The IFR FAA in detail

Why obtain the FAA Instrument Rating (FAA IFR)?

The real answer is to improve! A few hours after obtaining the private pilot license, during which pilots still apply what they have learnt to properly prepare their flights, it will appear to them soon that a simple GOTO on their GPS successfully gets them where they want, and if on top of that their airplane is equipped with an autopilot coupled with the GPS, dozens of hours without doing much will pass by. Unfortunately, confidence gained during these flights, during which nothing happens, becomes relative if any unexpected event occurs, such as a layer of fog that forms between them and their destination, etc does this remind you of anything? Then the following will be of interest to you.

Studies show that most serious aircraft accidents in general aviation occur after a few hundred hours of flight, and not at the beginning as what you may think. If we compare, there are 3 times fewer accidents per flight hour in the U.S. than at home. Why? Because there, the vast majority of private pilots passed the FAA IFR as a logical continuation of their training in aviation; precisely when they arrive to 200-300 hours, with enough experience to take full advantage of it and not yet enough to feel that nothing can happen to them on board their aircraft. It is at this time that pilots are beginning to adopt bad habits and that is exactly the time it is more useful to come back in the hands of an experienced instructor who can identify problems and correct them, so you can enjoy long hours of flight, in complete safety, even when flying VFR.

So if you also find that doing local flights and traffic patterns does not give you much of a drill, if you want to improve by setting yourself a real challenge, if you want to travel free of mind without fear of not being able to land at destination because the layer of clouds has closed before you arrive and if you want to improve your safety by correcting the bad habits that may have formed over hours of flight, the FAA IFR is for you!

The IFR finally attainable

There was a time where the instrument rating (IFR) was reserved almost exclusively to pilots seeking the professional aviation. It was then necessary to spend almost an entire year following a highly theoretical training programme before you could board a plane to actually see what all this was about, and start the actual training. That time is gone! Thanks to the pragmatism of the American system, this year of theoretical study has been reduced to a single week, during which time you will be asked for example how to keep your FAA IFR valid once you have it, not which electrical generator BUS of a 747 APU group is connected to! Do not laugh, you can not imagine how many pilots who passed the exam can answer the second question, but do not know how to keep their IFR valid!

The IFR FAA knowledge test is a quiz of 60 multiple choice questions drawn from a database of a thousand, available on different medias (books, DVD, audio CD, Online), which we will provide you during your training. You can choose to study alone, or come to our intensive 5-days course which will give you all the keys to pass your theory test easily.

Based on pragmatism proven over time, the American Instrument Rating (FAA IFR) will help you improve your piloting skills, you will get used to selecting relevant information displayed in the cockpit according to the phases of flight, making you understand in detail everything that you have forgotten or never understood in radio-navigation. You will learn all the features offered by the GPS on board your plane (if equipped), and realise the simplicity of a flight conducted abroad under the IFR flight plan, compared to the same journey VFR. Controllers will become your friends! They will try to accomodate you as much as they can, making you fly overhead the Vatican if necessary (ah yes, you can go in Class A under IFR!), forcing VFR traffic to stay at a safe distance, clearing you from any conflicting traffic by treating you the same way as a commercial airliner, security is considerably improved. Of course, in return, no deviation from clearances is allowed, but the purpose of this training is precisely to raise you to this skill level!