Not a readalong

Today we scan electronic instruments, rely on electronic flight bags to display charts, and monitor digital autopilots with flight directors and advanced capabilities like VNAV. Yet most of us still recite information on IFR procedure charts as if we’re plunking piano keys while sight-reading sheet music for the first time. When I ask IFR stage-check students why they methodically read aloud such details as the chart date, final approach course, and touchdown elevation zone, they shrug: “That’s what I was taught to say.”

Let’s reconsider a procedure briefing with that crucial question—why?—in mind. For example, reading the chart effective date was important when you could pull an expired chart from a flight bag. But if you use an EFB, what are you going to do in flight if you discover that the charts on your iPad are out of date?

Today, verifying that you have downloaded current charts and data is a preflight task as important as confirming fuel on board. Likewise, why announce the final approach course? Unless you explain that you’ll use that information to set—or confirm that the needle on an electronic HSI automatically slews to—the correct inbound course, just saying the number is a rote exercise. And for a typical Part 91 aviator flying single-pilot IFR, the touchdown zone elevation is of academic interest. Sure, FAR 91.175 allows you to descend to 100 feet above the TDZE if you have the approach lights in sight. But is it wise to limbo so low if you don’t regularly fly approaches in low IFR?

In other words, a briefing should be more than a pro forma performance. I teach IFR pilots instead to review a chart as if they were part of a crew that needs to understand the plan. Here I’ll focus on approaches, but the same process applies to departures and arrivals. The description in this outline may at first seem time-consuming, but with practice you need only a minute or two to complete an effective, modern briefing.

Don’t start a briefing until you have completed cockpit flows and checklists and set up the avionics for the next phase of flight (see “A Recipe for IFR Flight,” January 2024 AOPA Pilot). The briefing should verify those steps and then answer questions to describe your plan for what’s next.

First, compare the title on the chart and the name in “the box” to confirm that you have loaded the correct procedure. The fixes on the chart should also match the waypoints on the flight plan page, and the chart plan view should coincide with the map displayed in the panel. If your navigator shows altitudes associated with each leg, do they agree with those on the chart?

Note your position and explain how you’ll join the procedure. Is ATC providing vectors or are you proceeding to an initial fix to fly a transition? Regardless, verify the navigation sources you’ll use as you continue.

For example, if the CDI is set to GPS, must you switch to “green needles” to fly the final approach course? When and how will that change occur? What course should the needle point to? Does your system auto-switch the CDI from GPS when you capture a localizer? Which annunciation (LNAV, LP, LPV) should appear on the PFD to confirm the lowest available minimums? How and when will you set the HDG and ALT bugs as you proceed? On the miss, will you initially fly a heading or track a magenta (GPS) or a green (VOR or localizer) CDI?

Now discuss how low you’ll go. Confirm the minimum altitudes for the segments of the procedure and that you’ve set the correct approach minimums, as amended (and annotated on your chart) to reflect changes because of inoperative approach lights or FDC notams.

Will your avionics display VNAV cues to help you meet step-down restrictions outside the final approach fix, and if so, have you set the altitude bug correctly? Will you follow advisory vertical guidance (+V) along final to an MDA; or is this a 3D (precision) approach with a glidepath or glideslope to an LPV or ILS decision altitude? If you’re flying a 2D (nonprecision) approach to LNAV minimums, is a visual descent point (VDP) charted? If so, how will you confirm when you reach that spot, and what will you do when you get there? What’s the missed approach point? Note whether you must activate pilot-controlled lighting and make position reports on the CTAF at a nontowered airport.

Now review the aircraft profile. State when you’ll set power and extend landing gear and flaps to establish the final approach configuration. Will you adjust your usual setup to go fast for ATC, or slow down early to arrive smoothly if the landing distance available is less than, say, 4,000 feet? Given the current weather, what’s the plan if you break out? Will you extend full flaps (preferably only if the runway appears when you’re stable and at least 500 feet agl)? Or, in low IFR, will you land with approach flaps, with the airplane better prepared to climb out on a miss?

Next, describe how automation such as an autopilot and flight director fit into the plan. Will you play the role of “pilot monitoring” while the autopilot keeps the needles crossed? Perhaps you want to practice hand-flying while following flight director cues. Or will you “go commando” and fly using only the raw data displayed on the instruments? Explain how you’ll manage automation during a missed approach.

Finally, review the after-landing plan. Will you turn left or right after touchdown? Cross another runway or a taxiway? How and when will you cancel IFR at a nontowered airport? (It’s easy to call ATC if, during preflight planning, you copied the phone number to the airport diagram or approach chart.)

You may want to change this sequence and other details to suit your aircraft. But if you answer such questions to rehearse an approach and confirm the setup and the plan, you’ll play IFR music smoothly.

Bruce Williams is a CFI. Find him at youtube.com/@BruceAirFlying and bruceair.wordpress.com.