For pilots, why is flying on IFR (“Instrument Flight Rating”) so difficult? Can’t a pilot just focus on their instruments and stay oriented and on course?

Question

(Edit: “Rules,” not “Rating.” Sorry.)

Obviously I don’t know beans about flying, but I see many stories about inexperienced pilots who get disoriented flying through clouds, sometimes even to the point of flying upside-down. Aren’t there instruments on your control panel which tell you your speed, altitude, and orientation? How can you be plummeting towards the ground and not notice?

I hope this question isn’t so ignorant as to be insulting. I know flying is difficult and complicated and it’s easy to criticize from here on the ground. I wish I was skilled enough to know how to fly a plane. I just see many stories about accidents where inexperienced pilots seem to be making apparently ridiculous mistakes.

In: Other

Answer 1

The problem is when you have an inexperienced pilot that is flying IMC (no visual reference to the outside)….they are trying to trust a skill that they’ve only just started using at least 40 flight hours prior in training conditions (but now it’s the real deal), they’re managing instructions from ATC over the radio, they’re adjusting things on the instrument panel (like switching from holding a heading to beginning to navigate themselves, altitude changes, etc.), they’re leaning the engine, they’re making sure the prop is set correctly if equipped with a constant speed propeller, they’re needing to remember to follow a checklist when changing a phase of flight, and so on. There’s a lot coming at you while flying and to remove a basic sense like visually referencing things outside the cockpit is not a natural thing to be doing.

As an instrumented rated pilot, two of my biggest weaknesses even after completing my IFR rating are that I can sometimes fixate on things and I will still sometimes fight the trim of the plane (even after I trim it where I need it to be). These are things I sometimes do without even realizing it, so it just goes to show that you have natural instincts and behaviors that you have to learn to re-write through reptition and muscle memory before you can competently do something unnatural.