Current training places too little emphasis on perfecting the instrument takeoff.

By Joseph E. (Jeb) Burnside

Since so much emphasis is placed on approaches during the typical instrument student’s training, it’s unsurprising practicing the takeoff into IMC receives little attention. That’s more than a little unfortunate, since the instrument takeoff—especially the zero-zero takeoff—can be much riskier.

For our purposes here, we’ll define the instrument takeoff as one in which the aircraft will be in IMC before reaching the lowest altitude specified for crossing the final approach fix of a published procedure for that airport. We’ll define a zero-zero takeoff as one where the aircraft enters IMC before reaching DH or MDA on a related approach. Often, of course, the zero-zero takeoff is just that: The crew can…