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.

"turn left, heading three four zero" — never "turn left". Every turn instruction carries a heading.

"the AI says … does the turn coordinator agree?" — the cross-check, asked out loud.

"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.

Brief the procedure before you fly it

Every exercise gets its procedure spoken before we do it — not during, and not after.

For each exercise below, in this order:

  1. Name it — "next we're going to do X"
  2. Say the procedure — the actual sequence of actions, in order, in the same words used in the pre-flight brief
  3. Have the student say it back — briefly; it is a confirmation, not a quiz
  4. Then demonstrate or hand over

This costs about twenty seconds per exercise, and it is the difference between a student performing a procedure and a student guessing at one. Where a procedure was rehearsed on the ground (the recoveries, the inadvertent-IMC actions), this is a re-run of that same wording, not a new brief.

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.

Instructor preparation — before the student arrives

  • Daily inspection done, unhurried. This is the recurring one: when the daily inspection is squeezed into the gap between the hangar opening and the student arriving, it gets rushed — and rushing it on an instrument lesson is exactly the wrong corner to cut, because today depends on the gyros and the suction system being genuinely serviceable
  • If the aircraft cannot be accessed before opening time, build the inspection into the schedule as a visible block rather than absorbing it: brief the student that the first few minutes are the inspection, and invite them to walk it with you. An inspection done with the student is time spent teaching (C2.2), not time lost
  • Have your nominated headings, altitudes and the training-area plan written on the kneeboard before start — not composed in the air
  • Confirm the suction gauge and gyro instruments behaved normally on the previous flight or on start-up

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
  • Ammeter charging, circuit breakers in — the Turn Coordinator's supply
  • Any instrument that doesn't behave as expected: do not fly with it — report it

Say the reason with each check, not just the check: "suction in the green — so the pump really is driving the gyros", "AI steady through the turn — so it hasn't toppled", "DI set against the compass — so we have a datum to notice drift against later."

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; point at each instrument in turn on the actual panel and name it — then have the student point and name them back:
    • "Primary — the Attitude Indicator. Pitch and bank, straight away."
    • "Across the top: ASI, AI, Altimeter. Down the stem: the DI. That's your T-scan."
    • "Turn Coordinator — electric. Suction gauge — there. Compass — up there."
  • Have the student identify which are the control instruments and which are the performance instruments, on the real 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 onto nominated headings

Every turn has a heading. "Turn left, heading two seven zero" — never "turn left".

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
  • Confirm 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)
  • Work through the headings written below, mixing left and right, small and large changes, and include a turn through north and one through south so the compass error is felt rather than described

Headings for today — write these before start

# Heading # Heading
1 ________ 4 ________
2 ________ 5 ________
3 ________ 6 ________

Tolerance (Part 61 MOS Sch. 8, Table 1 — private level): nominated heading ±10°, angle of bank ±5°, altitude ±150 ft. Offer these to the student only if they are coping — as "what good looks like", not as a test.

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

Simulated instrument failure

The AI has failed and it is not going to tell you. What do you have left?

Sequence

  • Re-brief the procedure first (on the ground or before starting): "If the suction fails I lose the AI and the DI. Bank from the Turn Coordinator, pitch from the ASI, altimeter and VSI, heading from the compass." Have the student say it back
  • In straight and level, hood on, point out the suction gauge and have the student read it
  • Cover the AI and the DI (cover cards, or your hand). Announce it plainly: "Suction failure — AI and DI are gone."
  • Student flies straight and level on the remaining instruments for a minute or so — Turn Coordinator for bank, altimeter and VSI for pitch, compass for heading
  • One gentle rate 1 turn onto a nominated heading using the Turn Coordinator and compass, then roll out and level off
  • Uncover, and let the student see the AI and DI agree again. Debrief briefly in the air: what was hardest, and what would you have done differently in real cloud?

Keep it short and instructor-led — this is recognition and awareness, not a limited-panel competency.

Unusual attitude recovery

Ignore the sensations. Trust the instruments.

Sequence

  • Re-brief the two recoveries before the first entry, in the pre-flight brief's words, and have the student say them back: "nose-high: power, wings level, ease forward. Nose-low: power off, wings level, ease back."
  • 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?"
  • Re-brief the procedure before flying it, in the pre-flight brief's words: "maintain control — turn back — tell someone"
  • Talk the student through it hands-on, hood still on: maintain control (wings level, on the panel) — a level 180° turn at rate 1 to re-establish visual flight — 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
  • Tie it back to Plan B: the turn-back was decided on the ground, with a trigger attached. Ask: "what would you have seen, ten minutes before this, that told you it was time?"

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

Before you part — introduce the next lesson

Two or three minutes at the end of the debrief, no more — the point is that the student leaves knowing what is coming, and what to do before then.

Next: Lesson 27 — Consolidation.

  • What it is — a consolidation flight rather than a new skill: basic instrument flight and the inadvertent-IMC actions again, forced landing from a simulated complete engine failure, precautionary search and landing, a short field landing, and one genuinely new item — abnormal situations: unreliable airspeed indication
  • The link from today — today you lost the gyros: suction fails, the AI and DI go together, and you fall back on the Turn Coordinator, the pitot-static instruments and the compass. Next lesson is the other half of that: what happens when a pitot-static instrument lies to you instead, and the ASI is the one you can no longer believe
  • What it means for today's work — everything today gets flown again, this time to tolerance and alongside the emergencies. The scan is not finished with; it is about to be something you use while also flying a forced landing
  • Also assessed — fuel planning, refuelling and fuel system management, simulated engine failure on take-off, local area airspace, and the climb/straight and level/descent/turn set
  • Before then — [workbook / reading / video to send], plus the POH sections on the pitot-static system and on engine failure after take-off

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. **Headings.** This was the clearest single action from the last debrief, and both the backseat observer and the self-review raised it: the instruction drifted into "turn left" and "turn right" without a heading attached. IFF.2(c) — the only instrument performance criterion CASA assesses at RPL level — is a rate 1 turn **onto a nominated heading** within tolerance, so a turn without a nominated heading is not the exercise. Write the headings you intend to use on the kneeboard before start (see the turning page) so you are reading them, not inventing them under load.

Straight out of the last debrief: procedures were sometimes covered *after* the exercise had started. If time in the pre-flight brief runs short, this in-air re-brief is the backstop — but it is not a substitute for the ground rehearsal, because a first hearing of a procedure under the hood is a first hearing under load.

Own-feedback item, and it has come up more than once. The fix is scheduling, not technique: either the aircraft is available earlier, or the daily inspection becomes an explicit, budgeted, student-visible part of the lesson. Absorbing it into the margin is what produces the rush. (Note "DI" is deliberately spelled out on this page — everywhere else in these notes it means the Direction Indicator.)

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. Debrief action: tie the ground checks explicitly to the failures taught in the theory brief — *this is why we test everything on the ground.* The check list is already familiar; the reasoning behind it is what is new today, and it is what makes the check stick.

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. Debrief action: physically point at the instruments during the lesson. It is easy to assume the panel is obvious because you have looked at it a thousand times — the student has looked at this one a handful of times, and never with a hood on. Point, name, and have them point back. Do it again briefly before the failure demonstration later.

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. Note that IFF.2(b) — straight and level, climb and descent to tolerance — is prefaced "except for RPL", so **this** is the instrument performance criterion assessed at RPL level. Underpinning knowledge A3 4(h): turning using a magnetic compass. Fill the heading table in on the ground. Under load in the air, "turn left" is what comes out when there is no heading already written down — which is exactly what happened last time. Reading a prepared number takes the decision out of the moment.

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

New this revision, and the main gap from the last debrief: the failure case was taught in the workbook but never flown, so it stayed abstract. Underpinning knowledge IFF 4(c) — instrument failure and warning systems fitted to the aeroplane — and IFF.1(c), monitoring instrument power sources and reacting to unserviceability or erroneous indications. The theory brief now teaches what a suction failure looks like (insidious, no flag on most training aircraft, AI droops and DI drifts). This exercise is where those words get attached to the panel in front of them. Limited panel flown *to a standard* is a Night VFR rating competency with its own tolerances — do not present this as an assessed item, and do not let it eat the time budgeted for unusual attitudes. If the student is saturated, brief and demonstrate it rather than handing over. A second option if you have a cover for it: leave the AI covered but slowly *mis-set* the DI instead of covering it, so the student discovers the disagreement themselves. More realistic, but only worth doing with a student who is comfortable.

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). The IFF range of variables is specific for RPL: "day VFR simulated inadvertent entry into IMC with a **level 180° turn** to re-establish visual flight". Use that wording — level, and 180°, not just "turn back" — so the student practises holding height through the turn rather than descending out of it.

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.

Own-feedback item: the introduction to the next lesson was skipped last time. It is easy to drop, because it comes at the point where everyone is tired and the aircraft needs putting away — so give it a fixed home here at the end of the notes, and say it while the paperwork is being finished rather than as a separate event. Ordering comes from the RPL(A) sample syllabus, where lesson 26 is followed by lesson 27, Consolidation. Do not take it from the flight instructor rating package — the Grade 3 aeroplane syllabus runs Basic Instrument Flight (TE3-51…55) straight into forced landings and EFATO, which is where "circuit emergencies next" comes from and is a different sequence. The unreliable-airspeed link is the one worth making: today's failure was gyroscopic, next lesson's is pitot-static, and between them the student has seen both halves of the panel fail. If this student's programme has been reordered, keep the shape of the look-ahead (what it is, how it links to today, what to do before then) and substitute the content.