Basic Instrument Flight — In-flight Notes

CASA Recreational Pilot License (Aeroplane) — CASA Sample Syllabus Lesson 26

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Language choices

"trust the instruments" — the one phrase to repeat all flight, every time sensation and instrument disagree.

"power, wings level, pitch" — the recovery order for either type of unusual attitude.

"maintain control, turn back, tell someone" — the actions if we ever end up in cloud.

Demonstration-Performance

For the sequence of each activity, choose whether you use:

  • Demonstration-Performance: Explain, Demonstrate, Performance and Monitor, Evaluation
  • DDM: Demonstrate, Direct, Monitor

or some other preference. Each in-flight activity just describes the sequence to be
demonstrated and performed, regardless of the method you use.

Before starting the plane

  • Confirm the hood or foggles are on board and serviceable, and brief the safety pilot role clearly: while the student is under the hood, the instructor (or a second safety pilot) holds the entire lookout responsibility
  • Confirm today's weather comfortably supports the flight, with a genuine VMC margin — this lesson does not fly in marginal conditions
  • This is a heavily assessed flight — communication, pre-flight actions and inspection, start/stop, taxiing, pre-take-off procedures, radio and transponder operation, and post-flight actions are all revised/assessed today (see Revision assessments below)
Record Start End
Tacho
Maintenance
Time

During taxi — instrument checks

  • Attitude Indicator: allow it to erect; the horizon bar should stay level and steady through straight taxi, and not deflect more than about 5° during a taxi turn
  • Direction Indicator: should read within a few degrees of the magnetic compass on a known heading; reset it against the compass if it has drifted
  • Vacuum/suction gauge (if fitted): in the green range
  • Any instrument that doesn't behave as expected: do not fly with it — report it

After departing / established in the climb

  • Assess the climb and, on arrival at the training area, brief the transition to instrument work
  • Confirm local area airspace: geographical features and limits, the transit route, and today's height for instrument work
  • Brief the safety-pilot handover: "From here, I have the lookout. You're under the hood from now until I say 'I have control, look up.'"

Establishing on instruments

Sequence

  • Level at the briefed height, in clear air, well clear of other traffic and cloud
  • Student dons the hood or foggles; confirm they can see the full panel and nothing outside
  • Instructor takes and confirms the lookout, explicitly: "I have the lookout, you're on instruments"
  • Settle the aircraft in cruise; have the student identify the control and performance instruments on the actual panel before starting the scan

Straight and level on instruments

Cruise configuration.

Sequence

  • Scan the full panel, AI in the centre; hold a level attitude and a constant heading
  • Small corrections only; wait for the aircraft to settle before judging the result — do not chase
  • If the heading drifts: identify it on the DI first, correct with a shallow bank, confirm with the compass once settled (mind the compass's own turning error close to N/S)
  • Instructor introduces a deliberate small disturbance (a gentle nudge) and has the student recover using the scan

Climbing and descending on instruments

Sequence

  • From level flight, apply the climb power and attitude; confirm the climb on the ASI, altimeter and VSI (remember: the VSI settles a few seconds behind the others)
  • Level off with anticipation — lower the nose before the selected altitude, by about 10% of the rate of climb, in feet
  • Repeat for a descent: reduce power, lower the nose to the descent attitude, confirm on the ASI first (it's the most direct indication when descending)
  • Level off from the descent, again anticipating the levelling point

Turning on instruments

Sequence

  • Roll into a shallow bank (rate 1 — about 15° for a typical training-aircraft cruise speed) using the Turn Coordinator and Direction Indicator, keeping the balance ball centred
  • Hold a constant angle of bank; lead the roll-out by about half the bank angle before the nominated heading
  • Practise turning onto specific headings, confirming the final heading against the compass once settled — allow for ONUS/SAND compass error near N/S and on E/W accelerations (from your workbook)
  • Repeat with the DI covered, using only the Turn Coordinator and compass — a brief taste of what's lost if a gyro instrument fails

Climbing and descending turns on instruments

Sequence

  • Combine the previous two exercises: roll into a turn while establishing the climb (or descent) attitude and power together
  • Cross-check constantly — bank angle from the Turn Coordinator/DI, pitch from the ASI/altimeter/VSI
  • Roll out on the nominated heading, then level off at the nominated altitude, anticipating both

Unusual attitude recovery

Ignore the sensations. Trust the instruments.

Sequence

  • Student closes their eyes (or looks down) briefly; instructor manoeuvres the aircraft into a mild unusual attitude and hands back control
  • Student identifies the attitude from the panel — nose-high (airspeed low/decreasing) or nose-low (airspeed high/increasing) — and states it out loud
  • Nose-high: power — roll wings level — ease forward
  • Nose-low: power off — roll wings level — ease back, smoothly, no snatch
  • Repeat from both attitude types, and with varying angles of bank

Actions upon inadvertent IMC entry

Sequence

  • Brief and discuss (do not fly into real cloud): "If you found yourself in cloud right now, what would you do?"
  • Talk the student through it hands-on, hood still on: maintain control (wings level, on the panel) — turn back onto a reciprocal heading at rate 1 — simulate the radio call and transponder selection
  • Discuss why the turn back matters more than any other single action, and why pressing on is the dangerous choice

Revision assessments (as time and flight permit)

Fold these in where they fit the flight — they are revised/assessed this lesson, not new content:

  • Communicating face-to-face and by radio (C1.1, C1.2) — throughout the flight
  • Pre-flight actions and inspection (C2.1, C2.2) — already covered before start
  • Start and stop engine (A1.1) — at start-up and shutdown
  • Taxiing (A1.2) — including the instrument checks above
  • Pre-take-off procedures (A2.1) — at the runway
  • Operate radio equipment and transponder (C3.1, C3.3) — throughout, and in the inadvertent-IMC discussion
  • Post-flight actions and procedures (C2.3) — at shutdown

Return to aerodrome

  • Student comes off the hood/foggles well before the circuit — "I have control, look up" — and resumes the lookout
  • Listen to AWIS/ATIS — runway in use, circuit direction, QNH
  • Fly a normal circuit and landing; this is a good moment to note how much easier the visual picture feels after 30-plus minutes on instruments
  • Complete the post-flight actions and administration (C2.3) at shutdown

CASA HF/NTS: effective communication under normal and non-normal circumstances [NTS1 4(a), NTS2 4(a)]. Consistent phrasing here maps directly onto the recovery drills rehearsed in the pre-flight brief.

CASA C2.1/C2.2 (pre-flight actions and inspection). Confirming the hood/foggles and the safety-pilot lookout responsibility on the ground, before start, is a required part of this lesson, not optional — it is the single biggest risk control for the flight.

CASA IFF.1: determine and monitor the serviceability of flight instruments and instrument power sources; A1.2 (taxi checks). This is exactly the workbook's "instrument checks & serviceability" topic — assessed here in the aircraft rather than re-taught.

The climb is a revision/assessment item this lesson (A3.1), folded into the transit rather than treated as a separate exercise.

IFF.1: determine/monitor instrument serviceability — a last check with the actual panel, not just the workbook diagram.

IFF.2(a): interpret flight instrument indications and apply procedures to achieve and maintain a specified flight path using the full instrument panel.

FIM Ch 17 background: when climbing, the ASI gives the most direct indication of pitch attitude; when levelling off, the altimeter does. When descending, the ASI again gives the most direct indication; the altimeter confirms on levelling off.

IFF.2(c): set and maintain power and attitude by reference to the full instrument panel to establish a rate 1 turn onto a nominated heading within the flight tolerances. Underpinning knowledge A3 4(h): turning using a magnetic compass.

This draws together everything so far — a good marker of whether the scan has become genuinely continuous rather than instrument-by-instrument.

IFF.3(a,o): correctly identify upset situations and unusual attitudes under simulated IMC; recover to controlled flight from a combination of high/low-nose attitudes, angles of bank, power settings and configurations. Keep the entry attitudes mild and the recovery instructor-flown or closely monitored — this is a first exposure, not an assessed competency yet, and it can provoke motion sickness. Stop and reset to level flight (looking outside) if the student feels unwell.

CASA "actions upon inadvertent entry into IMC" — this is deliberately a discussion and walk-through, not a real cloud entry. Connects to today's assessed C3.1/C3.3 (radio and transponder operation).

These are consolidation/assessment items rather than new teaching — the new-content focus of the flight is the instrument scan, unusual attitude recovery, and the inadvertent-IMC actions.

The transition back to visual flight is itself worth a comment to the student — the contrast reinforces just how much the instrument scan was doing the work.