Tempest in a teapot - IFR 'training' in-between lessons

Cecil E. Chapman wrote:

My question though: Is such an approach (pardon the unintentional pun)
wise/useful? Would it be better for me to go into my actual instrument
lessons totally fresh (of course, with a look-see at the approach charts
before leaving for my lesson) without any rehearsal / practice? I should
say that I do notice a big difference (and satisfaction with) in my
performance on the lesson days where I have practiced/rehearsed the
approaches on my simple Sim on the days before my lesson.

Me too. I started using my sim more (FlightGear) when I realized that I was
making exactly the same mistakes in it that I was making in my real-life
lessons. It was incredibly valuable -- near the end, I even used it to
develop a different scanning pattern for ILS approaches that significantly
improved my performance (and probably saved the cost of 2 or 3 additional
lessons).

I don't know what OnTop supports, but I used FlightGear's "Random Winds"
option quite heavily, so that I could learn better to gauge winds in holds
and approaches from various cues.


All the best,


David