IFR MASTERY SCENARIOS
This month's scenario Turkey Day Turbulence #195 | NOVEMBER 2026 A short IFR hop across Florida turns into a challenging IFR workout as the descent brings sharp wind shifts, turbulence. Do you try again where you just missed or divert somewhere less convenient, maybe even all the way back home to drive instead?Start scenario →
No Approach Here
GPS has enabled approaches at far more airports than ever before. But with over 5000 public use airports in the U.S. alone, there will always be times when the weather demands IFR and your destination has no instrument approach. Can you “borrow” an approach from a nearby airport without breaking the rules or an airplane?
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What Can You Trust?
You’ve lost your vacuum system in a conventional-gauge airplane in IMC. However, you still have an autopilot to keep the shiny side on top. You must fly the approach to save the day, but there are several different ways you could use the remaining equipment to do it. Which one is most likely to succeed?
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Not Cleared for the Visual
It’s a quick trip for a lunch date on a VFR day. However, it’s busy airspace, so you file IFR to make your life easier. When it’s time for the visual approach, you get sent over to Tower but without one key item in place. That omission puts you between a regulation and a hard place.
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Controller Conundrum
This month, the roles are reversed and you’re a controller trying to help a pilot in need. The pilot’s plight puts you in the hot seat, where you see several options—none of which are found anywhere in the controller’s manual. Do you play by the book, or give the pilot what he really needs?
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Lowball in the High Country
It’s a cold and snowy approach to Boise, Idaho. All is going well until your altimeter disagrees with your glideslope indications. You’re used to making cold-weather corrections, but none are needed for this approach. Do you continue on faith, adjust your minimums, or give up even though your business future is on the line?
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Exception Out of Fullerton
Standard Instrument Departures, or SIDs, were supposed to simplify departure clearances and procedures. Yet the FAA keeps tweaking the wording because everyone seems confused the moment there's an "except" tossed in. What will you do when the instructions seem clear until you try to actually fly them in busy SoCal airspace?
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Evasive Action in Norfolk
You're flying the last approach of a three-day intensive IFR training program. The workload has been high, but the results are great. You're practically one with your airplane. When you break out and see the runway is dead ahead, you cancel IFR—and a moment later must make a split-second decision to avoid disaster.
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Smoke Circles in Montana
Circling approaches have their place—and this time that place is between a rock and something hard. Visibility is restricted, so by the time you see the airport, if you fly this as published, you'll be hot and high. But the terrain and traffic limit other options. What's the best way to resolve this conundrum?
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Load Shedding Over Deadman Bay
Low, stable IFR is perfect for practice in actual conditions. That’s until you’re left with only battery power and the nearest VFR is over an hour away. Now you must choose: Is it better to try an instrument approach right away, or fly everything shut down until you reach VFR?
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Deviant Behavior
Options are limited with a departure in some of the nation's busiest airspace and a route right through a thunderstorm is a no-go. Unfortunately, the best route for you is a non-starter for ATC. How will you negotiate for something you can fly without breaking the airplane or going a hundred miles out of your way?
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Flow Control into Portland
Who would have thought a few wildfires and a bit of runway painting could turn your destination into an all-day waiting game? Now you're pressed balancing the needs of passengers with medical issues against the intractable flow-control system. What's the best way to get the timing you want without giving up the IFR protection you need?
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Traffic in the Pattern
At the end of a long flight, you just want to land, but a trainee controller and instrument practice traffic have created the perfect storm—and you’ve just been cleared directly into it. Can you trust a controller who’s already made an operational error, or will you violate an FAR because you believe it will avoid “aluminum rain”?
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The Route to Limbo
Professional flying means rolling with the changes thrown your way. However, a last-minute route change has you scratching your head, while the passengers in the back twiddle their thumbs. The simplest solution makes things harder for you, but the safest one could be a challenge on your equipment. How will you get this flight underway?
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Bump in the Lights
Low IFR conditions just over the mountains tempts two pilots with perfect conditions to practice IFR. It all goes as planned until one surprise event creates a cascade of consequences. Which devil would you choose if forced to weigh multiple benefits that come with multiple drawbacks? There are no easy choices, and none come for free.
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Cruisin' into Steven Bean
If your POH says flight into known icing is prohibited, you can't do it. But icing in the real world isn't so cut-and-dried. How will you complete a flight that hasn't seen a hint of ice, even in sub-freezing temps, but where descending into the clouds below you could be a non-event—or an emergency you're ill-equipped to handle.
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Murphy's Law of Departures
You're waiting for an IFR release with clear sky only 1000 feet above you. Yet you're stuck—unless you can come up with a creative way to work around the core limitations of IFR from non-towered airports. The wrong decision cost someone his certificate in a famous enforcement case. Will you make the right one?
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The Other Kind of Alternate
You're off to retrieve your son from college in an airplane that got washed by the line crew before getting washed by the clouds. Now you're deep in the soup with an uncertain altitude and a list of poor options to get back on the ground. How will you choose?
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Mixed Messages Over Medford
Conditions are practically VFR, but it’s night in mountainous terrain so your IFR routing provides the safety you want. Then you realize the controller’s last clearance is lower than you’d expect for this route. Is that a non-issue, or a controlled flight into terrain waiting to happen? The aircraft synthetic vision and terrain-warning systems show no issues … so far.
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Tight Turn with RNAV
You've got what might be the most important date of your life just one simple LPV approach away. Encroaching weather is putting on the squeeze, however, so you speed things up with a tight intercept. Your GPS navigator isn't playing along. Will you salvage this situation in the next seconds—or go back into the worsening weather?
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Attitude Issues at Half Moon Bay
You launch into low IFR, confident in your aircraft and your ability — only to recognize a failure moments before plunging fully into the clouds. There are only seconds to decide between seizing your last chance for a VFR return, or one of three IFR options, each of which requires emergency-level skills to get you home safely.
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