First Impressions - IFR

OK, so as I explained, I am a newly minted IR/ME pilot. While I'm still flying my single-engine DA-40NG, I have now done five IFR flights across Europe on my own. These are my first impressions. They might be of some use if you are considering going for your IR ticket.

The flights I've done so far are:

Stockholm to Gothenburg
Gothenburg to Kassel
Kassel to Basel
Basel to Cannes
Cannes to Perugia

Fuel range - Oops, I guess I could have figured that out

So, flying IFR means always having to file an alternative destination. (There are exceptions, but since we "never" land at an AD with two independent parallel runways, the exceptions don't apply to us.) Filing an alternate is fine, but you also have to carry fuel sufficient to reach your alternate. That fuel is in addition to your 45 minute reserve for piston engines (which under IFR you are not allowed to use without declaring a fuel emergency). You may also want to have contingency fuel, if weather is questionable or you are flying into a very busy AD, etc. So, the upshot, is that where I regularly counted on flying 4 hours VFR (with 45 minutes reserve, which I could use in the event, if necessary, as a matter of course), flying IFR with the same fuel capacity means a more normal flight range of 2.5 to 3 hours, depending on how close the alternate is to my destination. Thus, more flights. More flight planning. More time landing, re-fueling, taking off. It just simply takes longer to get where you are going.

Let it rain

As long as the temperatures at altitude are above freezing and there are no CBs or TS, you just fly. That is very nice. No worries about normal overcast levels (usually well above minimums). Rain is not a problem. Showers not a problem, just keep an eye on the storm scope. You can plan to go somewhere and have a high probability of being to get there when you said. My landing at Kassel on this trip was in ceilings down to about 700ft. That sounds like it's plenty high, but you are enveloped in clouds well after your final point of descent. That was a localizer approach, since their glide slope was not working. I was pretty busy checking altitudes and following the localizer, but when the lights finally showed up, I was about where I needed to be. It really is a fantastic system for getting back on the ground in bad weather.

Ice

The new nemesis is icing. Instead of monitoring cloud cover forecasts, I now monitor the icing forecasts. Icing during the warm part of the year is usually above FL100, or even FL150, but can be lower. When flying IFR on the continent, you have to file on the lower airways (as far as I know right now). This often means that you have to be up between FL100 and FL150, because the MEAs are up there. So even in the Summer, you can have issues with icing risk. That's a new wrinkle for flight planning. This is dependent on what kind of equipment you have, of course. My DA-40 has no anti-ice equipment of any kind. So for me, NO ice is the only policy. I cannot fly through the icing layer to get on top of it, unfortunately. If I had certified FIKI (flight into known icinig) equipment, and the icing layer was reasonably shallow, then I could get on top of the ice and back down through it without any risk.

Traffic and air space

The other nice aspect of IFR flying is that you no longer have to expect traffic conflicts. You can't of course abdicate your responsibility to be aware of traffic and avoid it, but the controllers, as long as you are in controlled air space, have a responsibility to separate you. There are exceptions, of course, depending on what class of airspace you are in, but for the most part, you are separated. That is a very nice feeling and it raises the safety level considerably. Being IFR also means you can now fly in class 'A' air space, so you probably won't be diverted as much. I have yet to know in practice how this really works. You can always get vectored off your route for traffic reasons, but you don't have huge tracts of air space that are just completely off limits, anymore.

Service

My experience on this five flights, especially on arrival, is that the service level you are provided with by the controllers makes a huge difference in the complexity of getting down on the runway. For example, arrival at Cannes (LFMD) involved an especially busy airspace. Both Marseilles and Nice are in the area, and Cannes itself is pretty active. The controllers are talking almost without break. I was a little nervous about getting a word in, but as soon as I was identified, I was on vectoring. I just followed the instructions and lo and behold, eventually I was both on the correct initial altitude and lined up 30 degrees off the localizer for my approach. No worries! I was vectored also at Gothenburg, Kassel and Basel. At Perugia, I got a standard arrival to follow. I really feel like I have all the assistance necessary to get safely to the runway, no matter how much traffic there is or what the weather conditions are.