordered the second
book based on extremely positive feedback from a number of instrument
pilots. It`s amazing that there are just so many topics but you learn
new things and gain better understanding from each and every author. I
also had an older edition of William K. Kershner`s Instrument Flight
Manual and found its emphasis on ATC communications quite helpful.

Speaking of communications, we use flight following on our long
x-country trips and tune in NY approach in our practice flights
(serving as safety pilot for each other). We have also used

1) Comm 1 IFR Communications Trainer CD

2) Comm1 IFR Clearance on Request CD and

3) Jeppesen ATC Clearance Training Audio Tape.

For flight simulations, we started with MS FS 2002/04 and gave X-plane
a brief try. After seeing that the Elite FS is used by a nearby flight
school, we decided to buy our own version along with an IFR training
book ($190 or so for the program and $50 for the book). I completed the
training book in about two weeks practicing an hour or so everyday.

In our experience, this is probably the cheapest and most efficient way
to accompany actual IFR training. We wished that we had purchased this
program earlier. It would have made Rick`s earlier official training
with an instructor much more efficient.

Regarding the FS hardware, we used to use a Thrustmaster joystick but
had replaced with a CH flight yoke and found it a bit closer to `real`
flying in our Cardinal C177B. A friend of us also loaned us the
Sporty`s Instrument videos. I very much doubt that one could pass the
written test just by watching the videos. Some people really like
Sporty`s videos but we found ourselves falling asleep half way through
each video, but we managed to finish the second half the next night
before falling asleep again ;-).

Other students also find Sporty`s videos `boring` and prefer the Kings`
videos. However, our little experience with several of the Kings`
videos (private pilot and a commercial test prep video) convinced us
that their style was not our cup of tea. I bought quite a few of the
books quite cheaply by searching for used books/discount books through
this site

http://www.campusi.com/

Good luck on your training.

Hai & Rick Longworth