Instrument Flight Rules

I.F.R. or Instrument Flight Rules

Instrument Flight Rules take effect when weather conditions are such that you need to fly through clouds. The airplane needs to be equipped with additional instruments beyond the usual, and the pilot needs to have an Instrument Rating in addition to a regular pilot's license. Commercial airliners are always equipped with these types of instruments, and the pilots are always flying I.F.R.

Our first airplane, a Maule, was equipped with such instruments. When my husband was a new pilot, he got an Instrument Rating, as well as a Commercial Rating, and even a Flight Instructor Rating. He just ate all that stuff up! And it made him a safer pilot, so no complaints there.

But for our current airplane, a Vans RV7, he decided not to equip it for I.F.R. flying. That would've added $20,000 or more to the cost. But besides that, we've become fair-weather flyers, thus we follow V.F.R.--Visual Flight Rules. That is, we don't fly unless we can see where we're going at all times with our very own eyes.

When the weather looks like the picture below, we're making plans to get out of there, fast, before the airport is socked in. Otherwise, we are grounded until the clouds go away. The picture is of the runway at Sandpoint, Idaho. We had flown to the resort town to spend the day. Mike had been watching the clouds all afternoon. About the time we were getting ready to leave, the clouds were really rolling in.

Getting out of there was like riding a bucking bronco, due to gusty winds, but after making a 180-degree turn and starting south toward home, most of the clouds, and the turbulence, was behind us. And we never flew through any clouds, which is usually a bad idea, but only skirted around them.

Read about our day in Sandpoint: Flying Adventure: Sandpoint, Idaho, August 2013.

As a side note: You've probably been in a commercial airliner and experienced turbulence. Just know that it's not the fault of the pilot, the airplane, or the airlines in general, but of weather conditions. I once had someone tell me she didn't like to fly on Alaska Airlines, because it was too bumpy!

With commercial airlines, the pilot is always flying I.F.R. and the airplane is always being watched on radar, unless the pilot turns off the Transponder, such as the pilot did in the recent Malaysia Airlines tragedy, flight MH370. As long as the pilot doesn't do that, in the event of an emergency, authorities will know where to find a plane that goes down.

Have you ever flown in turbulence? We were flying commercially near the Grand Canyon when we experienced what's known as a Mountain Wave. Even the stewardesses had never experienced anything like that. What a dip.