CFI Tips: How fly GPS approaches in a Cirrus SR20. SR22 like an airline pilot

A major difference between how a new private pilot vs. an old professional pilot fly the same plane is how little the professional pilot does. The seasoned pro seems to rarely ever interact with the plane, it almost looks boring! The private pilot is very busy - constantly checking things, making adjustments, the work load is furious, continuous, non stop, and perhaps a little stressful.

I flew right seat as CFI in a SR20 with an instrument pilot today. The goal was to practice non-precision GPS approaches to short runways. These are arguably the most difficult and dangerous approaches, and this is exactly what you're dealing with at most small airports in America so it's important to be proficient. Anybody can shoot a perfect ILS, especially with an autopilot, but it takes much more discipline to fly a non precision approach to minimums to an uncontrolled field with a short runway.

The pilot today is a 1.5 year instrument private pilot and still quite nervous about flying in real IFR conditions. I wanted to help build confidence and reduce workload so set up a very simple challenge for him: fly like the old, professional pilot.  I used game theory with a point system. I told him:

• Minimize # of times you have to touch avionics or engine controls
• Fly at maximum safe speed (don't slow down too early)
• Make this the most boring approach you're ever flown (most of your time will be waiting for the timer to count down)
• Do as little as possible.
• You will be penalized -1 point for each unnecessary action.

There are really only 2 configuration settings in a SR20 to fly an approach:

• Level flight (60% power)
• Descending flight (25% power)
  (Additionally you have to bring flaps to 50% before FaF)

Any other "in between" changes are unnecessary, they are covering up poor flying and lack of planning.  Some examples are:

• Adding power > 60% to accelerate (mistake: you slowed down too much, too early, or got too low)
• Reducing power to < 25% (you got too fast and behind the plane)

Next let's look at critical points when the pilot should touch the controls:

1. Starting descent
2. Slowing to approach speed
3. Flaps 50%
4. Configuring for descent to capture next segment altitude
5. Resuming level flight at segment altitude or MDA

That's it for the a configuration changes while flying an autopilot. If he does anything"extra", it will be like a game of golf when a player "shoots above par".

(above) Photo taken during first flight.

I worked through the problem on paper first, writing down each anticipated step. We discussed it and I handed him the paper. Amazingly, I came up with just 6 steps to get us to the runway (we used autopilot for this approach).

Initial configuration
The airplane is cruising at 8000' 30 minutes from the IAF. IAF is 3000' crossing. We have ATIS already, and TOWER frequencies programmed in GPS #2. The A/P target altitude is set to 3000' and VSI is set to -500.

These are the steps I wrote down on paper for him:

1. Engage Altitude Intercept on autopilot (when VSR shows -450FPM. The plane will fly itself from 8000' down to the IAF and level at 3000'. No power change, we will do a fast descent).
2. Pre-program the A/P for 800' -750fpm descent. (This is just a programming step. We do this once we crossed the IAF and plane is flying level again).
3. Reduce power to 60% (5nm from the FaF. The plane will slow down to flaps speed).
4. Flaps to 50% (when 60 seconds out from FaF. The plane slows down to ~100ias).
5. Reduce power to 25% and engage vertical speed on autopilot when we fly past the FaF. The plane starts descending. (We programmed the A/P in step 2 already)
6. Engage ALTITUDE mode on autopilot and increase power to 60% when we reach MDA of 800. The plane levels off. Monitor time to MAP and distance to VDP.
7. 2nm from the runway threshold (approximate VDP) look for runway in sight and land.

If you don't count step (2), the programming step, it's just 5 configuration changes. The experiment was great because he made a mistake right at step (1). He correctly set the autopilot to descent to 3000' (just 1 button press), but then he started messing with the throttle. He reduced the throttle, but presumably too much, because he added some power back.

I said "Don't touch the throttle! We agreed to do the descent at cruise power, 75%, did we not?" He agreed, put power back to 75%. After that he followed the guide much more closely. -1 point.

He flew the rest of the approach beautifully, no more points were taken off. We did this again with another approach, this time without the paper guide. He said the lesson was incredibly useful for his instrument flying.

CFI's love teaching and the best gratitude we can receive from a student is knowing they learned something new.