Tuesday, January 02, 2007

The Start of Instrument Training

With the holidays completed I decided to begin the King IFR training videos that Mary and Santa tucked under the tree for me. I have read about the many comparisons with all the instructional videos out there but everyone seems to give the nod to King. Yes, they still have that strange humor and they can put you to sleep at times but overall they get a thumbs up.

For my Private Pilot License I studied the Cessna training program that was put together by King. For the "IR" (Instrument rating) I will once again be a sponge and soak up as much as I can with the training set then take my test. My goal is to get that test out of the way then attend a 5 or 10 day course to "finish up" with the air side of the training.

The Instrument Rating - Disc one; En Route Charts, DP's and STARS is completed and I am just getting ready to fire up the second disc in a set of nine. Disc two is labeled "approach charts" and I just can't wait to get to it. I will update on my progress and continue to update the blog with new adventures.

4 comments:

John said...

Gary,

Congrats on starting your instrument rating. Your profile says you’re an engineer- in that case, I can promise you you’ll enjoy this! I recently remarked to my instructor that this is ‘flying for engineers’. I have the King videos, too. In my case, I found they didn’t really make sense the first time through. It was only till after I had a formal ground school, when I went back to them, that I found them valuable. They seem good for supplementary info on specific topics and test prep. But, everyone is different and your flying experience may position you better than I was at the time. I’m hoping to take my written test soon. I’m trying to keep my training documented on my blog. I’d be real interested to hear your account of the compressed training course. Good luck!

MKT said...

Hi John,

I found your blog on bloggingpilots.com. I'm about midway through the King Instrument videos myself! And your plan is also an option I've been considering (and kind of preparing for, tacitly); I just worry about the teaching style of CFIIs at a remote location that's totally unknown to me. But I ramble. Good luck with your IFR training!

Anonymous said...

Congratulations on starting your instrument training Gary. It think you'll really enjoy it. My favorite book on instrument flight is Peter Dogan's The Instrument Flight Training Manual. This is the textbook used for the Professional Instrument Courses (PIC) 10-day IFR course.

Gary said...

Thanks Phil !

I am finishing up weather flying by Buck and then I'll move on to the flight training manual. Another nice prep for the 10 day program!


John,

I'll keep you posted or check back here to confirm my start in the 10 day program. It will be a few months, I need to finish up the King DVD's and complete the 50 hrs of XC or at least get in the ball park.