Open Letter to Instrument Pilots
Add comment June 10th, 2006
Dear Instrument Rated Pilot,
I really do appreciate the time, effort and money that you put in to earning that instrument rating. I really do, and I will probably do the same some day when I get some of these other things in my life out of the way. I’m sure that it makes you a safer pilot and I know that it increases the usability of the aircraft that you fly, but why do instrument pilots on IFR flight plans think they can ignore everything they learned in their primary training about avoiding aircraft?
I once had a non-pilot tell me a story of an airplane ride that he took with a friend on a beautiful clear day. When he asked his friend about the identity of a landmark the pilot friend had to dig his glasses out of his bag because he couldn’t see without them. When my friend questioned him on this his reply was, “I’m on an instrument flight plan.” Can you see the folly in this?
Why do instrument rated pilots think that they can sit back and relax and not watch out for other aircraft when they are flying around in visual conditions? Air traffic control can only separate you from other IFR aircraft. They will try, when the radar is working, to separate you from all the aircraft that they can see on radar. That assumes that they can see you on radar. Just because you are on an instrument flight plan does not mean that ATC has you on a radar screen! Besides it’s very unlikely that they will have that sailplane circling at 12,000 feet on radar.
When you are flying in IMC you don’t have to worry about a VFR airplane. That is why VFR pilots have ceiling, visibility and cloud separation rules. I promise to stay out of your cloud if you’ll promise to watch out for me when you are in clear air. Obviously if you are above FL180, please feel free to take a nap. I’m not up there with you.
Please understand that you still have a responsibility to yourself, your passengers and everyone that you are sharing the sky with to See and Avoid anytime you are in visual conditions, whether you are on an IFR plan or not!
Another thing that really bugs me is when you guys make position reports at non-towered airports with all that IFR verbage. I’m sorry that I don’t know where you are when you say, “3 mi south of the Silky intersection on the Smooth VOR 23 approach”. All you accomplish when you make a call like that on a nice Saturday afternoon is bragging about the fact that you know some instrument stuff. There may be some in the pattern that know where you are but that 50 hour private pilot doing touch-n-goes doesn’t have a clue. You probably get just as aggrivated when you fly into a new airport and someone give a report like, “I’m two miles east of the old salt mine.”
Oh and instrument approaches (practice or otherwise) don’t give you right of way over VFR aircraft. The right of way rules don’t say anything about what type of flight plan you have filed.
I wish I had a nickel for every King Air that has gotten on the radio and said something like…”xxx traffic this is King Air XYZ were on the inbound NDB 8 miles north of the ZYX intersection, blah, blah, blah, blah, any traffic please advice.” (I guess it’s good that your asking us to tell you where we are because we don’t know where in the hell you are!) Then leave the freqency to talk to approach some more only to come back a minute later and say, “xxx traffic this is King Air XYZ on 2 mile final for runway 18.” Nevermind that I called my crosswind, downwind and base legs and the two people behind me did too. You are the commercial pilot on the instrument flight plan so you must have right of way so I guess I’ll go around. Some day that little cub with no radio is going decorate the nose of that turbine driven diesel guzzler that you fly and then where will you be. I guess you’ll be screeming “But I’m on an IFR plan!” all the way to the ground.
I once had a King Air pilot ask me my postion. I told him that I was abeam the numbers on the left downwind. The next thing he said was that he was on a right base. (This was a busy airport with left hand traffic). I immediately called and said that I was turning left base, and his answer was, “We’re on a right base, we’ll see if we can sneak in here in front of you.” I had to go around to avoid him. He was higher than I was, he was further away and flying the pattern backwards, but for some reason thought that he had right of way over me.
Be safe out there.
