Retract time? HUH? Insurance BS...

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HarvardTiger

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Jim
Any insurance gurus in here?

Went for my first complex checkout flight today. Using the local FBO's Piper Arrow. Was really looking forward to it.

<rant>

Then, I learn that after the complex and Arrow checkout I cannot actually use the airplane until I have 10 hours of dual -or- 25 hours of retract time. Well of all the Catch-22's....... :dunno:

Ok, I think. I have way over 10 hours in my retractable glider. Not so fast....the glider retract time doesn't count, I am told. In my best Johnny Mac imitation, "You have got to be kidding me?!" :eek:

Un-real. The gear in the glider actually retracts. It goes up into the belly of the airplane, doors close, and it has no fancy "auto-gear-down" gee-whiz device to remind you to drop the gear before landing. And yes, you actually have to physically move the mechanical gear extension lever to extend and lock the gear in place--no pump-actuated hydralics doing the work for you. :(

But, regardless, I guess all that just doesn't count in the pea-brain minds of insurance companies. Can anyone make any sense of this for me? Are there any CFI's out there who will stand up for students? B)

</rant>

All responses appreciated.
 
Typical requirement for approval in a retractable is 5-10 hours. Your FBO is at the peak. Did they say it was their rule or an insurance rule? Either way, I think five hours is reasonable at a minimum.

I can understand you thinking retractable time in a glider should apply but add it to everything else you're doing in a powered aircraft and the gear becomes pretty significant. There have been more than enough "experienced" pilots who sat it down with the horn blaring and it just doesn't strike them until they hear the scraping belly on the asphalt.

Since you have to do the time, take advantage of it with the most experienced CFI they have and work on your skills. Do some slow flight, for an extended period riding on the edge and making turns, climbs and descents but never stalling. Pick some days with hefty crosswinds and practice procedures along with dealing with the crosswind. Work on some commercial maneuvers to improve accuracy; maybe some power-off 180s. Since ya gotta pay for it, walk away with more than just ten hours to log.
 
Its kinda silly, your first 10hrs in a rg you are going to be saying "don't forget the gear!" to yourself 100 times an hour and then checking it 5 times in the pattern.

The claims are probably all people with over 50 hours rg time!
 
Initial answer...

First, I will most certainly take advantage of the time while dragging an instructor around mindlessly trying to satisfy the insurance company morons on this one. But my irritation factor will be through the roof!

And while I appreciate that there's "lots to do" in a complex plane through the landing sequence, that's what check-lists are for. I use them. Religiously. Plus I use the BGUMP (in addition to the checklist) on each leg of the pattern, plus now use the "red, blue, green, runway is clean" on final to remind myself to get the mixture and prop set correctly for a possible go-around and to check the gear-down lights.

But there's one thing about flying gliders that's quite different from powered planes: You only get one shot at the landing. If that's not a mental workload, I don't know what it. And I still manage to get the dang gear down everytime.

I agree with the comment that gear-up landings are probably most often with high-time pilots--and probably by those who get complacent and ignore checklists. That has not one iota to do with the number of hours one has.

I am sure that the FBO has choosen the cheapest insurance they can and, thus, the ten-hour requirement. I'm disappointed that FBO's don't take a firmer stance with their coverage companies.

What's next, guys? My hours in a retractable glider doesn't count...perhaps my hours in an Arrow won't count should I decide to fly a Comanche or Mooney? This is absurd.

And let me add... Just what the heck are you supposed to cover flying around with an instructor for ten hours???? Geez! My instructor actually said he'd probably die of boredom just filling up time. This is completely stupid.
 
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Even if you have most of two years left, be sure to have a Flight Review sign-off. If you're instrument rated, be sure to get an IPC out of it.

Make that CFII work for his take. :)
 
Re: Initial answer...

HarvardTiger said:
First, I will most certainly take advantage of the time while dragging an instructor around mindlessly trying to satisfy the insurance company morons on this one. But my irritation factor will be through the roof!

And while I appreciate that there's "lots to do" in a complex plane through the landing sequence, that's what check-lists are for. I use them. Religiously. Plus I use the BGUMP (in addition to the checklist) on each leg of the pattern, plus now use the "red, blue, green, runway is clean" on final to remind myself to get the mixture and prop set correctly for a possible go-around and to check the gear-down lights.

But there's one thing about flying gliders that's quite different from powered planes: You only get one shot at the landing. If that's not a mental workload, I don't know what it. And I still manage to get the dang gear down everytime.

I agree with the comment that gear-up landings are probably most often with high-time pilots--and probably by those who get complacent and ignore checklists. That has not one iota to do with the number of hours one has.

I am sure that the FBO has choosen the cheapest insurance they can and, thus, the ten-hour requirement. I'm disappointed that FBO's don't take a firmer stance with their coverage companies.

What's next, guys? My hours in a retractable glider doesn't count...perhaps my hours in an Arrow won't count should I decide to fly a Comanche or Mooney? This is absurd.

And let me add... Just what the heck are you supposed to cover flying around with an instructor for ten hours???? Geez! My instructor actually said he'd probably die of boredom just filling up time. This is completely stupid.
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At a couple of the FBO's around me it WOULDN'T count. They require time in Type on top of the complex time to rent a Mooney at least.
 
You can rant and rave but logic never swayed an insurance company yet. I filed a 5 hr X-country for my requirement.
 
Is it just insurance or does the owner have his own minimums? My old club would let you take up the Debonair with 10 hours dual, but you needed 15 for the Saratoga - Totally owner defined.
 
Re: Initial answer...

HarvardTiger said:
I am sure that the FBO has choosen the cheapest insurance they can and, thus, the ten-hour requirement.
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That may be true in your case, but don't bet on it being a major factor. I know a number of flight schools that have very high end insurance coverage and have similar requirements. In some cases, the schools have large deductibles and they can read the underwriting stats just as well as the insurance companies can.

What's next, guys? My hours in a retractable glider doesn't count...perhaps my hours in an Arrow won't count should I decide to fly a Comanche or Mooney? This is absurd.
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You do realize of course that at some point the rant through the roof starts sounding like "I dont like it so it must be stupid."

And let me add... Just what the heck are you supposed to cover flying around with an instructor for ten hours???? Geez! My instructor actually said he'd probably die of boredom just filling up time. This is completely stupid.
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The 10-hour checkout I had to do when I first began flying a 182RG included a mountain checkout. When I do them for others, I follow the same philosophy - mountain checkouts, fly-in breakfasts, $100 hamburgers, cross country trips to new airports, a little more night training - in short, anything to make the unfortunate necessity as interesting as we can. And since those trips are outside the normal training environment, sometimes with the real distractions that often lead to gear-ups, they have a better training benefit than, "can you go around the pattern 5 times without forgetting the gear?"

Or you can spend the time bitching over the intercom with your bored CFI.

Edit:

BTW, you asked why these FBOs aren't more aggressive? One is that they know the risks also. Another, and related, is that there are limited companies writing policies and the number seems to have decreased in the past 10 years or so. It's a seller's market. Even minor mishaps lead to increases in premiums, decreases in available coverage, and sometimes no coverage at all.
 
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Re: Initial answer...

Get a commercial cert. when you do the 10 hours. Really, these are pretty standard and are borne out by accident statistics.

Remember, you are trying to get someone ELSE to bet on YOUR performance.
 
At the end of the day, the reason the insurance companies require those 10 hours is that the accident statistics show that the incidence of gear-up landings and other accidents in complex airplanes is so much higher in the first ten hours than it is thereafter that they could not afford to write insurance policies which would allow the FBO to have a reasonable rental rate. You'll find that as you get into even more sophisticated aircraft (light twins, cabin class, turbocharged/pressurized, etc), you'll need 10 hours in type no matter how much complex or other similar aircraft experience you have, for the same reason.

IOW, the reason they require 10 hours in type is because too many folks with less screwed up, i.e., "We have met the enemy, and he is us!" (to quote Walt Kelly speaking as Pogo).
 
Ron Levy said:
the reason the insurance companies require those 10 hours is that the accident statistics show that the incidence of gear-up landings and other accidents in complex airplanes is so much higher in the first ten hours than it is thereafter
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Ron have you actually seen those stats with your eyes or is that just what we hear from the grapevine? I would like to see them too; til then I really suspect that its another insurance company preconcieved idea that 'this is how it is'.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Ron have you actually seen those stats with your eyes or is that just what we hear from the grapevine? I would like to see them too; til then I really suspect that its another insurance company preconcieved idea that 'this is how it is'.
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I'm wondering the same thing, and I'm not sure how one would even begin to research this. Given that most if not all insurers require something like 10 hrs dual before solo in a complex, the incidence of solo gear ups in the first 10 complex hours ought to be zero. And having a CFI along doesn't necessarily eliminate the risk. The one and only gear up landing (sort of) I have witnessed involved a CFI giving instruction to a PPL holder that was moving up to a retract. The pilot retracted the gear in an attempt to raise flaps at touchdown. The CFI tried to blame the PPL and I'm not sure how that ended up liability wise.

I suppose we could try a poll of CFI's who've given the 5-10 hrs instruction to a complex newbie WRT the percentage of such students who would have had a gear mishap without the CFI's intervention.
 
HarvardTiger said:
But, regardless, I guess all that just doesn't count in the pea-brain minds of insurance companies. Can anyone make any sense of this for me?
Click to expand...

As a glider pilot with a lot of complex airplane time, I can tell you that there are lots of situations that have resulted in gear mishaps in airplanes that aren't a factor in gliders. One biggy is retraction after touchdown. Some airplane pilots have been (foolishly) taught to raise the flaps as soon as the wheels touch in an attempt to shorten the landing roll by making the brakes more effective and this has probably led to more airplanes sliding down the runway than any other cause. And while some sailplanes have flaps, I've never heard any sailplane pilot say they pulled the flaps up at the start of the landing roll. Then there's the classic case where the pilot retracts the gear on a go-around and subsequently forgets to lower it again for the second landing attempt. Try that one in a glider!

Finally, the consequences of touching down with the gear retracted are far less than they are in almost any airplane although I'm not sure how much that affects the insurer's complex newbie requirements.

Are there any CFI's out there who will stand up for students?
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Chances are most CFI's would rather not have any of the pilots they signed off for soloing their employer's complex airplanes sliding said airplanes on their bellies, so I doubt you'd find many instructors who'd stick their neck out on this one even if there was a chance this would have any effect on the insurers (which it wouldn't).

BTW (I hope this doesn't sound snobbish), if you were talking about insurance for your own complex airplane, you'd actually have the opportunity to shop for an underwriter who'd be willing to consider your retractable glider time. Of course the one(s) that would, might just have higher premiums so you'd have to decide which made more sense to you. OTOH, given the way most new owners tend to become a bit more conservative (for a while) than they were as renters, as a new owner you might be more amenable to just going along with the 10 hours dual.
 
Get a Comm. Endorsement with your time. If you're gonna HAVE to log a big block of complex time, you might as well get a new endorsement out of it.

When I did my complex checkout in the club 177RG (required 10hrs dual also), the instructor and I did 1.5 hr cross country down to St. Louis one evening. Then the next night we did 8 landings at 8 airports in 2.5 hours. It was still a lot of gear cycling practice, but it gave us a little humor along the way about how many airports we were hitting. (It was a new personal record for # of airports in a short period of time for him.)

Even though I have 37hrs of complex (177RG) time, the local FBO still requires 10hrs in their 182RG for a checkout. So my plan is to use the time to work towards my Commercial. Does it suck to be required to spend valuable flying dollars to go through the same process all over again? Yes. But it's the burden of the beast and it's not going to change any time soon. Especially with people belly-flopping them every single day.

Good luck with it and try to have fun along the way! Remember -- you ARE still FLYING!!
 
If you have your IR, or you are working on it, do some instrument approaches with the instructor. It will help keep you current while you build the hours needed. Tossing the foggles on and doing approaches will help insure you really won't forget the gear when it gets busy.

You can also toss in a 50+ nm first hop to count the trip as xc too. Why just double dip when you can triple dip. :D
 
It's probably a combinition of the FBO and Insurance company. The FBO where I received my Complex time, in a 172RG, allowed me to rent solo after the five hours of training / checkout. The fact I had just completed my IR rating there probably helped my case. After that I flew one almost three hour cross country in that aircraft with my wife then went to a different FBO to checkout in a 182RG to add the high power endorsement.

With 13 RG hours and 8 in type I found an Insurance company that let me fly the 172RG I purchased without requiring any CFI instruction in that aircraft. Most of the insurance companies wanted 10 hours dual in the plane before allowing me to fly it alone.
 
My school required 5 hr. dual, plus you had to have a minimum of 100 hr. TT. That isn't unusual. When somone approaches me for the dual, I always offer to work in a mntn checkout or whatever. Remember, too, this almost always involves a make-and-model checkout, and there are things to cover other than retracting the gear. Sure, one can go up for fifteen minutes, successfully and properly extend and retract the gear. But what we're going for is not for a pilot to show that with a CFI sitting there, we're looking for the pilot to remember to do it with adequate safeguards [checklist use, acronyms...whatever helps that individual] every single time. Pilots fly differently, often, when a CFI is on board. We need to be at least comfortable that the new retractable-flying pilot is developing a habit that will help him or her remember those gear. I've flown with 3000 hr. ATPs who got distracted in hectic, high-traffic pattern work with the tower changes runways on us, etc., and forget the gear. It happens. Five hours or ten hours of required dual won't guarantee it's not in the cards some day, but a little practice with a CFI is a good step in the right direction. It isn't possible to simulate distractions flying solo like it is with a savvy CFI on board. And distractions, in my experience, are a major factor in inadvertent gear-up landings. The best insurance in those cases is a solid, unwavering system of preparing to land. GUMPS check or whatever. I find myself doing a full gumps check even when I'm in a 152.
 
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I'm surprised insurance companies dont' require a certain number of landings for an RG. 10 hours total time. Ok, so lets do three 4 hour XC flights. 3-6 landings. Ok, you got your 10 hours, whooptee freaking doo. Meanwhile, I could do 5 hours of pattern work, and figure I can probably knock out 12 landings or more in an hour. That's going to get me a minumum of 60 landings in 5 hours. Who would you rather insure?
 
On the other side of the coin, just be glad it's only 10 hours. For the Stinson, my ins co initially waanted 50 M&M with a "qualified" CFI. When informed there was exactly one CFI so "qualifed" in a four state region, they dropped that requirement. Pretty arbitrary, eh?

After a few more bouts with the ins co I eventually got it to 10 M&M before any pax. This took about 4 months. By then I had over 25 M&M.

From this and other things like it, I believe that some of the ins co requirements may be supported by statistics but certainly not all.

And what Ed mentions about landing/take-off operations Vs total time is something I've always wondered too. The ins co requirements as written could be satisfied with a 10 hour endurance flight which involved one gear operation. Heck, I could even leave the gear hanging during the entire flight.
 
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When a claim comes it, it'd be more difficult for the insurance company to deny the claim by proving he didn't have enough landings.
 
bqmassey said:
When a claim comes it, it'd be more difficult for the insurance company to deny the claim by proving he didn't have enough landings.
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True. I think there may also be some thought that during the ten hours of flight, you're likely to walk away with a few dozen landings.
 
The fleet policies most FBOs buy set standards by which pilots will be qualified. BUT they also typically give the FBO the freedom to waive or modify those minimums under certain circumstances.

Additionally, many times and FBO will say "insurance sez" when in fact the FBO is making that determination. Maybe THEY just want the airplane to fly more. Maybe the CFI said behind your back "He could use a few more hours."

There are several kinds of dynamics that come into play without it necessarily being an insurance company requirement. All that stuff is negotiable. For example, when I bought my first PA32R the insurance agent said "10 hours dual for retract" and I said "what the heck for? I have 400 Mooney hours and that's a retract." Response: "OK, CFI checkout."
 
My complex checkout was maybe 1.5 hours total. After that I was flying it solo with passengers.

Haven't found a FBO like that since though.
 
If I remember right when jones Aviation in Sarasota had their 172RG and 182RG it was 10 of retract time and 100 hours TT for the 172 and 200TT for the 182.
 
The Arrow I fly had a 5 hours in the Arrow or 25 total retract time before I could PIC it without an instructor on board. This was this summer when I got checked out in it.
 
EdFred said:
I'm surprised insurance companies dont' require a certain number of landings for an RG.
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Some may. I know one flight school where the required transition is 10 hours which includes at least 10 takeoffs and landings.

BTW, I think these minimums are a combination of insurance requirements and FBO policies and there may be some leeway. The insurer is saying, "we won't pay a claim if it's less," bit some FBOs will give some pilots and instructors a little leeway from time to time.
 
Our club's insurance requires that pilots without previous complex experience get 10 hours dual and have at least 100 hours TT before soloing our Arrow. We also have to log at least 3 hours in a 180 period or get signed off by a CFI again and then fly within 45 days of that signoff, or get signed off again. No definition of what is required for the signoff. I just make sure I don't let that 180 day clock run out. I've got 64.1 hours in the Arrow (out of 254.4 TT) and fly it 8 or 9 hours a year the past few years. Just enough to keep the insurance company happy and remind myself why I really prefer the 182 for cross country travel.
 
For many of us that have been doing this for awhile, the advise is find out what's really required, then, make the best of it as has been said. No matter how long you fly, and how many flying hours you have, there will always be requirements to fly something different if you wish to be insured. My 28,000 hour Southwest captain and 20,000 plus hour NW Airlines captain friends are not covered flying my P-Baron. They have the hours, but not the time and training in type. They generally fly my plane better than I do, but don't know the systems as well.

I've had to do this over and over when I stepped up to another plane. Am running into it again if I want to fly tailwheel aircraft or a turbine. I have over 600 hours of turbine time, but it was rotary wing. They want a school and at least 25 in the plane to be covered.

Best,

Dave
 
Dave S. just said it best. As one moves around the aviation playing field you NEVER have enough time. The trick is to look in the crystal ball, figure out what you want to do and fly accordingly. For example, you want to fly 135? Well to do it IFR in pistons you need not only 1200 TT, but also 100 hours night (and other stuff). So as you build hours you have to do a bunch of them at night or you'll be caught short. So as a previous poster suggested, you want to triple dip (or more) every flight you make to knock off as many requirements as possible.
 
Ghery said:
Our club's insurance requires that pilots without previous complex experience get 10 hours dual and have at least 100 hours TT before soloing our Arrow. We also have to log at least 3 hours in a 180 period or get signed off by a CFI again and then fly within 45 days of that signoff, or get signed off again. No definition of what is required for the signoff. I just make sure I don't let that 180 day clock run out. I've got 64.1 hours in the Arrow (out of 254.4 TT) and fly it 8 or 9 hours a year the past few years. Just enough to keep the insurance company happy and remind myself why I really prefer the 182 for cross country travel.
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What if you *are* a CFI?
 
A friend of mine who is a former U-2 pilot wanted to fly my Navion. The open pilot clause requires 25 hours of retract time. I inquired to him if the wheels fall off your airplane, does that count as retract time...
 
midlifeflyer said:
Sometimes it matters and sometimes it doesn't.
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Can only speak about the local FBO here. They don't care if you are a CFII/ ATP with 20,000 hours. If you are taking one of their planes as PIC you WILL get a check out with one of their cfi's.

Mark B
 
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