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.
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.