Instrument Rating ACS Study Guide

Welcome. I'm Jonathan Prentice.

I'm a flight instructor (CFI and CFII), a test pilot, and a former paramedic. If you're holding this guide, you're working toward the instrument rating, which is the biggest single step up in how you think about flying.

This guide is different from my Private Pilot guide. That one teaches you how to read and use the ACS. This one assumes you know how, and goes deep on the material itself: how the instruments work and fail, how the weather products fit together, how an approach is built, and why the rules are what they are.

I became a CFI with no failed checkrides along the way. What made the difference was never a gouge. It was understanding what the examiner is trying to learn about you: can you make sound decisions, and can you fly the airplane precisely when you cannot see out of it? Instrument flying rewards understanding more than any other rating.

Use this guide alongside the current ACS, the FAR/AIM, the Instrument Flying Handbook and Instrument Procedures Handbook, your airplane's POH, and your instructor. Verify everything against the current FAA sources, because they are the final word.