instrument rating

6 HITS: Beautiful Practice Approaches of Minnesota and Wisconsin
handy circuit of practice approaches for a trip around Minnesota and Wisconsin

Practice Approach into Sky Harbor

My colleague1 Edward Abraham and I departed from California to Minnesota in N81034 to train for our CFI-I ratings.2 We laid out a training program to test our CFI-I syllabus, including a day of practice instrument approaches.

These practice approaches were chosen for challenging variety, interesting destinations, and efficiency when stringing several together.

10 Important Figures on the Instrument Knowledge Test
info about figures that are likely to appear and may be easy points

It turns out there is only a handful of figures on the instrument knowledge test that:

  1. Are likely to be asked about, and
  2. Could be easy points on the test.

These are the 10 figures I believe are worth a closer study.

How to Pass the Instrument Written Test
an approach to preparing for and taking the knowledge test

Update: The r/flying community strongly recommended using Sheppard Air to prepare for the instrument written test. I can’t personally recommend the software, but wanted to pass on the tip to future readers.


I had only planned to write about the figures in the testing supplement1, but two experiences on the instrument written test motivated a second post.

  1. I was much more stressed than I expected during the test. This testing strategy helped me avoid (several) silly mistakes.
  2. My approach seemed to work! I only missed two answers (97%) on the final test.

It’s useful to break preparing and testing into three stages.2

  1. Months Before ~ Learn the Material
  2. Weeks Before ~ Find and Fill Knowledge Gaps
  3. Night/Day Of ~ Make the Most of Test Day