IN DEFENSE OF THE 60+ HOUR PRIVATE CERTIFICATE

I have fueled my own plane twice in almost 4000 hours of flying. I hope to retire from flying with that record still standing. ;-). Now I mostly fly smelly kerosene burners, and you just can't get that smell off your hands or out of your clothes.
 
JVerb said:
My CFI took me up on heavy XW days (17kt limit in a Archer II)....

Pilotage & Dead reckoning altitude of +/-200' and heading of 15d is crazy; you couldn't be that far off if you were on flight following....
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I hope your CFI didn't tell you that 17 knots is a limit. It is not.

And when you are getting VFR traffic advisories, what most people call flight following, heading and altitude is at your discretion.
 
Gilbert Buettner said:
I hope your CFI didn't tell you that 17 knots is a limit. It is not.

And when you are getting VFR traffic advisories, what most people call flight following, heading and altitude is at your discretion.
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Of course it's not a limit, but it's a stated 17kt demonstrated cross for a Piper Archer. You're free to go as high as you want.

Deleted due to self-stupidity
 
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JVerb said:
Of course it's not a limit, but it's a stated 17kt demonstrated cross for a Piper Archer. You're free to go as high as you want.

As for heading and altitude, I fly in/around a Class B; when you're on flight following and they ask you to change heading for traffic avoidance, it's not taken as a suggestion. Even when I'm not in the Bravo on VFR, if they give you a heading, you should be able to track it a helluva' lot better than +/- 15 degrees, and your altitude should be a lot tighter than +/-200'.
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Inside the Class B, I think of it as a clearance, not flight following, but I can't remember doing any VFR flights in Class B. Anytime you get a heading from ATC, you should follow it unless you have an emergency. I agree that you should be ON altitude and ON heading.

I believe the demonstrated crosswind component is the wind speed the factory test pilots believed an average pilot can handle. Since you and I are way above average, we probably can handle a lot more wind.
 
Gilbert Buettner said:
I believe the demonstrated crosswind component is the wind speed the factory test pilots believed an average pilot can handle.
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It's exactly what it says it is, the maximum demonstrated (using the flight manual crosswind landing technique). :) I wish there was some rationale required to go with the published numbers but apparently that wasn't deemed necessary. Sometimes it's just "because that's the highest we got on our wind hunts."

Nauga,
winded
 
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Gilbert Buettner said:
Inside the Class B, I think of it as a clearance, not flight following, but I can't remember doing any VFR flights in Class B. Anytime you get a heading from ATC, you should follow it unless you have an emergency. I agree that you should be ON altitude and ON heading.

I believe the demonstrated crosswind component is the wind speed the factory test pilots believed an average pilot can handle. Since you and I are way above average, we probably can handle a lot more wind.
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I wouldn't call myself above average!

Deleted due to self-stupidity
 
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JVerb said:
But my point is still valid. PPL allows to fly in controlled airspace, so being able to stay +/-10d and +/-100' should be an ACS requirement, since ATC needs that (or better) in controlled.
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Yes, however, remember that being in controlled airspace is not the same thing as being under ATC control. You can be in Class E, getting flight following, and fly like a drunken sailor, and ATC may not care at all, unless you have nearby traffic.
 
Gilbert Buettner said:
Yes, however, remember that being in controlled airspace is not the same thing as being under ATC control. You can be in Class E, getting flight following, and fly like a drunken sailor, and ATC may not care at all, unless you have nearby traffic.
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Deleted due to self-stupidity.
 
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JVerb said:
But my point is still valid. PPL allows to fly in controlled airspace, so being able to stay +/-10d and +/-100' should be an ACS requirement, since ATC needs that (or better) in controlled.
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why do you think ATC needs +/-10d and +/-100'?
 
To bend back to the original title.....20 years ago when I was still teaching ASELs, I did a BFR on a guy who at exactly 1.0 said, "SIGN ME OFF". He was at 54 hours when he got his PVT-ASEL and was at 61 hours two years later. I replied, "you're not ready"...here's what we have yet to do....

He cut me off, "I got my ticket and I'm done learning". For that guy 1000 hours would not be enough. He died with ~550 in his logbook, un-type trained in his stalled MU-2. 10 in type.
 
Rockymountain said:
I have fueled my own plane twice in almost 4000 hours of flying. I hope to retire from flying with that record still standing. ;-). Now I mostly fly smelly kerosene burners, and you just can't get that smell off your hands or out of your clothes.
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There's one foolproof method to get rid of jet fuel smell. Find the nearest skunk and **** it off. By the time that smell wears off, the jet fuel smell will probably be gone too.

Gilbert Buettner said:
I believe the demonstrated crosswind component is the wind speed the factory test pilots believed an average pilot can handle. Since you and I are way above average, we probably can handle a lot more wind.
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IIRC, there is a certification requirement that the demonstrated crosswind be at least a certain percentage of the stall speed... But it's too late at night to go surfing part 23 today.

bbchien said:
To bend back to the original title.....20 years ago when I was still teaching ASELs, I did a BFR on a guy who at exactly 1.0 said, "SIGN ME OFF". He was at 54 hours when he got his PVT-ASEL and was at 61 hours two years later. I replied, "you're not ready"...here's what we have yet to do....

He cut me off, "I got my ticket and I'm done learning". For that guy 1000 hours would not be enough. He died with ~550 in his logbook, un-type trained in his stalled MU-2. 10 in type.
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Oof. I remember you telling us about that one. This guy, right? https://data.ntsb.gov/carol-repgen/api/Aviation/ReportMain/GenerateNewestReport/52454/pdf
 
So do you believe you will change the requirements
 
Few finish in forty hours, in any case. Most of us [non-professional] take 60-80.
 
szwinger said:
I’m curious about the comments about the dangers of flying from KFMN (Farmington NM) to 67L (Mesquite NV). Unless I mucked something up horribly, that looks like a benign trip passing well north of the Grand Canyon special flight rules area. Another curious thing (to me at least) the initial post seemed to indicate the hapless pilot was unprepared for mountainous terrain. His home airport was reportedly KAPA (Denver CO). Maybe his response was less of an indication of inexperience and more reflecting the frustration of having some random “experienced” pilot trying to fly his plane. Probably didn’t want you to go away mad.
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The Grand Canyon comment was meant to shock! Do not assume every PPL out of APA has had meaningful mountain training. Where in 40.1 hours do you cram mountain training in? If you look at that trip on your google earth again think dark night, no moonlight. See what you find for Navaids, Visual references (lights) and any help. Remember this was a pilot that could find a mid size city and airport in the DAY.
 
morleyz said:
If you put any stock into The Killing Zone's analysis, you need to be north of 300 hours before you're less likely to drill a hole in the ground.

If you require 270 hours solo before you can take a checkride, you might increase the safety of an actual PPL, but you'd just see more student pilots doing stupid sh*t.

If you require more dual instruction, you always have the CFI to bail you out.

If you're able to meet the standards that are currently used, you shouldn't need additional training for that certificate or rating. If the OP's position is that CFIs and DPEs are pushing through candidates that don't meet the standards, I think we could have that discussion, but if you're suggesting that a PPL that meets all the standards in the ACS is not qualified to be in "your" airspace, then I think maybe it's time for you to hang up your headset because that attitude that you're such a great pilot that new ones should be grounded while you're flying is pretty awful.
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In my original post, I admitted my shortcomings. I do not believe it is your right to call my flying awful.
 
Pinecone said:
TL, DR

But your desired extra 20 hours, even with instrument time (required now), upset training and glider time WOULD NOT HAVE CHANGED ANY PART OF THE STORY YOU RELAYED.

And BTW, last time I checked, the average hours to PP checkride is over 60 hours and has been for years.

What needs to be taught is good ADM. And the people who can teach that are those that learned by experience, not a 200 hour CFI with limited XC experience.
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Don't yell. Read again. It's not about hours, it's about competency and judgement
 
HAWKXP said:
In my original post, I admitted my shortcomings. I do not believe it is your right to call my flying awful.
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He was referring to your attitude being awful, not your flying.
 
The world is filled with people who think DM means "direct message", and have no concept of effective decision making.
 
HAWKXP said:
Don't yell. Read again. It's not about hours, it's about competency and judgement
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If it's not about hours, what makes you think an applicant would suddenly gain massive amounts of competency and judgment-making skills in your extra 20 hours? Even if the applicant was required to do glider and tailwheel and more cross country in those 20 hours, how would that fix the pilots who make bad judgment calls? If more hours before checkride yields more experience and better judgment calls, why do more experienced pilots with hundreds of hours still fly into IMC, still fly into thunderstorms that were obvious and predicted for days, still run out of fuel?

In my humble opinion, competency could be potentially gained with extra flight hours, sure, but the FAA has already established competency standards that don't exactly have planes falling out of the sky all day, every day. Pilots are supposed to continue to hone their skills and become more competent pilots after their checkride, not less competent. As far as judgment skills, those depend far more on personality type and willingness to take risk than they do on number of hours before checkride.

I am a risk averse pilot who had ~70 hours before I got certified. But it wasn't the extra hours that made me risk averse, I was that way from the very beginning. If I had removed the hindrances from my flight training like month-long breaks due to weather, only flying on weekends, and dealing with a six month time frame between my first attempt to schedule my checkride and my first (and only, thankfully) attempt to complete the checkride, I could have probably gotten through in 40 hours. I may not have been as competent as I was at my checkride - after all, I flew most of the flight to commercial standards instead of private, per my DPE - but I would have been perfectly competent in accordance with the proper guidelines and I still would have been just as risk-averse and likely to make good judgment calls then as am I now. My CFI didn't train me to be that way, I wasn't scared into being that way by some in-flight mishap, or anything like that. I walked into flying knowing it was dangerous but that I wanted to do it - so I had to mitigate every possible and reasonable risk that I could so I could enjoy it.

Flying sloppily is a mindset. Taking undue risks is a mindset. Controlling risk is also a mindset. Adding extra skills and hours to the required private pilot curriculum will have close to zero effect on the mindset of the pilot who chooses to take more risks than you are comfortable with taking.
 
For some, hundreds of hours isn't enough to inculcate basic competence. I flew (once) as a right seat companion for a certificated pilot and owner with hundreds of hours (probably the same hour over and over) who couldn't find his way beyond the local area without getting lost (I had to give frequent "vectors" to keep the plane on the airways during our 2.5 hour flight) and nearly came to grief flying the wrong traffic pattern (which I was trying to look to look up and confirm in the AFD I was carrying as we entered the pattern) and nearly overrunning a 4000 foot runway in a C172 with (as it turns out) only one working brake that was discovered but not reported during preflight. I wasn't expecting to be the de facto PIC for this flight, just a passenger. I made the pilot arrange to repair the brakes (needed a simple flush) before departing for the return trip. On the flight home I again assisted with navigation (the owner could not track a VOR radial to save his life) and I insisted on demonstrating landing the plane at a proper approach speed, which did not require 4000 feet of runway to come to a stop.

More or less the same scenario happened to the next sap who flew right seat with him on an XC trip, where our hapless pilot decided to turn toward Bermuda instead of Rhode Island at the last checkpoint.

This same pilot had several brushes with fuel exhaustion as well. Some folks apparently have a hard time putting more than two brain cells together at once. The only saving grace is that he is no longer able to find a CFI to agree to conduct or sign off on a satisfactory flight review.

So it's not just flight hours, but one's approach and attention to details. Flying GA isn't THAT hard, but the penalty for ignoring too many details can be catastrophic.
 
chemgeek said:
For some, hundreds of hours isn't enough to inculcate basic competence. I flew (once) as a right seat companion for a certificated pilot and owner with hundreds of hours (probably the same hour over and over) who couldn't find his way beyond the local area without getting lost (I had to give frequent "vectors" to keep the plane on the airways during our 2.5 hour flight) and nearly came to grief flying the wrong traffic pattern (which I was trying to look to look up and confirm in the AFD I was carrying as we entered the pattern) and nearly overrunning a 4000 foot runway in a C172 with (as it turns out) only one working brake that was discovered but not reported during preflight. I wasn't expecting to be the de facto PIC for this flight, just a passenger. I made the pilot arrange to repair the brakes (needed a simple flush) before departing for the return trip. On the flight home I again assisted with navigation (the owner could not track a VOR radial to save his life) and I insisted on demonstrating landing the plane at a proper approach speed, which did not require 4000 feet of runway to come to a stop.

More or less the same scenario happened to the next sap who flew right seat with him on an XC trip, where our hapless pilot decided to turn toward Bermuda instead of Rhode Island at the last checkpoint.

This same pilot had several brushes with fuel exhaustion as well. Some folks apparently have a hard time putting more than two brain cells together at once. The only saving grace is that he is no longer able to find a CFI to agree to conduct or sign off on a satisfactory flight review.

So it's not just flight hours, but one's approach and attention to details. Flying GA isn't THAT hard, but the penalty for ignoring too many details can be catastrophic.
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I have flown with this person, well, a person like this. When I was actively instructing, a person asked me to ride right seat with him for a short business trip, about a 1.5 hour leg each way. He did the takeoff, climb and set cruise. Afterr 15 minutes he asked me if I wanted to fly. Ok, no problem. I took the controls, and he reached into a cooler in the back and popped a cool one. Really, an ice cold beer. He emptied the first can, opened the window and threw the can out. Repeat 5 more times before we landed. I insisted on driving at the destination, as well as flying back.

I counted 24 beers (including the meeting and lunch) by the time we landed at home. Other folks told me stories about this guy, after I flew with him. Which I never did again.
 
MIFlyer said:
Thanks, not having flown one, it makes sense, but I can't comment.

I do think it would criple flight training if every PPL candidate needed 10 hours of glider time. I think those can only be done in a few places, is this so?
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Not only that but they also have restrictive seat weight limits.

I maintain a generally healthy lifestyle, could stand to lose a few pounds but I’m not a fat ass. I’m to heavy for all of the gliders in my sons glider club.
 
Agree with lots of the comments here. Of course like many say, quality of the pilot itself matters lots more then hours. Adding on a bit too about how quality of the flight instruction itself can matter more also. My instructor was talking to my DPE about stuff and my DPE had mentioned he had a ppl exam where the student (from one of the pilot mills) didn’t know what a forward slip was. So he was talking to the students instructor about it and somehow this CFI also didn’t know what a forward slip was. I’ve also heard some of these pilot mills where they can’t fly with too much wind, they maybe even limit instrument student and CFIIs about flying in much IMC. They just get the 50NM cross countries and don’t fly besides that for fun. Very regimented and not geared towards great experience. Also very expensive.

Theres was also the comment about students just looking for cheapest option as if we shouldn’t shop around at all. And sure you shouldn’t go cheap at the cost of experience. But those pilot mills are crazy expensive and have you flying fancy planes with fancy avionics. I actually did find cheapest option which was joining a flying club with a $90ish a tach hour 172 that as part owner I’d have to help out with club activities on. Learned with experienced flight instructor who does it for fun so reasonable expense. So waayyy cheaper than pilot mills. But I got a well maintained plane with basic but still capable avionics that was perfect for VFR.

My instructor in prepping for cross countries told me tons of stories of things he had to face in his actual flying all around the country so I knew what to look for and how to plan. Flying he flew me in above demonstrated cross wind component (15 demonstrated, we were probably 17-20) to make sure I could handle the plane in a crosswind. He showed me at night how difficult it can be to see clouds and easy it is to fly into them. Many other real world things he did to prepare me. That all came from his real world experience and trying to prepare me for that. Many of these pilot mills don’t let instructors get that experience.

Having some arbitrary 60 hour limit won’t do much to fix pilot mills who just churn out students. More expensive flight training isn’t necessarily better. But students should seek out quality flight instructors who are passionate about aviation and learning and teaching. An instructor who doesn’t care about aviation but just wants his 1500 hours to get a cushy airline job probably isn’t who you want as your instructor. Although there are plenty of great instructors passionate about aviation who are on the path to 1500
 
HAWKXP said:
Don't yell. Read again. It's not about hours, it's about competency and judgement
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My point was, what you are asking them to add does not affect those factors.
 
EvilEagle said:
The story is too common, but you can add any number of hours for the pilot and it's the same story. Some people just shouldn't be pilots; arbitrarily adding 20 more hours of training is not going to change that. The quality of basic instruction has gone down a lot in my 30 years of flying. There are far less old experienced CFI's that do it for the love of aviation and far too many 200-hr wonders that are doing it to pass the time till something better comes along. I got my license at 43 hours - (I was a slacker for those extra 3!) I had two amazing CFIs that had been flying longer than I had been breathing and they taught me how to fly - not just how to pass the checkride. It was a great start on a long journey of learning.
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You are SO on target with that post! Thank you - from another somewhat seasoned GA pilot.
 
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