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Originally Posted by Douglas89
1. What did you feel was the most difficult aspect of getting your Instrument rating?
The checkride of course.
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2. Do you have any tips for holds/arcs?
1. Use an RMI needle if your aircraft has that capability. Keep it at 90 degrees, easy peazy, you can hold the arc with a crazy minimal bank like 1 degree, it's fun to do.
2. Use GPS substitution if it's a published arc.
3. If going old-school, use one CDI to twist 10 and turn 10 centering with a TO indication and set the other CDI to your inbound or outbound course (depending on which you are given), so the needle will point to the direction you'll be turning off the arc. I think this helps to visualize it all, centering with a TO points it towards the DME reference and setting the other one with the course you are going to turn to...
4. If you only have one CDI..well, that sucks, but you can still do it.
For holds, you can make a little card/diagram that cuts your heading indicator up into 3 sections and then based on the radial or outbound heading that you are holding on, it tells you what entry to make. There's a funky top-down picture that is out there that DOES NOT correspond with your heading, that is not what I'm referring to. This one, you just align with your current heading as long as you are heading to the hold, and it tells you what entry to make. I actually DO remember this one
And then you just use POTS...
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3. What ground school program did you use?
Formal class for ground school, flight instructor for ground lessons .
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4. How long did it take you to complete instrument from start to finish.
Honestly don't remember.
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5. At what point in your training did you take your written?
Pretty sure it was after completion of the ground course, which was maybe 2 months long.
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6. What advice would you give to an instrument student?
Dig into the FAA publications like the AIM, charts, Instrument Flying Handbook and Instrument Procedures Handbook. Learn these front to back. Home courses are trying to teach you this stuff, but it's best to be familiar with the source material. As I remember, a lot of the instrument questions were navigation, instrument reading and weather questions, some with little real-world relevance. I'm not sure if this has changed, so realize for the ground course and studying, there are two goals, one is to pass the written, the other is to help you pass the oral. The written ends up being a rote memory thing, but the oral ends up being a lot of correlation and scenarios and ability to use the information in those publications.
Thanks![/QUOTE]