how to clear ifstream failed state and move on

Can someone point me in the right direction?

I am trying to loop through a file, reading some simple data.

If some bad data is read, for example "A" when a float is expected,
then I want to be able to clear the error and move on to the next
record.

It seems that calling clear does clear the error state, but it looks
like I am unable to move on to the next record. I have experimented
with .ignore with inconsistent results.

Is there a better way, or any way in fact to do this?

sample code:

float side;
float area;
int rowCount = 4;
int passCount = 0;
ifstream inFile;

inFile.open("data.txt",ios::open_mode::nocreate);

while (passCount < rowCount){
   inFile>>side>>area;

   cout<<"Just read row "<< passCount + 1 <<": Side is "<<side<<" and
area is "<<area<<endl;

   if(!inFile)
   {
       cout << "I/O Error on input file"<<endl;
       inFile.clear();
   }

    passCount += 1;
}

sample data:
2 4
3 9
A 1
4 16

I will get errors for row 3 AND row 4.

Any help?