Instrument rating with VFR airplane

geezer said:
In the 1960's, the required equipment for night flight in all aircraft included a D cell flashlight of at least 2 cell size, within reach of the pilot.
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Any idea when they removed it for most of us?
 
No idea when the reg. changed, but my practice never changed. There have only been a few times that I needed it right now, and every time I was very happy it was in easy reach.

Less in a hurry, it is convenient for checking the chart, and I limit the amount of light by covering most of the lense with my fingers. My wife has a smaller light with a red bulb for normal chart checks, but there are some things you cannot read with red.

I don't know how pilots today keep their night vision with iPads and glass nav instruments.
 
MauleSkinner said:
Any idea when they removed it for most of us?
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Still in force in Canada:
602.60 (1) No person shall conduct a take-off in a power-driven aircraft, other than an ultra-light aeroplane, unless the following operational and emergency equipment is carried on board:
...
(g) a flashlight that is readily available to each crew member, if the aircraft is operated at night;
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Coinneach said:
I have 130 hours and I just bought into this deal in May. My partners have ~500 hours each and have been in the partnership for 15 and 30 years. When I point to something and say "That needs fixed" and they reply "It's been like that for years and several A&Ps have never mentioned it," what am I supposed to do? I'm very much the noob in this deal and have no experience to back myself up.
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It’s no wonder your partners don’t want to pay to fix anything, they hardly ever fly, do they? 500 hours in 15 or 30 years is extremely minimal flying. As a 130 hour pilot, it may seem like 500 hours is a lot, but it’s not. It’s still “low time”, especially when it’s spread over 30 years. So they’re not as “experienced” as you think - don’t let them bully you into thinking you don’t know anything and that they are vastly more experienced that you. Heck, I know a guy who got his license just before COVID and already has 500 hours. It’s not really a lot of time.

And it would be a good exercise to see who the mechanic is and what his or her reputation is.
 
This thread is almost the equivalent of me asking if I should have kids when I don't even have a crotch fruit ripener.
 
all other things being equal, business partners suck.
 
RussR said:
It’s no wonder your partners don’t want to pay to fix anything, they hardly ever fly, do they? 500 hours in 15 or 30 years is extremely minimal flying. As a 130 hour pilot, it may seem like 500 hours is a lot, but it’s not. It’s still “low time”, especially when it’s spread over 30 years. So they’re not as “experienced” as you think - don’t let them bully you into thinking you don’t know anything and that they are vastly more experienced that you. Heck, I know a guy who got his license just before COVID and already has 500 hours. It’s not really a lot of time.

And it would be a good exercise to see who the mechanic is and what his or her reputation is.
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It’s also about quality of hour vs. quantity too. 500 hours of burger flights in CAVOK weather will only get you so far (note: there is nothing wrong with this kind of flying either).

I wouldn’t say 500 hours is low. It’s not. I’d like to believe your friend who now has 500 hours should be pretty proficient after a year or so of non-stopping flying.

But 500 hours over 30 years…that’s what? 17 hours a year, maybe 6-8 flights a year most likely. I mean that’s nothing. Our regulars fly at least 30+ hours a year and that’s considered low by some (but as I understand it fairly typical in a club/partnership).

EDIT: Just Googled….so it seems 35 hours a year is fairly typical:

https://www.planeandpilotmag.com/article/is-35-hours-enough/
 
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Trogdor said:
I wouldn’t say 500 hours is low. It’s not.
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I think I read somewhere that "a low time pilot is anyone who has fewer hours than you. A high time pilot is anyone who has more..." :D I know when I had 150 hours, 500 seemed like a huge insurmountable obstacle, and pilots who had that must know everything.

It's a matter of opinion and perspective, of course. But I just saw a study (based on Paul Craig's "The Killing Zone") that suggested the accident rate really doesn't level off until the pilot has 2000+ hours. So I would say that if someone's hours are in that range where lack of experience causes a higher likelihood of accidents, that could be called "low time". Before reading that, I was going to suggest 1500 hours as a good (but completely arbitrary) dividing line. I'm at 3400, and wouldn't consider myself anywhere near high-time. I'd call myself solidly mid-time. I might put the divisions at 2000 and 10,000 hours.

Yes, this means that many, many hobbyist pilots will always be considered low time. But isn't that appropriate? True proficiency, in my opinion, can really only come from flying at least a few times a week. In Jimmy Doolittle's autobiography, he states that he took himself off active flying status when he no longer had the time to fly 25 hours A MONTH. He didn't think anything less than that would keep him acceptably proficient.

I’d like to believe your friend who now has 500 hours should be pretty proficient after a year or so of non-stopping flying.
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Proficient, yes I'd agree. But still low time.

EDIT: Just Googled….so it seems 35 hours a year is fairly typical:

https://www.planeandpilotmag.com/article/is-35-hours-enough/
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My experience as a CFI would support this.
 
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Albany Tom said:
all other things being equal, business partners suck.
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Partners can be great, but there's a lot of selection bias in what people read and hear: people with great business partners are more likely to give interviews about how wonderful they are, write blogs, etc., while people with bad business partners end up quietly cutting their losses (sometimes including personal bankruptcy) and picking up the pieces.
 
Trogdor said:
EDIT: Just Googled….so it seems 35 hours a year is fairly typical:

https://www.planeandpilotmag.com/article/is-35-hours-enough/
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Well, if you figure someone is dedicated enough to the airport almost every weekend for an hour's flight, 35 hours would represent 2/3 of the weekends in the year — scratch the others for vacation, holidays, kids' sports meets, weather, or illness. And you figure that they're probably spending 3 hours to get that hour's flight (including driving to the airport, pre-flighting, etc), that's 105 hours/year, or almost 3 full-time work weeks each year committed to flying for even the "casual" 35-hour pilot.

My best year was around 130 hours, but at that point, flying has become more of a second job than a hobby. Now, my hypothetical weekend-warrior pilot could fly 3 hours every weekend instead of 1 to run the number up over 100 hours/year, but they'd still have the same number of departures and arrivals (the hard parts), and the rest would be mostly just watching the scenery for the extra 2 hours (especially if George is doing the flying), so are they really any more proficient? The one exception I'll grant is weather, because the longer the flight, the more different weather you have to be able to deal with.
 
David Megginson said:
Well, if you figure someone is dedicated enough to the airport almost every weekend for an hour's flight, 35 hours would represent 2/3 of the weekends in the year — scratch the others for vacation, holidays, kids' sports meets, weather, or illness. And you figure that they're probably spending 3 hours to get that hour's flight (including driving to the airport, pre-flighting, etc), that's 105 hours/year, or almost 3 full-time work weeks each year committed to flying for even the "casual" 35-hour pilot.
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I see that in part as a “renter” issue…as an owner, you’ve got a lot more flexibility in your ability to fly more than an hour at a time.

My lowest year as an owner was about 50, all pleasure flying. Five or six of my 19 years of ownership were about 150.

Of course, that was before I had a family, which would probably prevent the traveling that I did with the airplane.
 
MauleSkinner said:
I see that in part as a “renter” issue…as an owner, you’ve got a lot more flexibility in your ability to fly more than an hour at a time.

My lowest year as an owner was about 50, all pleasure flying. Five or six of my 19 years of ownership were about 150.

Of course, that was before I had a family, which would probably prevent the traveling that I did with the airplane.
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My highest-hour years were when I was flying 8-hour, three-leg days for volunteer Hope Air flights as well as the occasional family or business trip. The hours enroute actually did mean something then, because they were all hand-flown, often in IMC (I didn't have my A/P yet). But otherwise, I'm fairly certain that a 4-hour flight doesn't provide 4x the experience of a 1-hour flight, especially if you're just monitoring the A/P and panel for a lot of it. There's still just one takeoff and landing either way. The big experience gain for the long flight is in weather knowledge, since you're likely to be flying through more than one system or front, and in (sometimes) dealing with an unfamiliar airport, so that you can't get away with cheats like "turn base at the boathouse."
 
David Megginson said:
My highest-hour years were when I was flying 8-hour, three-leg days for volunteer Hope Air flights as well as the occasional family or business trip. The hours enroute actually did mean something then, because they were all hand-flown, often in IMC (I didn't have my A/P yet). But otherwise, I'm fairly certain that a 4-hour flight doesn't provide 4x the experience of a 1-hour flight, especially if you're just monitoring the A/P and panel for a lot of it. There's still just one takeoff and landing either way. The big experience gain for the long flight is in weather knowledge, since you're likely to be flying through more than one system or front, and in (sometimes) dealing with an unfamiliar airport, so that you can't get away with cheats like "turn base at the boathouse."
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Just the fact that you’re “acting” (as opposed to just “logging”) PIC in an environment that wasn’t directly included in your dual instruction is going to improve your knowledge and skills. Generally, a local one-hour flight on a weekend isn’t going to allow for that.
 
I know this is old news to most, but if you want to fly, and have meaningful hours, you simply need purpose.

For most, wandering around the sky gets a little old after a while.

Volunteering to fly for an organization is helpful. Here in the Southwest we have FlightsforLife.

Getting that vacation home 300+ miles away is another great thing to do, to turn your hobby into purposeful family transportation. That's how the wife and kids learn to love the airplane, when it becomes the difference between a seven-hour car drive, versus a two-hour flight.

I'll step off the soapbox, and set it over here, now.
 
Less than 100 hours a year you are a perpetual student. That’s not enough time to progress and improve any skills to any measurable degree. JMO.
 
MauleSkinner said:
Just the fact that you’re “acting” (as opposed to just “logging”) PIC in an environment that wasn’t directly included in your dual instruction is going to improve your knowledge and skills. Generally, a local one-hour flight on a weekend isn’t going to allow for that.
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That's fair, but after 19 years, I've flown nearly everywhere within 400 nm of Ottawa in every direction. Flying over Maine to the Maritimes, across the Adirondacks or (with a dogleg) Western PA to NY, over New Hampshire towards Boston, north towards Val-d'Or, west towards Sault Ste Marie, SW towards Toronto (and beyond) etc. are all nearly as familiar to me as my local area; almost more so. And when I go further, it's mostly just more of the same — I didn't really learn much more flying 1,150 nm west to WInnipeg than I'd already learned on frequent flights 375 nm west to Sault Ste Marie (except that Lake of the Woods is beautiful at dawn, flying eastbound). Even if you keep going further and further, you hit diminishing returns past 1,000 hours of the same kind of flying, including long cross-countries.

For me, my growth as a pilot as been in the opposite direction. After years of doing at least 50% of my hours (usually much more) cross-country and often IFR, I've discovered the different set of skills needed for low-level pilotage within an hour or two of Ottawa. I actually know what the county roads are called now, what rivers lead to what towns, etc. I can recognise where I am by what direction the power lines cut through the town or where the bend in the highway is, without the need for map or GPS. That's the kind of flying the biplane and Cub owners have always known, but I skipped straight past it into my instrument rating and long cross-countries at 7,000-10,000 ft AGL, following at first the ADF needle or VOR CDI, then the magenta line. I don't regret that — I still enjoy IFR, and am proud of my skills — but I missed out on a lot that way, and while the pandemic has been awful in general, its travel shutdown and the resulting local flights did give me the opportunity to discover a kind of flying that I shortchanged myself on before.
 
David Megginson said:
I've discovered the different set of skills needed for low-level pilotage within an hour or two of Ottawa. I actually know what the county roads are called now, what rivers lead to what towns, etc. I can recognise where I am by what direction the power lines cut through the town or where the bend in the highway is, without the need for map or GPS. That's the kind of flying the biplane and Cub owners have always known, but I skipped straight past it into my instrument rating and long cross-countries at 7,000-10,000 ft AGL, following at first the ADF needle or VOR CDI, then the magenta line. I don't regret that — I still enjoy IFR, and am proud of my skills — but I missed out on a lot that way, .
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That’s the majority of my personal flying time…Cross-country or local, climb into the traffic pattern.
 
MauleSkinner said:
That’s the majority of my personal flying time…Cross-country or local, climb into the traffic pattern.
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I find 1,500–2,000 ft AGL just about right for my taste when I'm doing local-ish VFR flights by pilotage. It keeps me above most towers, but I'm still low enough to count the cows.
 
RussR said:
I think I read somewhere that "a low time pilot is anyone who has fewer hours than you. A high time pilot is anyone who has more..." :D I know when I had 150 hours, 500 seemed like a huge insurmountable obstacle, and pilots who had that must know everything.

It's a matter of opinion and perspective, of course. But I just saw a study (based on Paul Craig's "The Killing Zone") that suggested the accident rate really doesn't level off until the pilot has 2000+ hours. So I would say that if someone's hours are in that range where lack of experience causes a higher likelihood of accidents, that could be called "low time". Before reading that, I was going to suggest 1500 hours as a good (but completely arbitrary) dividing line. I'm at 3400, and wouldn't consider myself anywhere near high-time. I'd call myself solidly mid-time. I might put the divisions at 2000 and 10,000 hours.

Yes, this means that many, many hobbyist pilots will always be considered low time. But isn't that appropriate? True proficiency, in my opinion, can really only come from flying at least a few times a week. In Jimmy Doolittle's autobiography, he states that he took himself off active flying status when he no longer had the time to fly 25 hours A MONTH. He didn't think anything less than that would keep him acceptably proficient.



Proficient, yes I'd agree. But still low time.



My experience as a CFI would support this.
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Let me ask you this:

Would you rather send your family with a fresh IFR pilot who has done dozens and dozens of approaches, recently flown in hard IMC for 10 hours+, and has been on with ATC non-stop for the last several months or a 2000 hour plus pilot who flies 10 hours a year only in VFR CAVOK weather on a long XC flight? I know who I would choose.

(note this was the exact same question given by Doug Stewart of Pilot Workshops to make the point that your total number of hours is meaningless without context)

The hour argument doesn't really impress me. Sure, the more hours you have, hopefully, the better pilot you become. But I do think after a certain amount of time (and it differs for everyone) that it is no longer about the number of hours but the quality of hours (new certs, IPCs, flying with others, practicing maneuvers, simming, etc.). I also think that after 500 hours over 2 years, particularly if a lot of that was training, would make you a very proficient pilot in the aircraft you fly.
 
Trogdor said:
Let me ask you this:

Would you rather send your family with a fresh IFR pilot who has done dozens and dozens of approaches, recently flown in hard IMC for 10 hours+, and has been on with ATC non-stop for the last several months or a 2000 hour plus pilot who flies 10 hours a year only in VFR CAVOK weather on a long XC flight? I know who I would choose.

(note this was the exact same question given by Doug Stewart of Pilot Workshops to make the point that your total number of hours is meaningless without context)
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Your hypothetical pilots are also meaningless without context. I've seen freshly minted instrument pilots that were good and I've also seen a lot that I'd never want to ride with in bad weather. The same thing is true of higher time pilots.

Thankfully, most fall somewhere in between the extremes and are probably ok.
 
mondtster said:
Your hypothetical pilots are also meaningless without context. I've seen freshly minted instrument pilots that were good and I've also seen a lot that I'd never want to ride with in bad weather. The same thing is true of higher time pilots.

Thankfully, most fall somewhere in between the extremes and are probably ok.
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You are proving my point. Thanks.

A better question is how many hours have you flown in the last 3-6 months?
 
Trogdor said:
A better question is how many hours have you flown in the last 3-6 months?
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I don't think that proves much either. Some folks fly as terrible as ever, even with recent experience and others can go for long periods of inactivity and be fine. Based on my experience as a flight instructor, the higher time pilots generally deal with long periods of inactivity or low activity much better than low time pilots do.
 
mondtster said:
I don't think that proves much either. Some folks fly as terrible as ever, even with recent experience and others can go for long periods of inactivity and be fine. Based on my experience as a flight instructor, the higher time pilots generally deal with long periods of inactivity or low activity much better than low time pilots do.
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Maybe. Or more likely they can get back into the swing of things faster (a bit more rust resilient).
 
asicer said:
I don't know of any pilots that have been flying for 200 years. ;)
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Right. Think of a retired airline pilot who is trying to get back into GA. My CFI knew a guy who had thousands of hours but hadn’t flown a 172 in 20 years. He couldn’t land the plane - twice - during his review.

Another story: An airline pilot who had migrated to the US wanted to join a local club my CFII is part of. My CFII checked him out and had to take control of the airplane on multiple occasions during the checkout. Suffice it to say, the guy was denied membership. Again, he had more than a few thousands of hours logged (I think it was 5k+ but I’m not sure).

Last one: I was recently talking to a friend who is a CRJ pilot and a captain of a regional. He told me that EVERY NEW plane you get type rated for will humble you as a pilot no matter the hours you have logged. It’s all about training and practice to really get proficient (and a lot of landings!).
 
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To say hours in a logbook mean nothing, is flat out moronic.

20k hours of flying back & forth across the country, with the autopilot on.

But all that time dealing with constant severe weather, CAT approaches, possible airplane issues, extended overwater, complex arrivals across the country at three times the speed of small aircraft, medical situations in the back, constantly going into and out of the worlds busiest airports…

I guess that all means nothing because the autopilot is engaged enroute.
 
Kritchlow said:
To say hours in a logbook mean nothing, is flat out moronic.

20k hours of flying back & forth across the country, with the autopilot on.

But all that time dealing with constant severe weather, CAT approaches, possible airplane issues, extended overwater, complex arrivals across the country at three times the speed of small aircraft, medical situations in the back, constantly going into and out of the worlds busiest airports…

I guess that all means nothing because the autopilot is engaged enroute.
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So a 10,000-hour pilot with three jet types who can’t figure out how to fly a SID reflects accurately on his logbook? Or a 16,000-hour retired airline captain who can’t get through initial training in a corporate jet?
 
MauleSkinner said:
So a 10,000-hour pilot with three jet types who can’t figure out how to fly a SID reflects accurately on his logbook? Or a 16,000-hour retired airline captain who can’t get through initial training in a corporate jet?
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Not sure what you’re saying with your first statement.

Your second, corporate airplanes are much different than airliners. It is a tough transition. I have flown both. I have yet to see one who didn’t make it through training, and I was a company check airman.
That said, 16,000 hrs is pretty light for a retired airline Capt. But, that is irrelevant.
 
Kritchlow said:
Not sure what you’re saying with your first statement.

Your second, corporate airplanes are much different than airliners. It is a tough transition. I have flown both. I have yet to see one who didn’t make it through training, and I was a company check airman.
That said, 16,000 hrs is pretty light for a retired airline Capt. But, that is irrelevant.
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On the first one I’m saying the guy was so ****ing stupid that he couldn’t figure out how to fly a SID. And that wasn’t his only issue. He quit before they could fire him, got hired as a walk-on captain at another place and was fairly quickly downgraded to permanent SIC, according to one of the guys I’m working with now.

on the second, I can only go with hours reported, but I’ve seen it several times.
 
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