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Master Instructor Tom Gilmore says "Plan Ahead"
"Some of the cheapest flying
you can do is in your living room chair the evening before going on an
instrument flight," Tom Gilmore advises. "Finger fly" the entire flight by
breaking out the enroute and approach charts. On an instrument flight, this
Master Instructor says, the worse place to realize you should know the DA and
MDA is five minutes into the approach and the chart drops off your yoke clip and
slides under your seat. The short-term memory cells work much better when you
have done an early review of the numbers you are to fly.
Single pilot IFR is some
of the most demanding flying pilots can do today, he adds. Having all the
avionics set up fifteen to twenty miles from your destination is a big factor.
Try to critique your performance each time you fly on an IFR flight plan. How
did you hold altitude and heading? Did you use proper communication techniques
when talking to ATC? How did the approach go? Was it down to the MDA or DA
without any wild gyrations? There are many other items that would round out this
list and it all adds up to what your personal minimums are for continued safe
flying.
Tom Gilmore has been a flight instructor for 39 years and has his own company
that provides advanced concentrated instruction throughout the United States.
Further information is available on his company website:
http://www.gilmoreaviation.com/.
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