The Anti-PIC

Here’s a common scenario: it’s the last week of the month and you’re prepping a trip in two weeks to visit friends you missed seeing over the holidays. Oh, wait—are you IFR current? A quick check on your EFB shows your six-month window under 14 CFR § 61.57(c) ends this week. But since you’re only one approach and one hold short, you can grab your aircraft partner, fly those off in less than an hour under the hood, and extend your currency to cover that trip. Whew—those deadlines sure come up quick. And you’ll have to work in more approaches after you return to keep your privileges alive.

This has become a monthly ordeal for the last three years. By the way, that’s when you had your last IPC—which you’re still recovering from. So up ’til now, you’ve managed to stay current, yet secretly wondering if it’s time for some real training. There has got to be a better way.

First, Proficiency

Thanks to our collective embrace of continuing education via seminars and webinars, we’ve got a pretty good grounding in the idea that currency doesn’t equal proficiency. Yet we can’t resist pairing these as a two-for-one deal. It’s a desirable package, but with unintended consequences.

First, it masks our true state of IFR readiness. Say you’ve been flying several nicely done practice approaches, plus a couple of real ones, over the last few months. That’s current and proficient. But proficient at what? More on that later.

The other pitfall is that we still end up prioritizing currency—and those juicy IFR privileges—often to the detriment of proficiency. Currency is often a do-by deadline, so naturally it gets more attention.

By the same token, getting out of currency by a day doesn’t suddenly make you non-proficient. What really happens is gradual. When you do just enough to stay current, your proficiency in a narrow selection of operations (like the two approaches at your home airport) is great. But skills in other areas—like partial-panel missed procedures and unfamiliar approaches—decline.

So how do you achieve both goals? First, swap them. Then, separate the two. The result: proficiency comes first, and currency takes care of itself.

Start with what you know. Are you good at ILS approaches? Watch this: you can hand-fly all the way to DA without a twitch of the needles and then grease it in. Excellent. Now see if you can be just as smooth and accurate with only backup instruments, or at 10 knots faster than normal (ATC: “Keep your speed up.”)

You and your CFII can concoct all kinds of variables to assess your skills and push them to the edges. This will bring out what needs extra practice or instruction. Make a master list and choose two or three items at a time to tackle. Better yet, use that short agenda to carve out extra time and fly a bit farther to a new airport.

Now each flight is a true instrument proficiency check, but without the pressure of a full-blown IPC. You’ll never run out of scenarios, and you can still fly with a safety pilot when suitable. Better yet, this approach covers the most important goal: knowing that you can be out there flying smoothly and safely, whether things are going normally—or not.

Pain-Free Practice

We all start the rating—and subsequent IPCs—with the Airman Certification Standards. That’s a great starting point for basic proficiency, but it’s just that—pretty basic. So feel free to take it further and halve the published standards, or more.

When acting as CFII on a flight, I use “5-5-50” as an easy-to-see tool to assess proficiency: maximum five degrees off heading, plus-or-minus five knots on airspeed, and plus-or-minus 50 feet on altitude. Smoothly correcting back to the assigned number, with no coaching or prompting, qualifies as proficient.

If things get beyond that, my “assessing” hat comes off and the “training” hat goes on to verbalize the error and discuss tips. Then we’ll practice to proficiency, even if there’s a “malfunction.” Sometimes we’ll save an item for the next flight, but since currency got covered this session, there’s no time pressure. (By the way, instructing mode might be armed and activated a bit quicker when flying under IFR—and especially in actual conditions—for safety and to avoid raised eyebrows from ATC. Funny how we can tell that over the radio.)

It’s great to strive for perfection, but none of us achieves that 100 percent of the time. Nor do we stay proficient at everything without review. More importantly, something new will always come up—whether through hangar flying, new avionics, or experiencing that first icing encounter on approach.

These are the other reasons why we’ll never run out of things to explore in practice, whether in flight or with a simulator. You, as the PIC, might someday need to recognize when “normal” procedures must change—but you’ll have the tools to manage it safely. For example, you might get a present-position hold to run an abnormal gear-procedure checklist, or request 200-foot altitude deviations for turbulence so you can focus on keeping the wings level. That’s a deeper form of proficiency at work.

All of this helps us embrace the pursuit of that elusive 100 percent score every time we fly. That missed approach you did last week was perfect—but it was due to a non-precision approach in a 20-knot crosswind that ended up high and fast. Rather than avoiding that situation forever, it goes on your “next-time” list.

Making it a routine to understand, train for, and then nail the next few tasks will maintain that hard-earned proficiency, too—without gaps that can compromise safety or take more time and repetition to rebuild.

Tips to Emphasize Proficiency While Staying Current

• Monthly flights—or something like “second Saturdays”—are easy to schedule, easier to stick to (read: resolutions), and let you plan what to practice, which can be anything you want. I like two hours total: an hour of flight, plus 30 minutes each for preflight and postflight tasks. This is time-efficient, and having to miss one now and then won’t threaten currency.

• Every few months, block out three to four hours and fly somewhere new or rarely visited. File IFR so that clearances, approaches, and other procedures—like departures and arrivals—are on the agenda. This can also include lunch or a cheap-fuel stop.

• Use elements of the IPC (listed in the Instrument Rating ACS) when flying with your CFII, applying ACS or tighter completion standards. Customize the elements for your own list of skill-building tasks. Then it’s just one hour at a time, at your convenience, toward completing an occasional, painless IPC.

Without worries over currency, ongoing proficiency can become a more useful process—while flying plenty of routes, approaches, and holds. You’ll also be having a lot more fun, which is the best way to get out there and fly—and the best way to achieve both.

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Elaine Kauh

Elaine is a professional pilot, Master Instructor, aviation writer and an active speaker at safety seminars, where she enjoys meeting pilots to talk about all things flying. As a skilled instrument instructor, she specializes in emergency procedures while helping aviators sharpen their skills. Her other specialties include tailwheel, CFI stall-spin and high-performance endorsements.

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