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Review: PIC’s IFR 10 day course

KiloWhiskey1

KiloWhiskey1

Well Known Member
I just finished a 10 day IFR course with PIC and wanted to put in a good word for them. My goal was to train and take the check ride in my own RV-10, and I wanted to do the training out of my home airport. PIC was fine with this arrangement and assigned Dany Pennington as my instructor. Dany has had extensive experience flying corporate jets all over the world and he had owned an RV-4 for a good while too. His knowledge of IFR flying went way beyond what I expected. It’s my understanding that PIC only uses instructors with similarly high levels of experience. Basically pilots that spent their careers flying in the system and now enjoy teaching it.

The training included as much sim time as you want on an Aviation Training Device that PIC provided and extensive actual flying each day. My plane is equipped with a Chelton EFIS system and the instructor had read the manual and learned the button pushing prior to showing up. This ended up making each flight lesson much more productive. If I screwed up something on the EFIS he could catch and correct it without us wasting time trying to troubleshoot. Working the EFIS, autopilot, and nav radio wound up being a significant part of getting the rating. Much more so than I imagined going into it. But, Dany started with the basics of pitch and power and then built off of those fundamentals as I became more proficient. I really felt like I got a complete learning experience.

I hadn’t done a check ride since I got my PPL years ago so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but everything on the oral and the check ride had been covered during the PIC course. The day prior to the final day of the course, my instructor took me to the DPE’s airport and had me fly what we thought would be the sequence for the check ride. This was our second trip there for practicing the approaches that would ultimately be part of the DPE’s test. On the final day of the course we went through the complete ACS standards and the pilotscafe.com IFR Quick Review Guide so that I’d be ready for the oral. These final two days really solidified what I needed to focus on for final prep.

So if an accelerated course appeals to you, I would give PIC a call. And if you do go with them, I would highly recommend Dany Pennington as the instructor. He did a great job for me.
 
I set a date with PIC last year after talking with them in depth about my RV-10 and its Avidyne and Advanced Flight avionics suite, autopilots, etc. Their willingness to work with my avionics in my experimental aircraft sealed the deal for me.

With a bit of wistfulness, I have come to the realization that this is probably not something I will go through with, as I am now retired, on a much tighter budget, and have no need for get-there or get-home-itis on any airplane adventure in my future. I finally let my training reservation slot go and got my refund. But based on my interactions with the owner and his secretary, I am not surprised that you had a good experience with them!

It's nice to know there are training options out there for us who want to do the accelerated intensive training thing from our own location and in our own plane - in my case from a grass strip. If I ever do re-entertain the idea of getting the rating, they will be tops on my list.
 
KiloWhiskey1 said:
I just finished a 10 day IFR course with PIC and wanted to put in a good word for them. My goal was to train and take the check ride in my own RV-10, and I wanted to do the training out of my home airport. PIC was fine with this arrangement and assigned Dany Pennington as my instructor. Dany has had extensive experience flying corporate jets all over the world and he had owned an RV-4 for a good while too. His knowledge of IFR flying went way beyond what I expected. It’s my understanding that PIC only uses instructors with similarly high levels of experience. Basically pilots that spent their careers flying in the system and now enjoy teaching it.

The training included as much sim time as you want on an Aviation Training Device that PIC provided and extensive actual flying each day. My plane is equipped with a Chelton EFIS system and the instructor had read the manual and learned the button pushing prior to showing up. This ended up making each flight lesson much more productive. If I screwed up something on the EFIS he could catch and correct it without us wasting time trying to troubleshoot. Working the EFIS, autopilot, and nav radio wound up being a significant part of getting the rating. Much more so than I imagined going into it. But, Dany started with the basics of pitch and power and then built off of those fundamentals as I became more proficient. I really felt like I got a complete learning experience.

I hadn’t done a check ride since I got my PPL years ago so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but everything on the oral and the check ride had been covered during the PIC course. The day prior to the final day of the course, my instructor took me to the DPE’s airport and had me fly what we thought would be the sequence for the check ride. This was our second trip there for practicing the approaches that would ultimately be part of the DPE’s test. On the final day of the course we went through the complete ACS standards and the pilotscafe.com IFR Quick Review Guide so that I’d be ready for the oral. These final two days really solidified what I needed to focus on for final prep.

So if an accelerated course appeals to you, I would give PIC a call. And if you do go with them, I would highly recommend Dany Pennington as the instructor. He did a great job for me.
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One more thing --- You now have an instrument rating?! Congrats!.
I can't imagine doing it in 10 days. Maybe I was just enjoying the entertainment of the training too much.

Next up, Commercial. It is a fun one.
 
scard said:
One more thing --- You now have an instrument rating?! Congrats!.
I can't imagine doing it in 10 days. Maybe I was just enjoying the entertainment of the training too much.

Next up, Commercial. It is a fun one.
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Thanks Scott! I’m excited to have the new rating. I retired a few years ago and decided late last year that I needed some stretch goals to keep all the neurons firing. I’m hoping to do one rating or add-on each year. Next year will be the commercial and then maybe gliders.

Regarding the 10 day deal, I think that comes down to what kind of learner each person tends to be. I was afraid that I’d be caught in a circle of on again off again training where I’d forget things in between. I did do a lot of prep before the course started. My friend and CFII, Scott Payne, flew with me a lot the month prior to the PIC course. He taught me quite a bit, so I knew how to read plates and fly approaches, and interpret charts; and he gave me a good understanding of most the other things I was about to learn. If able, I would recommend finding a mentor like that to anyone trying to get a new rating.
 
If you don't mind me asking, how much did it cost? Ballpark numbers...

I'm at least a year and a half away from being able to do this myself but I would like to get the rating and I'm weighing various options for doing so. I did an intensive course for my glider add-on a couple years ago and really enjoyed it (though sadly I haven't been able to use it since); so perhaps burning some vacation days and knocking it out would be a good way to approach it.
 
rmartingt said:
If you don't mind me asking, how much did it cost? Ballpark numbers...
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The cost was a per day rate of $675. This included the sim device and course material. We started at 8am and finished around 5pm each day and took a lunch break. Which works out to $85 per hour.
 
congrats!

seems to me that success with a fast course like that would depend greatly on your experience level AND you current proficiency

and hour or two a month renter pilot not overly familiar with the plane is likely very different than an aircraft owner who's very current and proficient.

I'm curious, based on your recent experience at what point of either inexperience (low time overall) or of rustiness would make such a 10 day course not a great idea?

I have an IR but I'm a very very rusty pilot. It has crossed my mind that if I ever did get back into flying at any sort of level of proficiency that I might look into something like this as a way to hammer down to getting instrument current again efficiently, even though I wouldn't need the check-ride.
 
Blw2 said:
congrats!

seems to me that success with a fast course like that would depend greatly on your experience level AND you current proficiency

and hour or two a month renter pilot not overly familiar with the plane is likely very different than an aircraft owner who's very current and proficient.

I'm curious, based on your recent experience at what point of either inexperience (low time overall) or of rustiness would make such a 10 day course not a great idea?

I have an IR but I'm a very very rusty pilot. It has crossed my mind that if I ever did get back into flying at any sort of level of proficiency that I might look into something like this as a way to hammer down to getting instrument current again efficiently, even though I wouldn't need the check-ride.
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That’s a great question. I flew a lot from 2000 - 2014 and had a lot of confidence in my skills at that time. I then took a long break from flying and just got back into it a few years ago. I was disappointed in just how rusty I had gotten during my hiatus, and I’m still working to get back to where I felt I was. Flying is definitely a perishable skill. To what degree probably varies between different pilots.

You may want to give Donn at PIC a call and discuss it with him. They tailor courses around each student. They can do refreshers, final check ride prep, full courses etc., each requiring a different number of days (I think anywhere from 3-10 days). Donn has been doing this enough to know pretty quickly what each person probably needs. For me, I had just 12 hours of simulated instrument instruction spread over 30 years, so the full course was the clear choice in my case.
 
Some folks have the ability to soak things like a sponge, unfortunately not me. I had the option of these condensed courses that a good portion of it was in a simulator but after careful consideration, I decided against it and knowing what I know now, it was a correct decision for me.

I wonder how prepared/equipped one person will be to do real IFR when the majority of the training is in a simulator?

Having said that, I don't by any means intent to discourage people from this type of training/rating if that works for them. It is only my perspective on it.
 
Bavafa said:
Some folks have the ability to soak things like a sponge, unfortunately not me. I had the option of these condensed courses that a good portion of it was in a simulator but after careful consideration, I decided against it and knowing what I know now, it was a correct decision for me.

I wonder how prepared/equipped one person will be to do real IFR when the majority of the training is in a simulator?

Having said that, I don't by any means intent to discourage people from this type of training/rating if that works for them. It is only my perspective on it.
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I definitely get the fact that we all learn differently. Frankly I had those same concerns.

Regarding the sim. I logged just under 4 hours during two flights of sim time. So it wasn’t a major portion of the course. My instructor asked me each morning if I’d rather fly the 10 or the sim. I picked the sim once to see what it was like and once one afternoon to see what an approach was like where I planned to take my check ride. Other than that we opted to fly the RV. They do leave the sim set up at your location, so if you want to practice at night you can.
 
As a cfii who has done training the traditional way (2 evenings a week over 4 months), but has also done IPC’s, I’d like to offer my opinion:
There’s nothing wrong with a ten day crash course, except:
1. It’s just like ‘cramming’ for a final exam. It’s all in short-term memory, so a few weeks later it’s already starting to fade. It’s important for all new IFR pilots to keep flying in actual or simulated IMC, but it’s “more important” for those who did the cram course.
2. Although not required by the regs, I believe it is important for all new ifr pilots to have some experience in actual IMC. It’s just psychological, of course, but it does make a difference. Nearly every pilot grows tense, fixates on the AI, etc., on their first IMC encounter. Shoot, I’ve seen this happen on a dark night to a pilot under the hood - all I has to do was to tell him that we were now in the clouds, and his performance went downhill. I suspect that in a ten day course you may simply never have IMC weather.
 
BobTurner said:
Although not required by the regs, I believe it is important for all new ifr pilots to have some experience in actual IMC. It’s just psychological, of course, but it does make a difference. Nearly every pilot grows tense, fixates on the AI, etc., on their first IMC encounter. Shoot, I’ve seen this happen on a dark night to a pilot under the hood - all I has to do was to tell him that we were now in the clouds, and his performance went downhill.
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I can attest to this, the psychological*aspect of real IMC is huge compared to being under the foggel or perhaps in a Sim.* The mere fact that when under the foggel, there are no risks and if things hit the fan you can simply take off the foggel whereas it would not be the case in a real IMC.* This is particularly*if there is no autopilot.
 
Agree

Although I did mine in my Cherokee 180, I also did my instrument rating with a former PIC instructor who more or less uses their methods. Mine was very reasonable given what we did. I did the rating in five VERY intense days with lots of flying and some sim work including quite a bit of actual IMC given the time of year and location (most of this was done flying between KSCH and KBTV and the surrounding areas).

If you have the ability to arrive with the written out of the way, and some exposure and aptitude and ability to saturate it is totally possible (debatable in my case but it worked - I kept a journal during that time and I was clearly wrecked at the end). I think in my case it also worked because the way I fly generally is in line with how instrument flying is done (pitch/power/performance).

If anyone is curious who I used just send me a PM, it was 10 years ago and I am not sure if he is doing it still although his website is still active.

I agree with Bob and others who commented: The skill comes back rather quickly but it is completely perishable, and I did NOT at all feel like super pilot after finishing it, if anything it gave me even more respect for the weather. Prior to the rating I bought into the line of thinking that the IFR rating gives you the ability to get there on demand most of the time and it would be such a great one to have to "remove" all those barriers. I thought that way even though I had been flying 20 years VFR. After the rating I see it for what it is, a skill uplevel and in certain cases a way to get there when you couldn't VFR but here in the Northeast more often than not I decide not to go rather than go because of the additional single engine risk factor, and weather (super bumpy and/or dangerous).

Totally worth getting, but set your expectations appropriately.
 
BobTurner said:
As a cfii who has done training the traditional way (2 evenings a week over 4 months), but has also done IPC’s, I’d like to offer my opinion:
There’s nothing wrong with a ten day crash course, except:
1. It’s just like ‘cramming’ for a final exam. It’s all in short-term memory, so a few weeks later it’s already starting to fade. It’s important for all new IFR pilots to keep flying in actual or simulated IMC, but it’s “more important” for those who did the cram course.
2. Although not required by the regs, I believe it is important for all new ifr pilots to have some experience in actual IMC. It’s just psychological, of course, but it does make a difference. Nearly every pilot grows tense, fixates on the AI, etc., on their first IMC encounter. Shoot, I’ve seen this happen on a dark night to a pilot under the hood - all I has to do was to tell him that we were now in the clouds, and his performance went downhill. I suspect that in a ten day course you may simply never have IMC weather.
Click to expand...

Being in IMC is definitely different than under the hood. In full IMC it's not terrible (other than the feeling of no out unless you do it right) but I was amazed how disorienting it was to be popping in and out of clouds for the first time!
 
Awesome, thanks for the review. Was 20 hours away from getting my IFR ticket in 1990, ran out of money. I now own a RV9A and want the rating, looks like a perfect fit for me.
 
Curious if anyone on here uses PilotEdge to stay sharp?

BobTurner said:
1. It’s just like ‘cramming’ for a final exam. It’s all in short-term memory, so a few weeks later it’s already starting to fade. It’s important for all new IFR pilots to keep flying in actual or simulated IMC, but it’s “more important” for those who did the cram course.
Click to expand...
 
Question on the daily rate, will the $675 daily rate cover the hotel and transportation for the CFII traveling to your place?
 
hpdmp3486 said:
Question on the daily rate, will the $675 daily rate cover the hotel and transportation for the CFII traveling to your place?
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I paid for the hotel but not travel. My instructor lives about 3 hours away and drove in. I’m not sure how an airline trip would be handled.
 
KiloWhiskey1 said:
I paid for the hotel but not travel. My instructor lives about 3 hours away and drove in. I’m not sure how an airline trip would be handled.
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Correction: I didn’t realize it when I first answered this question, but I did pay for the instructor’s travel as well. So travel and hotel aren’t included in the daily rate.
 
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