My name is Ales Aranburu. I started flying when I was 19 years old, and decided to take some notes in flight not to forget them later on.

They turned out to be useful for my colleagues, and after improving them, I decided to go all in and write a full manual to help the student pilots that were coming after me.

Almost a decade later, I am a seasoned executive pilot, I have flown from the smallest strips in Europe to the biggest and most complex airports in the continent, and I've kept improving the notes with any new information I find.

Those notes turned into a book that nowadays is being used by thousands of pilots in their everyday operations from all over the world.

“How to Fly IFR” is the book I wish I had when I started with IFR.

But turns out I still use it. This is all the knowledge any IFR pilot needs, written for myself and my fellow pilots.

I wanted this to be practical. I wanted to give a step-by-step approach to what we do in an aircraft, far from the dense of regulations.

As a pilot, all I want is to fly the procedures correctly, that’s it.

So the book is structured as the flight unfolds, explaining the instruments and means of navigation, followed by each flight phase and all the different variations you might find.

By different variations, I mean all of them, from flying in a big airport with several transitions in departure to taking off from an uncontrolled field and performing an IFR pickup. All the kinds of approaches and maneuvers are included, written in plain language with step-by-step explanations of everything you must do.

You will also have a clear base of the comms you will have in each moment so that you don’t get frozen when ATC talks to you. Turns out, the regulations are important too. Not to just comply with the rules or answer the examiner’s questions correctly. Regulations are there for safety, and you must know what regulations are going to affect you.

The problem is that the regulations are a big chunk of volumes and knowledge scattered in different volumes, written by various sources (EASA, ICAO, Local AIP, airports, etc.), and usually takes a ton of time to find a small piece of info. We went through all of them to bring what matters to you, and no more. By the way, I’m a business aviation pilot. I fly daily from the most remote strips in the Swiss Alps to the biggest economic hubs. I’ve flown almost all of the possible procedures. I include new information as soon as I find it or as soon as a colleague gives me some advice that I find useful.

This book has been written to take work off your shoulders, and I’m confident it will make your IFR career smoother.