Air commerce, the need to transport people and cargo in all weather, day and night, eventually moved pilots toward flying by instrument reference and spurred the development of today's modern flight instruments. Today, virtually all training aircraft are equipped with the basic instrumentation needed to safely fly blind. All a pilot needs is the knowledge and skill to use them.

Until 1959, pilots learned to fly as their predecessors flew - by visual references. Their introduction to flying by instrument reference usually occurred when pilots decided to pursue that training. That changed with the introduction of integrated flight training (IFT) to primary flight instruction.

Changes to the Civil Air Regulations, the predecessor of the Federal Aviation Regulations, in 1959 established requirements for instruction and competency in the use of flight instruments for both the private and commercial certificates. Although the intent was not to develop the proficiency required to fly in instrument meteorological conditions (IMC), the rule makers thought IFT would result in safer, more proficient pilots.

In a nutshell, integrated flight training is the process of teaching pilots, from the very first lesson, to fly by both visual references (VR) and instrument references (IR), and to build a perceptive connection between the two.

While it sounds simple, when properly applied, IFT is quite involved. But integrated flight training offers many benefits. The ease with which a pilot will transition to instrument training is the most obvious benefit. There are also IFT advantages for pilots who don't foresee an instrument rating in their flying future.

Pilots who develop a good VFR cockpit scan tend to fly more smoothly and exhibit more precise aircraft control. This scan is especially important in more demanding flight environments. Flying in less-than-perfect VFR conditions, in haze or rain showers, makes visual references more difficult to see, and pilots must rely more on instrument references to keep the shiny side up. The same is true when flying VFR at night, over water, or VFR on top.

With these points in mind, let's look at the basics of integrated flight training and see how the techniques can be applied to help you develop some critical safety skills. The most important safety knowledge, however, is the understanding that IFT does not prepare or qualify any pilot for flight in instrument flight rules (IFR) conditions.

The Basics

In its basic form, integrated flight training will acquaint you with the visual and instrument references associated with basic flight attitudes. Your instructor will show you, for example, the VRs for straight-and-level flight: the visual relationship between the horizon and the airplane's nose or cowling and wingtips. When each of these elements is in the proper visual position, the airplane will not be climbing, descending, or turning.

With the visual relationship between the airplane and horizon in mind, you'll next learn the IRs for straight-and-level. These references include the attitude indicator, turn coordinator, heading indicator, altimeter, airspeed indicator, and vertical speed indicator (VSI), and the relationships among them. In straight-and-level flight, all of these instrument references will be stationary, indicating a constant speed, attitude, and heading.

The process of associating visual and instrument references continues through the four fundamental phases of flight: straight-and-level, climbs, turns, and descents. It will continue with the various combinations of the basic four, such as climbing and descending turns.

As this process evolves, you will learn the rudiments of an instrument scan. When most instructors talk of integrated flight training, this is the aspect of which they speak. But the concept can be expanded to provide a greater benefit to you, the pilot. Integrated flight training can develop the excellent habits that will carry over to the operation of more sophisticated, high-performance aircraft.

By The Numbers

Once you understand the relationship between VR and IR, the next step is to associate various power settings, airplane configurations, and flight attitudes with specific aircraft performance. In other words, you'll be learning how to fly by the numbers. Learning this helps you to control the airplane smoothly and precisely. Flying by the numbers makes flying simpler and reduces your workload, giving you more time to focus on other, perhaps more critical, cockpit tasks.

Flying involves a seemingly infinite number of variables, combinations of airspeeds, power settings, and aircraft attitudes that could be used for each phase of flight. Your pilot workload will increase with the number of combinations used.

Flying is supposed to be fun, not work. And the easiest way to reduce your workload is to configure the airplane the same way - use the same power setting, airspeed, and attitude - each time you enter a particular phase of flight, and this should result in the expected aircraft performance.

As a minimum, you will need to establish specific, standard aircraft configurations for climb, level cruise, cruise-descent, level approach, and landing approach. Add in one or two more using flaps on the approach and for landing, and you have around a half-dozen standard configurations. You will need to know the aircraft attitude, airspeed, and power settings, and the associated visual references, for each one. It may seem like a lot, but imagine if you tried to use and learn more than a dozen or more aircraft configurations.

Trim Speed

Before addressing the specifics of the standard flight configurations, it's important to review the use of elevator trim. It seems that pilots often have forgotten how to properly use it, or they never clearly understood its use. Many believe that trimming the aircraft controls the pitch attitude, or that it keeps the aircraft at a constant altitude while in cruise flight. While these are partial truths, there's more to its proper use.

Elevator trim also trims the airplane for a constant airspeed. If you make a power adjustment, or the aircraft encounters minor up- or downdraft, the nose of the aircraft will pitch up or down, seeking to maintain the airspeed for which it is trimmed. When an aircraft is trimmed for a particular airspeed, it reduces the work needed to control this variable.

For example: You're flying a Cessna 172 in level cruise flight, turning 2,300 rpm, and maintaining 100 knots (kts). In smooth air, if you properly trim the elevator, the 172 will fly along at 100 kts, and as long as the power remains constant, the Cessna will pretty much maintain its altitude.

If you want to enter a 500-foot-per-minute (fpm) cruise-descent (where you descend at cruise speed), all you need to do is reduce the power by about 300 rpm. If you do that smoothly, the nose will drop about 2 degrees, the aircraft will establish a 500-fpm descent, and, if you don't touch the throttle or the elevator trim, the airspeed will stay roughly constant.

If you want to climb, increase the power, perhaps to 2,700 rpm, and the aircraft will initiate a climb. Again, as long as you don't mess with the trim, the airspeed will remain relatively constant.

With this in mind, and depending on the airplane you fly, you may be able to limit your standard aircraft configurations to as few as two airspeeds: one for cruise and cruise descents, and another, slower speed for takeoffs and landings. If you use these two speeds throughout most of your flight, you'll limit the amount of retrimming required and make your job as a pilot easier.

To continue the example, 80 kts is a good compromise speed for traffic pattern operations in the Cessna 172. It's fast enough to provide good flight control authority, and it is in the speed range for flap operation.

In level flight, a power setting of around 2,000 rpm will give you 80 kts. To initiate a 500-fpm descent for the final approach to landing (or an instrument approach), simply reduce the power about 300 rpm. The aircraft will descend and maintain about 80 knots.

When you get close to the runway (close is a relative term here) you can add flaps, slow down, and land. If the landing isn't shaping up as planned, push the throttle all the way in, and guess what, the aircraft pitches up and initiates a climb at near the best rate of climb speed (V_Y). Make sense?

Although these airspeeds and power settings will likely not apply to the airplane you fly, even if it is a 172, the point of the example is that if you don't need to change your airspeed, you can free yourself from a lot of needless work by trimming the airplane for a certain airspeed and then just leaving it alone. By using consistent power settings and attitudes, you will also find that if you trim the aircraft to the proper visual reference (attitude), the aircraft will attain the proper airspeed.

This strategy improves safety in all phases of flight. When entering the airport traffic pattern, you will have time to focus more attention on spotting other airplanes, looking for obstacles on the runway, and listening to what's being said on the radio. During cruise flight, you'll have time to address other details, such as checking fuel burn and reading sectional charts.

The airplane doesn't know if it is being flown by visual or instrument references, whether it is in the clouds or bathed in brilliant sunshine. With this in mind, there's no reason to fly the aircraft differently when using either visual or instrument references. If you fly the aircraft the same way in either situation, the transition between VFR and IFR is simplified.

All it takes to fly by the numbers is a little bit of knowledge about your aircraft and some common sense in selecting appropriate airspeeds. Chances are, your flight instructor has already determined the speeds, power settings, and proper aircraft attitudes. Once you have learned them, and how to use them, you can simply configure the airplane for the desired phase of flight and use your visual references as a cross-check.

Maintaining A Good Attitude

The final step in integrated training involves exploring the limits of flying the airplane solely by instrument reference. This is required by Federal Aviation Regulation 61.107(a)(6), Flight Proficiency.

The drill most pilots remember best is recovering from unusual attitudes, a requirement for virtually every certificate and rating. The objective is to decipher the instruments in a nonstandard flight regime, apply the proper control inputs to regain control, and return to normal, level flight.

The problem with this drill is that you know when it's coming. You put on the hood that limits your view of the outside world. Your instructor takes the controls and puts the aircraft through what feels like an unlimited aerobatic routine and then says, "You've got it." Your job is to scan the instruments, determine what the airplane is doing (pick almost any combination of the four basic phases of flight), and figure out what to do to get back to straight-and-level flight.

It doesn't work this way in the real world. Once you have earned your pilot's certificate, there will be no blatant clues that you are about to enter an unusual attitude. Well, for the pilot who doesn't have an instrument rating, there is one clue: the lack of good visual references.

Your sense of balance, of what's up or down, is determined by your middle ear and reinforced by what you see. If you can't see what's up or down, you may think you're flying straight and level. When the instruments suddenly show something other than what you are feeling, without the training required for an instrument rating, you'll likely pause to figure out why the instruments aren't working right. In the meantime, confusion reigns, and you're navigating closer to disaster.

The easiest way to avoid unusual attitudes is to not fly when there are insufficient visual references. This doesn't mean you shouldn't learn how to recover from them. You should. But you should also get a real-world lesson on how unusual attitudes come to be. In other words, your instructor doesn't put the airplane into an unusual attitude - you do. It's easy.

With your flight instructor beside you, fly the airplane with your eyes closed. Try to maintain straight-and-level flight, or maybe execute a gentle turn. In less than a minute, your instructor will urge you to open your eyes, deal with the confusion factor of having instruments that present a picture other than what's expected, and recover from whatever unusual attitude you've created.

Safety In Numbers

The impetus for integrated flight training was and still is safety. Considering the number of VFR-into-IMC accidents, pilots have to ask if what is being taught is enough. It's easy to say that pilots should know better, or that they should exercise better judgment. But judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.

Mistakes will be made. Pilots will be suckered into flying conditions and situations they should avoid. While instructors work diligently to develop good judgment in their students, providing the tools needed to deal with real-life problems is just as important. Good skills in basic instrument flight is one such tool. Encouraging students to earn an instrument rating after getting their private certificate is another. Knowledge of basic instrument flight is no replacement for an instrument rating.

In my job, I spend a lot of time flying to and from Block Island, R.I. Pilots contemplating a departure from the island will often stop and ask me about the weather - "Is it VFR?" They often don't realize it's a trick question, but this is where one gets to separate legal VFR from the true meaning of the term - flight by visual references.

Let's say there is a thin overcast at 25,000 feet and the visibility is 5 miles in haze. Is it VFR? You bet! Can a pilot safely fly the 15 miles to the mainland using strictly visual references? Maybe not.

All land falls from sight shortly after takeoff. The haze blends sky and water into a murky, horizonless gray. If you look straight down, you'll see water (hopefully), but other than that, you might as well be in the clouds. There are no visual references to judge up from down. If you don't fly by reference to your instruments, your day could end in disaster.

VFR on top is another scenario where instrument skills can be critical. Climbing above a scattered or broken layer of clouds often places us in a safer situation, with more terrain clearance and better visibility. But pilots tend to perceive the tops of clouds as level, even if they aren't. The problem is exacerbated when there's a higher layer of clouds above you. I've been in situations above the clouds and between layers where the apparent horizon and the real one were 30 degrees apart. That really can play havoc with your brain.

Let's take another scenario - a night departure from a rural airport. Everything looks good when you're aimed down the runway that points into the star-studded sky. It can be a different story once you're off the ground. Depending on the weather and ground lighting, you may find yourself without a horizon. Worse, you may find that a string of lights looks like a horizon, or that sparse ground lighting looks like that star-studded sky! Unless you can sort it out with your instruments, pronto, it could be a bad trip. Flying at night also makes the prospects of VFR-into-IMC more likely.

If you learn to scan your instruments as well as the outside world, and if you adopt techniques that reduce your workload, you do much to improve the safety of flight. Not only can you avoid mindbending illusions, but you'll be less affected by distractions and more able to focus on critical factors affecting judgment, decision making, and safety.

Aviation has come a long way since its early days. Its outstanding and steadily improving safety record is the proof in the pudding. It verifies the validity of current training practices. Learning to fly by the seat of your pants is important. But it is only half the aviation safety equation. Learning to effectively and efficiently integrate visual and instrument references can put a sharp edge on your flying skills and help you navigate out of harm's way.