So, here's a question

TMetzinger

TMetzinger

Final Approach
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Tim
I'm at the point in my CFI training where I'm signed off for the right seat to do solo practice teaching, or to take someone along for some practice teaching.

A group is having a trip up to the Hudson, and I have a pilot who wants to share costs with me in the Arrow and have me teach him the complex airplane stuff.

I'm an AGI/IGI already so I can give him the ground instruction for the complex endorsement. I can certainly teach him the stuff in the airplane though he would not be able to log it as flight instruction received, nor could I log it as flight instruction given because I haven't gotten the CFI yet. He can log PIC and the complex time for all the time he's flying even though I'm acting as PIC.

So far I don't see anything wrong with doing this. Now to the "interesting" part.

AFTER I get my CFI, I go up with this guy again for about an hour in the Arrow, we go through the drills again, and (assuming he is proficient) I give him the endorsement. At that time he logs the dual and PIC, I log the instruction given and PIC, and we're done.

Is ther a problem with this? The only difference I can see is that this pilot will have less flight instruction time than the typical complex transition.
 
Nope.

Why not?

Let's say you were an Arrow owner, worked for Piper, memorized all the IPBs, etc, and sat in the right seat giving the new owner help, hints, techniques, etc.

Then the new owner comes to me and says, "I flew to NY and back with Mr Arrow in the right seat and need a complex endorsement so I can fly my airplane..." and proceeds to demonstrate that he knows everything there is to know about the Arrow.

How long will his training session be?
 
No minimums on required dual for an endorsement, so there's nothing wrong with that. My instructor said he wasn't going to sign me off in it until I had 5 hours with him just because he thought that showed sufficient time in case I geared up something early on to show he did due diligence, and I just made a newbie error.

Of course, if he doens't have his complex endorsement and you are flight right seat with him left seat in an arrow and him doing all the control manipulation, that might get into an insurance debacle should something happen. But that is purely speculation.
 
Thanks! I couldn't see any issues either, but wanted some other opinions.

Ted, you're right about the insurance issues. I wouldn't want to teach any maneuvers or any other things that would be more likely to lead to grief until I'm covered by a policy that specificly covers instruction, but teaching how to set power correctly with a constant speed prop and the emergency gear procedures are low risk. All the gear work would be done in the cruise phase, so as long as I'm diligent in making sure the gear system is back in proper configuration before the descent we should be fine. And I'm NOT teaching him how to fly the Arrow, so I'll be making the takeoffs and landings. He'll still have to comply with the airplane-specific signoff requirements later, either with me or another CFI.
 
TMetzinger said:
I'm at the point in my CFI training where I'm signed off for the right seat to do solo practice teaching, . . .
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I didn't realize there was a sign off required to fly from the right seat. Is this a FAR requirement? A rental requirement? An insurance requirement? Or is this just a figure of speech?
 
Erice said:
I didn't realize there was a sign off required to fly from the right seat. Is this a FAR requirement? A rental requirement? An insurance requirement? Or is this just a figure of speech?
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Our club's insurance requires a "right seat checkout" to fly from the right seat... I'm guessing Tim's FBO is the same way.
 
Erice said:
I didn't realize there was a sign off required to fly from the right seat. Is this a FAR requirement? A rental requirement? An insurance requirement? Or is this just a figure of speech?
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It's a rental requirement, driven by an insurance requirement, at the place where I rent my airplanes. The rental agreement states the airplane will be flown from the left seat only unless the renter has written approval.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Meh... As far as insurance requirements go, this one's reasonable and smart.
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I agree - I was surprised how different the right seat is. But like any other psychomotor skill, practice helps and I'm now able to fly pretty much equally badly from either seat.

My CFI never had to "save" the airplane when I was learning in the right seat the way my primary CFI had to save me when I first was learning to land, but there were a lot of "not pretty" moments and a few that were downright ugly. I wouldn't want to cover right seat operations unless there was a checkout involved, any more than I'd want to cover someone jumping in a new (to them) airplane without a checkout, even if they'd flown one "just like it" before.
 
TMetzinger said:
I agree - I was surprised how different the right seat is. But like any other psychomotor skill, practice helps and I'm now able to fly pretty much equally badly from either seat.

My CFI never had to "save" the airplane when I was learning in the right seat the way my primary CFI had to save me when I first was learning to land, but there were a lot of "not pretty" moments and a few that were downright ugly. I wouldn't want to cover right seat operations unless there was a checkout involved, any more than I'd want to cover someone jumping in a new (to them) airplane without a checkout, even if they'd flown one "just like it" before.
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There definitely is a learning curve -- it is *not* automatic.

But then once you get it it's like a switch goes off and you wonder how it was ever difficult?

All that aside, I suppose a club can have any rules it wants, but it would seem excessive to mandate a right seat checkout for everyone -- since not everyone would need it.
 
TMetzinger said:
any more than I'd want to cover someone jumping in a new (to them) airplane without a checkout, even if they'd flown one "just like it" before.
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I was surprised, but my insurance company covered me just fine flying the Branded Bird home after dropping Tom off at KYIP the day I bought it. It was probably because I had 100 hours in make and model, but still, I wouldn't have covered me that day. There was too much "Cardinal rust" in my muscles from 4 years of disuse.

Back on topic - I'd actually be interested in getting some training to fly my plane from the right seat as I've a friend with lots of Cardinal experience who hasn't flown in years, who I'd like to be able to let fly from the left seat (with me in the right seat as acting PIC, in case it isn't clear). I assume this is something any CFI can help with, and I wouldn't need to actually be going for a CFI rating?
 
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TMetzinger said:
I wouldn't want to cover right seat operations unless there was a checkout involved, any more than I'd want to cover someone jumping in a new (to them) airplane without a checkout, even if they'd flown one "just like it" before.
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Maybe I'm not understanding you but do you think that someone would need a separate checkout for each Cessna 172 on the line?
 
Everskyward said:
Maybe I'm not understanding you but do you think that someone would need a separate checkout for each Cessna 172 on the line?
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No - but if you've been flying a G1000 C172, you'll need a checkout for a conventional gauged 172. Similarly, if you've flown injected models, you may need some training for the carbureted models.

Sometimes the "checkout" is ten minutes of discussion on the ground, or a short trip into the cockpit to learn where the carb heat is. It doesn't require an hour of dual. On the other hand, a G1000 transition can take a bit of training on the ground and in the air.

All of the schools I've used had a way to "qualify" pilots for each specific make and model, and often had separate boxes to check for VFR and IFR.
 
TMetzinger said:
All of the schools I've used had a way to "qualify" pilots for each specific make and model, and often had separate boxes to check for VFR and IFR.
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Wow, I guess I should consider myself fortunate that a checkout in a G1000 182 covered me for that as well as G1000 172's, round-dial 172S's, carb'd 172s, as well as 152's and 150s. First time I ever flew a 152 was solo. Interesting to say the least, but not that big of deal from a 172.
 
KSCessnaDriver said:
Wow, I guess I should consider myself fortunate that a checkout in a G1000 182 covered me for that as well as G1000 172's, round-dial 172S's, carb'd 172s, as well as 152's and 150s. First time I ever flew a 152 was solo. Interesting to say the least, but not that big of deal from a 172.
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Yep - you're lucky.

Here a 182 checkout would probably cover a 172 IF you had documented previous experience in one.

Some places make you maintain 60 or 90 day currency in EACH MAKE AND MODEL (yikes). I'm lucky that my current places require 120 day currency and flying one airplane covers all of it. And for may folks the "checkout" in a 172S might be filling out a ground checkout sheet (covering W&B, performance, systems) with full credit for the flight you did with a CFI in a 182T. So it doesn't have to be a huge pain.

A lot of this is driven by insurance - policies like this can result in a better risk score and lower premiums for a flight school.
 
TMetzinger said:
Yep - you're lucky.

Here a 182 checkout would probably cover a 172 IF you had documented previous experience in one.

Some places make you maintain 60 or 90 day currency in EACH MAKE AND MODEL (yikes). I'm lucky that my current places require 120 day currency and flying one airplane covers all of it. And for may folks the "checkout" in a 172S might be filling out a ground checkout sheet (covering W&B, performance, systems) with full credit for the flight you did with a CFI in a 182T. So it doesn't have to be a huge pain.
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Fair enough. The place I'm checked out here I don't totally agree with the checkout method. For instance, I know a guy who has a grand total of 2.5 hours in a 172, and because of that checkout, he can fly the 172's, 152 and 150.

But the 60 or 90 day currency thing would be a killer on me. I couldn't afford to keep myself current in each make and model. But hey, such is life at this point I suppose.
 
TMetzinger said:
Is ther a problem with this? The only difference I can see is that this pilot will have less flight instruction time than the typical complex transition.
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For the FAA? No.

For the private insurer or club who may require 10 hrs dual before allowing that "student" to rent/be PIC in their complex aircraft... possibly. But thats between the student and the owner/insurer.
 
TMetzinger said:
Yep - you're lucky.

Here a 182 checkout would probably cover a 172 IF you had documented previous experience in one.

Some places make you maintain 60 or 90 day currency in EACH MAKE AND MODEL (yikes). I'm lucky that my current places require 120 day currency and flying one airplane covers all of it. And for may folks the "checkout" in a 172S might be filling out a ground checkout sheet (covering W&B, performance, systems) with full credit for the flight you did with a CFI in a 182T. So it doesn't have to be a huge pain.

A lot of this is driven by insurance - policies like this can result in a better risk score and lower premiums for a flight school.
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I suppose, but I' prefer to hop in just about any GA SEL and fly. :thumbsup:
 
dmccormack said:
So a CFI would need a "right seat checkout" before flying a club plane?

If so.... weird.
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Dunno -- I've yet to see a club, FBO, or flight school which doesn't require any new CFI's to do a checkride in the right seat with the owner, Chief Instructor, or designee of one of them before instructing for them. As for flying from the right seat when not giving instruction, why would any CFI want to?
 
dmccormack said:
Why not?
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Because it's harder to reach a lot of important stuff and read the flight instruments (parallax issues), and I'm generally lazy about stuff like that. I've just not felt any desire to fly cross-cockpit unnecessarily since getting my CFI 37 years ago (right seat practice having been important during my CFI training). But you haven't answered my question:
why would any CFI want to?
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