Whether you fly for recreation or as a career, the most important pilot rating you can earn is the instrument rating. This program normally follows the Private Pilot course. The instrument rating greatly expands your weather options on trips, increases the level of safety when you’re flying, improves your precision piloting skills and raises your level of self – confidence. Even if you don’t fly often enough to maintain safe instrument pilot proficiency, your visual flight skills and level of competency flying at night will be greatly enhanced.
Federal regulations require at least a Private Pilot certificate for enrollment and at least 35 hours of instrument flight training (up to 10 hours in our simulator can be counted toward this requirement). At American Air, you will also receive much more in-depth training, which will include at least 110 hours of in – depth classroom ground instruction, approximately 110 hours of flight instruction (including 15-20 hours in the simulator) and approximately 100 hours of preflight and post flight ground briefing time.. Students who take 2 – 3 flight lessons per week on average complete the course at AAFT in approximately 11-12 months.
Most of the flight training in this course is conducted in the our Piper Archer LX with a G1000 NXi glass cockpit. Our program includes actual instrument weather flight, night instrument flight, extensive complex emergency instrument flight, aeronautical decision making, accident analysis, aircraft systems, flight principles, aeromedical factors, weather analysis, airspace, federal aviation regulations, cross – country planning and flying, navigation – including GPS, charts and crew / cockpit resource management. Each subject is covered in much greater depth than any printed or video material provides. You will be trained and tested to a much higher standard than the minimum standard required by FAA regulations. Pilots will find this course challenging, interesting and enjoyable!
Our state-of-the-art, FAA-approved BATD simulator can replicate a number of airplane types and panels ranging from the Piper Archer III to the King Air B200. Each aircraft panel type can be configured with analog, EFIS or glass cockpit instrumentation. It is equipped with Garmin GNS430W/530W or GTN650/750 GPS navigation systems with moving maps. The instructor can control the weather conditions and system malfunctions and simulate ATC clearances and communications.