Jaybird180
Final Approach
If you are properly RATED (PP will suffice) you can still log the time in HP as sole-manipulator as long as someone properly endorsed is acting PIC.
Average time to earn complex endorsement
- Thread starter skynewbie
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jsstevens
Yes, I stand corrected. But I could fly one solo. As long as I didn't screw up...
Anyway, it was the most fun I've had flying in a while.
John
JeffDG
Touchdown! Greaser!
skynewbie
Pre-takeoff checklist
Well their club insurance must really suck because Avemco only requires 10 hours dual for me to fly a high performance complex Mooney Bravo or Bonanza and that's with ZERO time in retract or high performance. Maybe just finish in my new plane better than wasting time flying the Cutlass? I'm seeing good deals on Mooney and Bonanzas right now. So why is a flying club insurance more strict than personal aviation policy?
Clubs are commercial policies and you can buy down the premium with higher minimums.
skynewbie
Pre-takeoff checklist
As well as milk folks for training fees? I spoke with a friend who was checked out in only 2 hours for a Bonanza in New Mexico club and that when he trained in the SF Bay Area the club required far more dual time. So could be the commercial insurance premiums are lowered by mandating longer dual checkouts in large metro areas for pilots as Henning suggests.
Unless he has a lot of Bonanza time that seems ridiculous. I've got a lot more hp/complex time than you do and I imagine I'd want at least 3-5 hours to get comfortable in a Bo.
Took me 20 hours to get the hp/complex endorsements. That's also the number insurance required before I could solo my airplane. Since that time my insurance has also been cut in more than half for better coverage!
skynewbie
Pre-takeoff checklist
Well I'm not sure how he got his HP and complex endorsements in such short time. For me building complex time will save $$$$ on insurance when I do eventually buy a plane and also help when moving up to faster retracts since I will already have the basics down with how to manage constant speed prop and engine management. I'm not complaining just wondering since there is no FAA minimum requirement other than the CFI endorsement and club insurance requirements.
PostTenebrasLux
Pre-Flight
Skipped the responses since they will vary but it took me two flights in an Arrow. Insurance requirements to rent solo are another matter, and I never got to that point in that Arrow before moving down to the next rental place and checking out in a Mooney. I did fly it solo.
It's just not fundamentally that hard or different from what you've been doing. Another control for power, which is really pretty easy. Put the gear up after take off and down before landing. That's pretty much it.
It's just not fundamentally that hard or different from what you've been doing. Another control for power, which is really pretty easy. Put the gear up after take off and down before landing. That's pretty much it.
Jaybird180
Final Approach
Ghery
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Ghery Pettit
10 hours in the club's Arrow. Took 10 hours because the club's insurance required 10 hours dual before solo if you didn't have prior experience (and I didn't). We did a lot of other things in those 10 hours other than just learn to remember to drop the gear, play with the prop and lower the flaps. Our insurance also requires 100 hours TT, which I hit, buy sheer coincidence, at the same time I hit 10 hours dual in that plane. I was working on my high perf endorsement in the club's 182 that summer, as well.
skynewbie
Pre-takeoff checklist
Funny I think Bay Area clubs milk students because I found another club that only requires 5 hours for complex in a Piper Arrow. I switched to save money to that place further away as rentals are $25/hr less expensive as well!
Ghery
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Ghery Pettit
I'm not flying in the Bay Area. And that requirement comes from our insurance company, not the club. Hours to the endorsement aren't called out, hours to solo in the aircraft are.
FTFY
OTOH, a gear up landing is the safest way to be taught the lessons of "Get your head out of your ass" or "Quit flying before you forget something that will get you killed." Not everyone is cut out for command of a complex machine in a dynamic environment, and even the simplest aircraft is still a complex machine.
spiderweb
Final Approach
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Ben
I wouldn't think of hours so much as flights. I think for your very first complex experience, if you study, two flights with ground ought to do it in something as simple as a 172RG.
skynewbie
Pre-takeoff checklist
Agree and it's not hard I have the flying on retract fine it's the club and their insurance policy. That's why I switched to the Piper Arrow since it's cheaper to fly while the 172RG is stuck in the shop still getting repaired.
MAKG1
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MAKG
90R is done with its annual and is back on the line.
AcroGimp
Cleared for Takeoff
Just checked the logbook and mine was 3 hops, right at 3 hours, in an A-36 Bonanza, Beech Flying Club, in 2000. Double-booked as instruction towards my Commercial.
'Gimp
'Gimp
skynewbie
Pre-takeoff checklist
Finished it today in a FBO Piper Arrow at LVK total time was 9 hours. Proves my point that finishing up this outside the overpriced Bay Area saved me time and money. I should have did all training in Sacramento it would have saved me twice as much cash. I'm sick and tired of FBOs and greedy Bay Area instructors milking students. Does this exist in other major cities like NYC and DFW?
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spiderweb
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Ben
No. Not at all.
skynewbie
Pre-takeoff checklist
Good to know. Once you drive 20 miles outside the Bay Area, suddenly aviation gets a lot more affordable. Plus instructors are not hell bent on gouging students for training.
What's the cost of living difference between Sacramento and SF? That should give you a clue as to where you'll find $35hr instructors vs. $70hr ones.
warthog1984
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LanCA'r
I think it's less the hourly rate and more inflating of the hours that is the issue.
Uggg, you don't have to tell me about that. After getting checked out Ina 172 at Palo Alto so I could fly a friend to San Diego, I figured out I could have just flown the whole trip from Florida and back in the 310 cheaper.
Cpt_Kirk
En-Route
9 hours? That seems high to me.
My multi-commercial add on was 8.8 total after the checkride.
Edit: Just read the thread. Congrats and hopefully you can take it out solo, now.
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gismo
Touchdown! Greaser!
It shouldn't even require an hour in the air to learn how to operate a complex airplane but a few hours spent making landings at every airport in the area will burn good habits into your head WRT the landing gear and prop control. I got my complex rating when I belonged to a flying club and their rules specified 5 hrs dual before flying their complex airplanes on your own.
skynewbie
Pre-takeoff checklist
Issue is the flying clubs in the bay area demand obscene amounts of time to fly their complex planes solo. I would have to do another 12 landings with a CFI in one of the clubs to rent the Arrow solo even though I now have my complex endorsement. It is the owners and insurance companies demanding this.