More What If questions

EHITCH

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Elizabeth
Today’s “what if” scenarios, how do you think a DE would react:



Question 1: Short hop of 50 miles. Home base is carved out of the 10-mi radius of Class B. Given the short distance between airports, I am inclined to fly below 3,000’ the entire way. Would this be perceived as a problem? By the time I get through the surrounding/overlying Bravo airspace I will get to cruise altitude of 4,500 only a few minutes before I have to descend.

Question 2: And I guess this one is rhetorical – I suppose I really should calculate climb profiles if I am dotting "I" and crossing "T" ..

FYI this flight is not a x/c training requirement (just seems like one).
Thanks, as always, for your generous help,
Elizabeth
 
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I've gotta hit the regs again... I thought it was 1,000 feet above congested areas. I'm already forgetting things :(
 
1) If you deem it "safer" and it is legal, it doesn't matter a whit whether anyone else considers it too conservative. A DPE would rather see you be too cautious than too reckless.

2) I would too, assuming terrain/obstacles permit.

3) I suppose you should. Get into the good habits now.
 
Joe Williams said:
I've gotta hit the regs again... I thought it was 1,000 feet above congested areas. I'm already forgetting things :(

Joe, you're right (thank you), it is 1000' abv congested areas.
This is what happens when I try to stuff too much into my constricting brain. Stuff starts to leak out. I wonder why I had 1500' in my head, though?
Elizabeth
 
EHITCH said:
Today’s “what if” scenarios, how do you think a DE would react:



Question 1: Short hop of 50 miles. Home base is carved out of the 10-mi radius of Class B. Direct course would require flying through segment of Bravo with a 3000’ floor then across an adjacent corner of Bravo with a 1900’ floor. That’s cutting it a bit too close as far as I’m concerned – the margin between 1500’ above congested area and the 1900’ floor is pretty slim – plus there are really no clear waypoints. Alternatively, I have planned drct to the nearest VOR, then drct to destination airport, that still requires close attention to Bravo floors but without the close margins. This is the ‘safer’ course as far as I’m concerned – but am I being too conservative?

Question 2: Given the short distance between airports, I am inclined to fly below 3,000’ the entire way. Would this be perceived as a problem? By the time I get through the Bravo airspace I will get to cruise altitude of 4,500 only a few minutes before I have to descend.

Question 3: And I guess this one is rhetorical – I suppose I really should calculate climb profiles if I am dotting "I" and crossing "T" ..

FYI this flight is not a x/c training requirement (just seems like one).
Thanks, as always, for your generous help,
Elizabeth

Elizabeth, I suggest that you call up ATC and request "permission" to fly thru their class Bravo. The worst thing that they could say is no. If this is your checkride,perhaps a phone call to Departure control in advance might help. I once got into RDU (class C) without transponder working this way
Best of luck................KD
 
EHITCH said:
Today’s “what if” scenarios, how do you think a DE would react:



Question 1: Short hop of 50 miles. Home base is carved out of the 10-mi radius of Class B. Given the short distance between airports, I am inclined to fly below 3,000’ the entire way. Would this be perceived as a problem? By the time I get through the surrounding/overlying Bravo airspace I will get to cruise altitude of 4,500 only a few minutes before I have to descend.

Question 2: And I guess this one is rhetorical – I suppose I really should calculate climb profiles if I am dotting "I" and crossing "T" ..

FYI this flight is not a x/c training requirement (just seems like one).
Thanks, as always, for your generous help,
Elizabeth

Elizabeth, I would plan the flight below the Class B, navigating any method with which you are comfortable. I would have the Class B frequency ready and I would call and ask for clearance into the Class B. The DE sees you holding Plan A and requesting Plan B. Slightly higher is always better (more options when stuff goes south, better visibility, etc., etc.). I would then fly the lower route until/if the Class B clearance is received. If received, climb to some reasonable altitude correct for the direction of flight (i.e. 3000' works for me).

The above being a purely personal thing--there really is no "wrong" answer short of buzzing a populated area or busting Class B space.
 
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Don't ask for clearance into Class B unless your instructor has endorsed you to operate in there!!
 
Joe Williams said:
Don't ask for clearance into Class B unless your instructor has endorsed you to operate in there!!

Not an issue on a checkride.
 
EHITCH said:
Question 1: Short hop of 50 miles. Home base is carved out of the 10-mi radius of Class B. Given the short distance between airports, I am inclined to fly below 3,000’ the entire way. Would this be perceived as a problem? By the time I get through the surrounding/overlying Bravo airspace I will get to cruise altitude of 4,500 only a few minutes before I have to descend.
Not unless the underlying terrain were above 2000 MSL (pretty much all B-space is over "congested" areas and the 1000-foot clause of 91.119 applies).

Question 2: And I guess this one is rhetorical – I suppose I really should calculate climb profiles if I am dotting "I" and crossing "T" ..
Yes, you should -- not because it's particularly significant, but just to demonstrate that you know how. If you didn't, that will add questions to the oral, since he has to ascertain that you do know how.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe Williams
Don't ask for clearance into Class B unless your instructor has endorsed you to operate in there!!

Ed Guthrie said:
Not an issue on a checkride.
Got a reg to quote on that? I do believe the only student pilot limitation waived on the practical test is that regarding carriage of passengers (61.47(c)) -- there's no such exception in 91.131(b) or 61.95 for operating in Class B airspace on a practical test without the required endorsements unless, of course, the examiner agrees to act as PIC.
 
EHITCH said:
Today’s “what if” scenarios, how do you think a DE would react:



Question 1: Short hop of 50 miles. Home base is carved out of the 10-mi radius of Class B. Given the short distance between airports, I am inclined to fly below 3,000’ the entire way. Would this be perceived as a problem? By the time I get through the surrounding/overlying Bravo airspace I will get to cruise altitude of 4,500 only a few minutes before I have to descend.

Question 2: And I guess this one is rhetorical – I suppose I really should calculate climb profiles if I am dotting "I" and crossing "T" ..

FYI this flight is not a x/c training requirement (just seems like one).
Thanks, as always, for your generous help,
Elizabeth
If it's Alan Englehardt, he won't mind at all if your fly under the edge. He's a practical guy. He'll have plenty for you to do in the time you would be occupied trying to get C90 (Elgin, Chicago Approach) to answer you. He will understand that valuable time in which he could be asking you to do tasks will be wasted.

Besides, C90 never answers us flivvers anyway. Not even "VFR, unable". Just an "I can't hear you....."(intonation by Sargent Carter, on Gomer Pyle USMC).

He'll have plenty of tasks for you enroute at 3000- like slow flight, approach stalls (stay below 3900!), departure stalls, down for ground reference maneuvers, etc. An efficient guy, who would be a surprise to take more than 1.0 to get thirteen items from the PTS in on a ride. That's 4.5 minutes per task.

Bruce
 
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Ron Levy said:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe Williams
Don't ask for clearance into Class B unless your instructor has endorsed you to operate in there!!

unless, of course, the examiner agrees to act as PIC.

That was my point. If the DE wants you into B space he will take the PIC responsibility.
 
Ed Guthrie said:
That was my point. If the DE wants you into B space he will take the PIC responsibility.

My DE was quite interested in my knowledge of the privileges and limitations of the various pilot certificates. I'm not at all certain he would have told me that I couldn't fly into B space if I hadn't told him that first. He might have stopped me before we busted, but I don't think that would have been a good thing overall.
 
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Joe Williams said:
My DE was quite interested in my knowledge of the privileges and limitations of the various pilot certificates. I'm not at all certain he would have told me that I couldn't fly into B space if I hadn't told him that first. He might have stopped me before we busted, but I don't think that would have been a good thing overall.

We need to put this all into perspective. Yes, the DE wants to know what you know about airspace and pilot certificate privileges, and he may even be interested in a trivia regarding the privileges for the certificate you are about to replace. However, your first comment was that a candidate should never enter Class B on the checkride unless the pilot has an appropriate Class B endorsement. I merely noted that the endorsement isn't an issue for the checkride--if the DE wants you to enter the Class B you don't need to adamantly refuse because you lack the appropriate endorsement.
 
Ed Guthrie said:
We need to put this all into perspective. Yes, the DE wants to know what you know about airspace and pilot certificate privileges, and he may even be interested in a trivia regarding the privileges for the certificate you are about to replace. However, your first comment was that a candidate should never enter Class B on the checkride unless the pilot has an appropriate Class B endorsement. I merely noted that the endorsement isn't an issue for the checkride--if the DE wants you to enter the Class B you don't need to adamantly refuse because you lack the appropriate endorsement.

Adamantly? Maybe not, but considering that we had established before flight that I was PIC, I certainly would have refused. I was simply not legal to fly into the B space, and unless Elizabeth, or any other student reading this, is properly endorsed neither are they. No matter what the DE tells you is ok, unless they agree to become PIC, if you fly into the B space with them, you violate the regs, and that is a baaad thing on a check ride, or any other time for that matter.
 
Wait a minute. Are you a student pilot on the Checkride? Are you the legal PIC, acting and all of that? Isn't the examiner just a pax on the checkride?

My take on all this, until convinced otherwise, it that on your checkride, you are a Private Pilot. You just don't have the certificate yet. That means you have all the rights, priviledges, and responsibilities. I can be proven wrong, but if the examiner wants you to go through class B, go through class B.

Having said that, you better know what you are doing.
 
Greg Bockelman said:
I can be proven wrong, but if the examiner wants you to go through class B, go through class B.

Having said that, you better know what you are doing.

Greg, this is essentially my take on the situation, too. If the candidate lives near Class B space and/or is taking the test near Class B space the examiner will be much more interested in determining whether or not the candidate knows how to legally and safely negotiate Class B space as a private pilot tomorrow than the examiner will be interested in determining if the candidate understands the rules he needed to operate in Class B space as a student yesterday.
 
If it's anything like my checkride you won't have time to contact Approach before he breaks off the XC and starts working on something else. He wants to see your planning and starting the trip, but you're not actually going to go very far along your plan.
 
Greg Bockelman said:
Wait a minute. Are you a student pilot on the Checkride? Are you the legal PIC, acting and all of that? Isn't the examiner just a pax on the checkride?
All true, and the only reason you can legally have that examiner on board as a passenger on the PP practical test is the exemption given in 61.47(c).

My take on all this, until convinced otherwise, it that on your checkride, you are a Private Pilot. You just don't have the certificate yet.
That is definitely not true, and the parallel situation is (as discussed before on other threads) that the examiner has to be PIC to go IFR on an instrument rating practical test.

That means you have all the rights, priviledges, and responsibilities. I can be proven wrong, but if the examiner wants you to go through class B, go through class B.
You will not find anything in the regs that says you "have all the rights [and] privileges" of the certificate/rating for which you are being tested until the examiner and you have both signed the Temporary Airman Certificate. The fact that 61.47(c) is needed to allow you to carry the examiner as a passenger should be proof of that, since if your hypothesis were correct, that paragraph would not be necessary ("reductio ad absurdum" is the logic for that).

Bottom line -- if the DPE wants you to go into B-space for which you are not endorsed on a PP test, or go IFR on an IR test, the correct response is, "You are assuming PIC responsibility at this time, is that correct?" If the DPE's answer is "no," yours must be the same.
 
Ron Levy said:
That is definitely not true, and the parallel situation is (as discussed before on other threads) that the examiner has to be PIC to go IFR on an instrument rating practical test.

OK, maybe I over stated this a bit. Let me rephrase. You should go into a checkride as though you are a Private Pilot.

You will not find anything in the regs that says you "have all the rights [and] privileges" of the certificate/rating for which you are being tested until the examiner and you have both signed the Temporary Airman Certificate. The fact that 61.47(c) is needed to allow you to carry the examiner as a passenger should be proof of that, since if your hypothesis were correct, that paragraph would not be necessary ("reductio ad absurdum" is the logic for that).

OK, I can accept that.

Bottom line -- if the DPE wants you to go into B-space for which you are not endorsed on a PP test, or go IFR on an IR test, the correct response is, "You are assuming PIC responsibility at this time, is that correct?" If the DPE's answer is "no," yours must be the same.

What I find interesting and a LITTLE BIT (OK, maybe a lot) strange is that the examiner can bust you today for an endorsement violation that won't even be an issue tomorrow, if you pass the checkride.
 
Let's see ...

DPE: Let's plan to climb into the Class B
Examinee: Are you sure I can do that? I don't have the Class B endorsement.

Either:

DPE: You are allowed to do that.
Examinee: OK, I will plan it that way.

or:

DPE: Very good - you're right. You're not allowed to do that, so let's plan to stay below the shelf

Either way, I think you'll get an indication either way before you have to fly it that way, as long as the initial planning is to stay below the shelf.

The DPE isn't gonna fail you for following his/her directions. If you end up busting Class B, the FAA is gonna come down on the DPE pretty hard for that instruction.
 
MSmith said:
The DPE isn't gonna fail you for following his/her directions. If you end up busting Class B, the FAA is gonna come down on the DPE pretty hard for that instruction.

I dunno about other people, but I'm not going to stake anything on that. The regs say that an unendorsed student pilot is not allowed to enter the B. They also say that the student is acting as PIC during the checkride. "Final authority" and all that jazz! So if the DPE says "fly over there" and that's going to bust a regulation, it seems pretty clear to me that the proper response is to say "no". Just like if the DPE says "fly over there" and you see that there's another aircraft that you'd collide with. If you obey the DPE anyway and collide.... ?

--Kath
 
Smart move, Kath.

Sometimes that's what distinguishes candidates at a checkride.

Like when I told my Commercial DE that I'd fly about 5 miles over that-a-way before we maneuvered so as to get away from the airway.... it was very well received.
 
MSmith said:
DPE: Let's plan to climb into the Class B
Examinee: Are you sure I can do that? I don't have the Class B endorsement.

Either:

DPE: You are allowed to do that.
Examinee: OK, I will plan it that way.
mmmm....bad juju. Absent the assumption of PIC by the examiner, the examinee busts and (if the examinee actually gets into the B-space), the examiner loses his examining authority.

or:

DPE: Very good - you're right. You're not allowed to do that, so let's plan to stay below the shelf
Ahhhh....much better.

If you end up busting Class B, the FAA is gonna come down on the DPE pretty hard for that instruction.
While that is true, the examinee, as PIC, will still swing for violating 91.131(b) and 61.95.
 
kath said:
I dunno about other people, but I'm not going to stake anything on that. The regs say that an unendorsed student pilot is not allowed to enter the B. They also say that the student is acting as PIC during the checkride. "Final authority" and all that jazz! So if the DPE says "fly over there" and that's going to bust a regulation, it seems pretty clear to me that the proper response is to say "no". Just like if the DPE says "fly over there" and you see that there's another aircraft that you'd collide with.
You pass, Kath.

If you obey the DPE anyway and collide.... ?
An accident during a practical test is an automatic pink slip, no matter who or what caused it, even if that might not seem fair in some imaginable circumstances.
 
EHITCH said:
Today’s “what if” scenarios, how do you think a DE would react:



Question 1: Short hop of 50 miles. Home base is carved out of the 10-mi radius of Class B. Given the short distance between airports, I am inclined to fly below 3,000’ the entire way. Would this be perceived as a problem? By the time I get through the surrounding/overlying Bravo airspace I will get to cruise altitude of 4,500 only a few minutes before I have to descend.

My PP checkride was out of S50 (Auburn, WA). It is under a 3000 MSL shelf of the SEA Class B. To get to the area where we did all the ride except at S50 we had to transition under a 1600 MSL shelf of the SEA class B, and terrain is about 400 MSL. Leaves a very slim sliver of air to fly through while maintaining 1000 AGL and staying out of the class B space. Flew through there getting to S50 from OLM and again going home with the temporary ticket in my pocket. As long as the ground is below 2000 MSL you've got it made. As a friend at work likes to say - "Go forth and do!"
 
kath said:
So if the DPE says "fly over there" and that's going to bust a regulation, it seems pretty clear to me that the proper response is to say "no".

The correct response is a non-confrontational, "I lack the Class B endorsement. Are you willing to act as PIC while we are in Class B?" The response shows you have good CRM, and that you understand the regulations, yet also allows the DE to explore what s/he quite probably wishes to explore -- your Class B skills. If indeed that is the DE's purpose s/he will say, "Okay, I'm legal PIC until we exit." No issue. If it isn't the DE's purpose the DE will probably smile a wicked grin and say, "That's okay, this altitude will be fine."

Someone else stated that the DE will not ask you to do something that would be a bust. Not true. My private ride the DE had me do the ground reference maneuvers starting from an airport just north and outside of Sacramento's then brand new Class C space. At the completion of each maneuver he would point a little further south as the next maneuver starting point. At the conclusion he said, "Take me back to Cameron Park". I started cruising east at 1,100'. He said, "This is kind of low, don't you think? Why don't we climb to 3,000'? I picked up the mike and started dialing the #1 COM frequency. He said, "What are you doing?" I replied, "We are just underneath Sacramento's Class C shelf's floor. We can't enter unless I'm talking to Sac approach." He smiled the wicked grin and said, "How long will be stuck at this altitude?" "About five more miles" "That's okay," he said, "we don't need to call them. Fly at this altitude and tell me when we are clear of the Class C space."

Be forewarned, DEs will indeed tell you to charge into the void. Your job is to point out the void and the legal way to traverse it, if one exists.
 
Ron Levy said:
I do believe the only student pilot limitation waived on the practical test is that regarding carriage of passengers (61.47(c)) -- there's no such exception in 91.131(b) or 61.95 for operating in Class B airspace on a practical test without the required endorsements unless, of course, the examiner agrees to act as PIC.
Does this also technically mean that you can't operate more than 25 miles from your home airport and then only to airports that you've been endorsed for solo flights for?

Answer: I think not, because those limitations are only if you're solo - and since 61.47(c) is waived (and you have a pax) then you're not solo... Of course I could be completely wrong...
 
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EHITCH said:
Joe, you're right (thank you), it is 1000' abv congested areas.
This is what happens when I try to stuff too much into my constricting brain. Stuff starts to leak out. I wonder why I had 1500' in my head, though?
Elizabeth

Elizabeth,

1500' would be the minimum ceiling for VFR in a congested area that would allow you to be 1000' above the congested area and remain 500' below the ceiling.
 
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