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Instrument rating - RV Style

jcarne

Well Known Member
Patron
Well after 17 years I finally got my instrument rating. In my RV to boot!

I started my instrument rating in high school but then college got in the way and I stopped flying for 15 years. This year with the RV having about 200 hours on it I decided it was time to finish. I started training again on June 8th and finally on July 21st I took my checkride with 242.5 on the hobbs.

After getting up at 5am and flying to KSHR from KWRL the checkride involved a long oral exam followed by your usual cross-country and diversion procedures, maneuvers, holds, and then we came in to shoot the ILS 33 at KSHR. Next up, partial panel RNAV 15 with some pretty beastly tail winds and a circle. Finally, hand flying the LOC 33. I remember thinking to myself on that LOC approach "Jereme, you are literally 8 miles away from passing this checkride, don't F it up now!" haha In the end the DPE was extremely happy with my performance and the aircraft.

I mainly wanted to post this to thank everyone who gave me some encouragement and thank you Doug for posting your writeup, I read that article about 5 times now. If you want an epic post on getting your instrument rating in the RV go to his link here. :)

To those of you wondering if you can do it in your RV the answer is a resounding yes. Don't listen to the naysayers and just get up there and get it done!
 

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Congratulations sir!

That’s one of the tougher ones to get and doing it in your own RV doesn’t make it any easier. Many congratulations to you and enjoy that new rating!

Kindest regards,
Doug
 
Congratulations Jereme!

Now write down your personal IMC limits and live by them. I have over 12,000 hours and my personal IMC limit is 800/2.

Enjoy your new freedom!
 
Thats great Jereme. Im sure it took lots of work to get there! I hope to take my check ride next month. Have fun!
 
I got close last winter but got sidelined with a shoulder injury and subsequent surgery. I plan to finish up my last 5 hours and check ride early this fall - providing I can get flying again by September. My training has all been in my 9A which I upgraded to IFR early last year. I think it's a pretty good platform.

Congratulations on the IR, now comes the keeping it current and proficient.
 
Congratulations!! Use it often, I had a 30 yr hiatus from instrument flight. A year after my RV7 first flight got re-training and current. Going from steam gauges to EFIS and the responsive RV was quite the ride in the first sessions. It made me a better pilot.
 
Thanks for the love everyone, I think I am more happy to get that rating than even my PPL. Something about IFR procedures I just really enjoy. Keep after it you guys still working on one!
 
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So…..Did you get asked anything about departure climb gradients?

We talked briefly on climb gradients but never got too into the RV and how it would meet them. Although I looked back through all my saved data on Savvy and compiled quite the spread sheet so I was ready! There were a few areas on the spreadsheet that didn't have a confirmed number but they would be fringe cases and I would just use the nearest worse performance number to ensure it would meet a gradient.
 
Got my PPL in 1988, stopped flying in 1992. Back to flying in 2017, bought my RV9A in 2018, hope to complete my IFR in it this year
 
Got my PPL in 1988, stopped flying in 1992. Back to flying in 2017, bought my RV9A in 2018, hope to complete my IFR in it this year

You can do it! I too stopped flying for many years. Just get up there and get it done! Haha. It didn’t take long to get past the RV IFR nuances. Mainly learning when to slow down because if you blast into an approach too fast you have a heck of a time. That ticket has already come in handy on some cross countries.
 
Outstanding work!

(I'm doing mine at the moment, and have fresh eyes on what a significant challenge this is. Hopefully I'll be making a similar post in a few months!)

-mark
 
Outstanding work!

(I'm doing mine at the moment, and have fresh eyes on what a significant challenge this is. Hopefully I'll be making a similar post in a few months!)

-mark

Keep with it Mark and you will get it done! Good luck!
 
Nicely done! I got my IFR ticket in my RV as well, and had no trouble finding an instructor or an examiner that would work with me in my plane.

My instructor, when I first called him up and asked about it, said he knew the RV series of aircraft and would be happy to fly in one - but he wanted to reserve an answer until he had seen my panel. I taxied up to the FBO and he met me there, and upon seeing dual 10" Dynon Classics, a G5 backup, and a 430W immediately said "Yeah, that'll work. Let's do it."

During the checkride I was hand-flying the RNAV25 into KMDD and the examiner had me fail my left screen by powering it off - then I continued handflying the approach by the right screen. I had never done this in practice - it was difficult but acceptable, I recommend practicing it!
 
Nicely done! I got my IFR ticket in my RV as well, and had no trouble finding an instructor or an examiner that would work with me in my plane.

My instructor, when I first called him up and asked about it, said he knew the RV series of aircraft and would be happy to fly in one - but he wanted to reserve an answer until he had seen my panel. I taxied up to the FBO and he met me there, and upon seeing dual 10" Dynon Classics, a G5 backup, and a 430W immediately said "Yeah, that'll work. Let's do it."

During the checkride I was hand-flying the RNAV25 into KMDD and the examiner had me fail my left screen by powering it off - then I continued handflying the approach by the right screen. I had never done this in practice - it was difficult but acceptable, I recommend practicing it!

Ya I was most worried about finding a DPE but that turned out to be a non issue. My local CFII is a young dude so he was all for training in the RV. He was actually the one who initially asked my DPE if he would do it in an experimental and he said he would want to see the plane first and go for a test flight.

I happened to run into the DPE about 20 min after taking my written and ended up talking to him for a bit. He looked at the plane and panel and said "oh wow, this is nice". He never made me take him for a test flight.

I was very impressed with that DPE, firm but fair and didn't make anything up whatsoever like some do; if it is in the ACS/regs (or not) that is what he follows. I was worried he was going to make me spend 400 bucks on a compass but thank goodness he follows the regs. I'm happy with the redundancy from my dual ADAHRS and backup G5. haha

I too had an unpracticed partial panel on the checkride. We had been failing the entire screen in training and the DPE only failed some flight instruments. I still had a lot of info on that screen but I tried to just ignore it and fly off the G5 like in training.
 
We had been failing the entire screen in training and the DPE only failed some flight instruments. I still had a lot of info on that screen but I tried to just ignore it and fly off the G5 like in training.

I’m curious, how did he partially fail an EFIS?
 
Sticky Notes

I’m curious, how did he partially fail an EFIS?

I took my instrument check ride in my RV-7 a little over 2 years ago. In my case, the DPE put a couple of sticky notes over the attitude and HSI display on my Dynon Skyview. Did this part of the way down on an RNAV approach. My partial panel was to switch my scan to the G5 and the little CDI readout on the Avidyne IFD440. The LPV approach was suddenly an LNAV.

Our local DPE doesn't do any checkrides in experimentals as a matter of policy. Fortunately, Catherine Cavagnaro up in Sewanee, TN had no problem with it.
 
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