diamondaviators.net

I got an hour of actual today. We had a stratus layer from 900 AGL to 2,100 AGL and I did three approaches, one with the autopilot. The air was smooth and I’ve done so many approaches with foggles that it seemed straightforward. This is what I want the IFR for. Otherwise on a day like today I would have been grounded.

jwx96 wrote: ↑Mon Jul 04, 2022 3:52 am 2003 DA40, G530/430 WAAS, with KAP 140 autopilot. I'm about 1/2 way through my instrument training. I think I'm already a much better pilot and I'm really enjoying the training. The airspace around Minneapolis is currently very busy with training aircraft. We currently have 4 flight schools at my Class D airport - KFCM. How many of you got much actual IMC experience during your training.? If you didn't, where did you eventually get it? Thanks!

No doubt that instrument training makes you a better pilot. Not just in IMC but also a big boost to what most people consider VFR night flying. Many times on moonless nights it is highly beneficial to have trust in your attitude indicator.
Like Wayne and Russ, I did a lot of flying on the Northern California coast with the marine layer as a ready source of benign IFR conditions to practice. Now that I have moved back to the southeast, it is mostly winter low cloud cover and spring/fall morning fog that presents an opportunity to exercise instrument flying skills. Otherwise, I strongly avoid summer IMC with the potential for thunderstorms. But I'll occasionally pop through lower clouds for VFR on top flying. Even with XM weather and ADS-B weather feeds, I want to be able to see significant vertical development or I won't fly. I've come a bit too close to a few developing pop-up thunderstorms in years past and it taught me to add that to my personal minimums. Likewise, I'll rarely fly night IMC with low ceilings unless it is very benign low-level fog. Too much risk if you lose an engine at night.

dmloftus wrote: ↑Thu Jun 30, 2022 1:03 am I ran FSX for years, then X-Plane 11. MSFS2020 was a mess at first, especially the abysmal G1000 bugs, but it is now very respectable if you download the G1000 NXi package from Working Title. I run it with a Saitek Cessna yoke, Cessna rudder pedals, and throttle quadrant which makes a very respectable and affordable C172 NAV III package (good refresher for when I want to rent a 172 somewhere on vacations I don't fly my Diamond, like Iceland). I add a Thrustmaster joystick to better simulate my Diamond. MSFS also requires another program like FlightEvents running in parallel to broadcast GPS coordinates, etc to Foreflight on your iPad. The flight dynamics on the DA40 are respectable and the weather controls and simulated instrument failures are very good.

Working Title's fully functional G1000Nxi package is going to be officially integrated with the MSFS2020 SU10 update that will release in mid-September (currently their prerelease 0.12.2 is the most recent generally available version). From the articles and videos I've seen, this should be the best inexpensive G1000/simulator package available for IFR practice. They're implementing the full range of VNAV LPV functions and RNAV features like curved paths and DME arcs. Also working OBS and SUSP modes. There is a beta release available today, but I'm looking forward to the full release in September.