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Message: [QUOTE="Mud Eagle, post: 12626, member: 868"] My personal experience in UPT was that learning instruments in the classroom while simultaneously trying to fly the 2400 block in Tweets was the hardest part. I feel like if I'd had some basic instrument training prior to UPT, I wouldn't have spent so much time wondering "what the heck is this whole Procedure Turn thing?" while I should have been reading 3-3 and chair-flying my spin and acro profiles. At the time I remember thinking that studying instruments and contact flying seemed diametric opposites, so I was constantly sacrificing studying and understanding one in favor of the other. An instrument ground school would have been money well spent for me, as would have a few hours of instrument flying. While the guys above seem to think that wouldn't have helped much, I think that the disciplined flying required of instrument training and the ability to gain SA simply through nav instrument use is valuable for a guy who's only ever flown a 172 and gotten his PPL. Now, that said, I also differ with guys above in that I think spending money on acro training is a waste. Nobody that I know of has washed out of UPT because they couldn't fly a chandelle or cloverleaf. Besides, flying acro in a Pitts, Decathlon, or what have you, is going to be different from a stick-and-rudder standpoint than the Tweet or the Texan II. Instrument flying, on the other hand, is going to teach you to cross-check instruments to maintain (relatively) precise headings, altitudes, and airspeeds, regardless of what you fly or what "concept" of teaching is used (ref Albie's explanation above). Agreed that you will never fly an NDB or GPS in UPT, but at least you'll understand what an instrument approach is, what components it's made from, and how to read an approach plate -- all things that are common to instrument flying, regardless if you're flying a VOR, TACAN, ILS, Localizer, or what have you. [/QUOTE]

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