Expert: D. Norkus - 5/19/2005

Question
Greetings,

I want to keep myself current in instrument flying. Renting airplanes becomes expensive at times. Could you recommend a few other ways to accomplish this? Sim check rides at the time of airline interviews is my concern. I heard that they can be really tough and a lot of applicants fail to make it past this.

In the airlines, what form of navigation is primarily used?

Thanks in advance.

Answer
To keep your instrument skills fresh, get any simulator software (Microsoft Flight, Elite, On Top ect) and fly your approaches & holds. The software needn't be expensive nor the most current version. (Ebay is a good place to get stuff cheap.) Any flight sim software that can simulate IFR will do. A cheap joystick will also work for the peripheral. Keeping up your scan and though process on this most basic type of 'game' will do wonders if you can't afford to rent for a while.

Also, go to www.aviationinterviews.com and read the applicant interview experiences. Quite often you will find complete breakdowns of their sim rides and can use the given scenarios to practice on the flight sim software. The speciifc approcah plates necessary and the sequence of events in the sim evaluation are usually noted.

I found that every detail of my interview checkride in the 707 sim was listed there. (I also went back and added my own back in 2001.) You can easily master the scenarios before your interview as every variation of what can be expected can be found there.

The sim ride will be VOR, ILS, LOC and/or NDB navigation. In the real airline environment most regional jets use GPS along with basic VOR nav. Some turboprops are not so equippped, so what you will see online depends on what aircraft you get assigned.

I also suggest checking out the message boards at www.jetcareers.com if you have not. A weath of information for the aspiring airline pilot can be found there.

Good Luck
Dottie