The Scoop on the recreational rating

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EvoV98

Filing Flight Plan
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EvoV98
So I did a little searching but didnt quite give me all the info I was looking for.

I am using the GI Bill to pay for college which private pilot is covered, but the new rules the VA put in place will only cover the minimum required hours which in this schools case is 35hrs. So instead of walking away with only a log book with 35 hrs and not rating I figured I may test out as a recreational. But I want to fly more than 50 miles. I did read that with some other documented hours and a instructor sign off you can fly farther than that. What is required to be able to fly farther than 50 mi? and will it always be limited to 1 passenger?
 
EvoV98 said:
So I did a little searching but didnt quite give me all the info I was looking for.

I am using the GI Bill to pay for college which private pilot is covered, but the new rules the VA put in place will only cover the minimum required hours which in this schools case is 35hrs. So instead of walking away with only a log book with 35 hrs and not rating I figured I may test out as a recreational. But I want to fly more than 50 miles. I did read that with some other documented hours and a instructor sign off you can fly farther than that. What is required to be able to fly farther than 50 mi? and will it always be limited to 1 passenger?
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What makes you think the GI Bill will cover Private Pilot training? It doesn't appear to, per:

http://www.benefits.va.gov/gibill/flight_training.asp
 
I think you'd be much better off getting a job (even part time) to pay for the additional 15-20 hours (you might be able to do it in less), to get a PPL. Your license will be much more useful in the long run. I don't think the GI Bill will pay for a PPL - there is another thread in the Hangar Talk section about this very issue.
 
DesertNomad said:
I think you'd be much better off getting a job (even part time) to pay for the additional 15-20 hours (you might be able to do it in less), to get a PPL. Your license will be much more useful in the long run. I don't think the GI Bill will pay for a PPL - there is another thread in the Hangar Talk section about this very issue.
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The issue is I work full time (driving 75 mil one way back and forth), go to school, and have kids. I may have to work something out with the school to get there, hoping I am on the lower end of the average amount of hours needed.
 
EvoV98 said:
The issue is I work full time (driving 75 mil one way back and forth), go to school, and have kids. I may have to work something out with the school to get there, hoping I am on the lower end of the average amount of hours needed.
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If you can't afford the extra hours to get a PPL, how are you going to afford to fly once you get your Recreational License? You need to fly some minimum hours per month to stay proficient (I would think about 5 hours).
 
sorry to be blunt but if another ~10 hours of training is make or break than it's irrelevant, you aren't going to be flying anywhere regardless

Just get the PPL if you want to fly someplace. There's a reason the recreational license was a flop
 
JHW said:
sorry to be blunt but if another ~10 hours of training is make or break than it's irrelevant, you aren't going to be flying anywhere regardless

Just get the PPL if you want to fly someplace. There's a reason the recreational license was a flop
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From all the things I hear it would probably be more than 10hrs...
 
Most people take more than 40 hours, but if you are young, fly frequently and be prepared with your ground work, you could come close. I think the average is around 60 hours. The Recreational rating isn't going to be very useful to you. Welcome to POA and I hope you get your ticket.
 
John221us said:
Most people take more than 40 hours, but if you are young, fly frequently and be prepared with your ground work, you could come close. I think the average is around 60 hours. The Recreational rating isn't going to be very useful to you. Welcome to POA and I hope you get your ticket.
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Thanks! And that was kind of my point, I had several flights when i was a teenager so I have somer familiarity, but I doubt I will finish at 35-40hrs so the realistics is 50-60hrs. do thats 15-25+hrs that I will have to pay for. And it goes back to being young, I havent been in the workforce very long, and I dont have a huge savings account yet, so that amount of hrs out of pocket will hurt.
 
EvoV98 said:
Thanks! And that was kind of my point, I had several flights when i was a teenager so I have somer familiarity, but I doubt I will finish at 35-40hrs so the realistics is 50-60hrs. do thats 15-25+hrs that I will have to pay for. And it goes back to being young, I havent been in the workforce very long, and I dont have a huge savings account yet, so that amount of hrs out of pocket will hurt.
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This would be outside of your school, but once you finish your 35 hours, you could possibly join a club closer to home, get better rates and not have to commute. If it takes you a year to finish, big deal, you are young. Just start a little fund and throw some money in it when you can. Ask for that for your birthday, etc. Just keep your eye on the ball and you can do it. Flying is not cheap. It does have to be something you passionately want to do.
 
EvoV98 said:
From all the things I hear it would probably be more than 10hrs...
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I know nothing about this but I am curious. Where does the 35 hour limit come from? Seems like an odd number. The school offers a 35 hour course for a 40hr minimum cert?
 
jimbilly said:
I know nothing about this but I am curious. Where does the 35 hour limit come from? Seems like an odd number. The school offers a 35 hour course for a 40hr minimum cert?
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They are certified under part 141 not part 61. Part 141 has more requirments so they have lowered the required hours to get the rating.
 
Fearless Tower said:
The original Montgomery GI Bill would not cover any private pilot training, only advanced training.

The 9/11 Bill will as long as it is at an approved 4 year university through a degree program.
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OK, Thanks. That is not clear from the link I posted, which states that the "VA offers flight training benefits to those who want to advance their pilot qualifications. You must have a private pilots license and valid medical certification before you start training."
 
EvoV98 said:
Thanks! And that was kind of my point, I had several flights when i was a teenager so I have somer familiarity, but I doubt I will finish at 35-40hrs so the realistics is 50-60hrs. do thats 15-25+hrs that I will have to pay for. And it goes back to being young, I havent been in the workforce very long, and I dont have a huge savings account yet, so that amount of hrs out of pocket will hurt.
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And that is my point... If you get any type of license, you will need to fly a minimum of 5 hours a month to stay proficient. It sounds like that might be hard to afford in your situation.
 
DesertNomad said:
And that is my point... If you get any type of license, you will need to fly a minimum of 5 hours a month to stay proficient. It sounds like that might be hard to afford in your situation.
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possibly but a couple hours a month is not full time training. If I want to test out and actually learn I would need more than that amount of training, right? thats what I keep getting told anyway....
 
I have a PPL and never investigated the recreational license so I don't know how many fewer hours it might take. I would however plan on 60 hours for the PPL and no matter what license you get, plan on 5 hours a month to fly. Around here that means $675/mo to rent a 172 for 5 hours, plus about $35/mo to carry non-owner insurance for a $40K hull value.

If you can afford about $700/mo for a hobby, then I'd move forward with the license.
 
To complete PPL in 35 hrs would be extremely rare but legal in part 141 and has probably been done by a few. Check with the school and see if they have had any.
 
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DesertNomad said:
And that is my point... If you get any type of license, you will need to fly a minimum of 5 hours a month to stay proficient. It sounds like that might be hard to afford in your situation.
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Eh, that's very arguable.

Plenty of people fly less then 5 hours a month and still fly. Since I wrapped up my IFR rating, I hadn't flown anything but safety pilot once for a guy for the past two months. Went up yesterday in a 15 knot crosswind and had a nice flight.

The vast majority of the guys in the flying clubs I've been in flew less then 5 hours a month.

Everyone is different.
 
I'd go for the private all the way... I finished in exactly 40 hours. I wasn't in a hurry, but I was ready so I took the checkride. Woke up July 3rd with 39 hours. Went and did an hour, then went to my checkride. Even if you take another 15-20 on top of that, the benefit is there and worth it

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
 
To get a private pilot certificate under the 9/11 GI bill you have to be enrolled in a professional pilot degree program at an accredited college. It doesn't have to be a four year college, some 2 year (junior) colleges have such approved programs (Palo Alto College in San Antonio is one of them). If you find yourself just a few hours short of proficiency, it would probably be best to just pay out of pocket for the hours beyond what the course includes. If you need more and can't afford the out of pocket expense, take an F for the course and the VA will pay for you to repeat (you'll get another 35 hours). You will have to have remaining GI Bill time to use to repeat the course. If you choose to repeat the course you can only do this some limited number of times on the VA's dime. At Palo Alto the flying portion is a separate graded "lab" which you could repeat if failed so you wouldn't have to take the ground school again which is a separate course.

I needed another hour and a half of flight time for my instrument and the VA was willing to pay for me to get another 40 hours or so if I accepted an F but they wouldn't pay for the hour and half. Go figure. I chose to pay for the extra time myself instead of wasting VA money. What had happened was I busted the last phase check for a stupid mistake and had to repeat that ride before they signed me off for the checkride.
 
In case someone was wondering what the stupid mistake was:

The final phase check is a practice instrument checkride. I had done fine for the entire flight up to the last approach which was a VOR approach to 32, circle to land 14. The weather was CAVU so I was hooded until minimums. I took off the hood and commenced the circle at minimums. While down at minimums, tower told me I was number two to land behind an aircraft on the opposite side downwind. While I was looking for the traffic on the opposite side of the runway, I drifted up a hundred and one feet and reentered the imaginary cloud ceiling. Of course since it was imaginary I just descended back down but the instructor failed me for exceeding the task tolerance.
 
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EvoV98 said:
Thanks! And that was kind of my point, I had several flights when i was a teenager so I have somer familiarity, but I doubt I will finish at 35-40hrs so the realistics is 50-60hrs. do thats 15-25+hrs that I will have to pay for. And it goes back to being young, I havent been in the workforce very long, and I dont have a huge savings account yet, so that amount of hrs out of pocket will hurt.
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One data point for you (and if you know anything about statistics, a single point of information is close to worthless, but fwiw:

In the late 1990s it took me 70 hours to get my PP-ASEl. This was flying once per weekend with the usual weekends on the ground for bad weather and family duties. I was told that 70 was about average at that time.

Wishing you the best! -Skip
 
Another single data point: in 2006-2007, I finished my PPL in 52 hours (Oct to May), but couldn't fly at all in Jan or Feb due to horrible WV winter weather. Take weather into account. What part of the country is your school in? Ice and snow are bad for flying; even when the ground is clear, low icy clouds are bad for flying, too.
 
Yet another data point. I was ready for my check ride at 68 hours, but the DPE was unavailable for a month due to recurrent FAA training. So I was at 80 hours by the time he could do my check ride.
 
Been using the GI Bill to pay for flight training and college for almost three years now..PM if u have any questions about the process or whatever
 
Hank S said:
Another single data point: in 2006-2007, I finished my PPL in 52 hours (Oct to May), but couldn't fly at all in Jan or Feb due to horrible WV winter weather. Take weather into account. What part of the country is your school in? Ice and snow are bad for flying; even when the ground is clear, low icy clouds are bad for flying, too.
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Its Northern IL, so yeah we get pretty bad winter weather.
 
EvoV98 said:
So I did a little searching but didnt quite give me all the info I was looking for.

I am using the GI Bill to pay for college which private pilot is covered, but the new rules the VA put in place will only cover the minimum required hours which in this schools case is 35hrs. So instead of walking away with only a log book with 35 hrs and not rating I figured I may test out as a recreational. But I want to fly more than 50 miles. I did read that with some other documented hours and a instructor sign off you can fly farther than that. What is required to be able to fly farther than 50 mi? and will it always be limited to 1 passenger?
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So... You want to use the GI Bill to fund your recreation? And now you're trying to figure out how to game the system without doing the research yourself?

Check out 14 CFR Part 61 Subpart D-Recreational Pilots (61.96 - 61.101)
 
JoeSelch said:
So... You want to use the GI Bill to fund your recreation? And now you're trying to figure out how to game the system without doing the research yourself?

Check out 14 CFR Part 61 Subpart D-Recreational Pilots (61.96 - 61.101)
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GTFO, I am using the GI Bill to fund legit education as per my degree, I wont reach the hours of PPL with that funding meaning I will have the hours already to test out at Rec. what are you not understanding about that? And from my post you can gather that I did indeed look some **** up so what are you even talking about? dont want to help a guy then move on.
 
EvoV98 said:
GTFO, I am using the GI Bill to fund legit education as per my degree, I wont reach the hours of PPL with that funding meaning I will have the hours already to test out at Rec. what are you not understanding about that? And from my post you can gather that I did indeed look some **** up so what are you even talking about? dont want to help a guy then move on.
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I don't understand why won't you have enough hours for your Private certificate with that funding?

And, how can you assume you will be competent enough to take the check ride for the Recreational certificate with whatever number of hours you're planning to take?

Have you read the reference I gave you? It may well answer your other questions regarding the utility of the Recreational certificate.
 
EvoV98 said:
GTFO, I am using the GI Bill to fund legit education as per my degree, I wont reach the hours of PPL with that funding meaning I will have the hours already to test out at Rec. what are you not understanding about that? And from my post you can gather that I did indeed look some **** up so what are you even talking about? dont want to help a guy then move on.
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How can you be getting a degree if you top out at a recreational certificate?

Does the program even offer that?

A recreational certificate is not a stepping stone to a career. Using funds intended to support a career change is indeed gaming the system, and it's short of "legit education." Legit eduction to support a career change will start with a private certificate, and then advance to instrument and commercial. That's the minimum to start.
 
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JoeSelch said:
I don't understand why won't you have enough hours for your Private certificate with that funding?

And, how can you assume you will be competent enough to take the check ride for the Recreational certificate with whatever number of hours you're planning to take?

Have you read the reference I gave you? It may well answer your other questions regarding the utility of the Recreational certificate.
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I have, but I was much more concerned with the limitations section. I find it hard to navigate the FAA website as its sucks. But apperantly I will be able to fly farther than 50miles if I do it right, but will still be limited to a single passenger, as far as I could tell by the regulation. So it seems that it really wont help with what I want to do but it will let me log hours....
 
MAKG1 said:
How can you be getting a degree if you top out at a recreational certificate?

Does the program even offer that?

A recreational certificate is not a stepping stone to a career. Using funds intended to support a career change is indeed gaming the system, and it's short of "legit education." Legit eduction to support a career change will start with a private certificate, and then advance to instrument and commercial. That's the minimum to start.
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Who said anything about changing carrers? If I cant complete the course ie PPL, then I cannot continue to commercial..... and its a minor BTW
 
Can you check with the school you are interested in and find out their average hours to checkride? Try to get a feeling for where 80% of their students actually finish. You might want to talk to their chief instructor instead of an administrator.

I don't know anything about GI programs, and I trained part 61 and not part 141. I think the part 141 schools are pretty well structured to get your PP finished on schedule.
 
EvoV98 said:
Who said anything about changing carrers? If I cant complete the course ie PPL, then I cannot continue to commercial..... and its a minor BTW
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If I may try to word MAKG's post differently with the same intent (I hope).

The GI Bill is a great program. I have used it for CFI and ATP ratings. However, the whole purpose of the GI Bill (flight training or not), is to help veterans find a new career after their service. That's the purpose, not to give veterans free money to pursue hobbies with. I think you would agree with that statement, yes?

Sometimes this takes formal education, sometimes it takes trade school, whatever, the purpose is to get the veteran into a post-military career.

Private Pilot training is included if you do it at a college, as part of a degree program in aviation. Logically, a Private Pilot certificate doesn't set you up for a career by itself, except that you then go on to get a Commercial or higher rating, which does. So the purpose of the GI Bill is maintained.

You want to get a minor in Aviation, hey, that's fine too, no problems.

But where it falls apart is that you want to drop out of the Private Pilot program, having used GI Bill funds to get that far, and just try to switch to a Recreational Pilot. A Rec Pilot certificate doesn't meet the same standard of "preparing you for a career by moving you up the ratings ladder" that a PP cert does. It is mostly only useful for a hobby.

Therefore, you got the GI Bill and hence the taxpayers, to fund a hobby. That's what most people here are taking issue with, not your use of the GI Bill in an educational venue or using the benefits you have earned. It's the appropriateness of the use for a Rec Pilot cert that is the issue.
 
RussR said:
If I may try to word MAKG's post differently with the same intent (I hope).

The GI Bill is a great program. I have used it for CFI and ATP ratings. However, the whole purpose of the GI Bill (flight training or not), is to help veterans find a new career after their service. That's the purpose, not to give veterans free money to pursue hobbies with. I think you would agree with that statement, yes?

Sometimes this takes formal education, sometimes it takes trade school, whatever, the purpose is to get the veteran into a post-military career.

Private Pilot training is included if you do it at a college, as part of a degree program in aviation. Logically, a Private Pilot certificate doesn't set you up for a career by itself, except that you then go on to get a Commercial or higher rating, which does. So the purpose of the GI Bill is maintained.

You want to get a minor in Aviation, hey, that's fine too, no problems.

But where it falls apart is that you want to drop out of the Private Pilot program, having used GI Bill funds to get that far, and just try to switch to a Recreational Pilot. A Rec Pilot certificate doesn't meet the same standard of "preparing you for a career by moving you up the ratings ladder" that a PP cert does. It is mostly only useful for a hobby.

Therefore, you got the GI Bill and hence the taxpayers, to fund a hobby. That's what most people here are taking issue with, not your use of the GI Bill in an educational venue or using the benefits you have earned. It's the appropriateness of the use for a Rec Pilot cert that is the issue.
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So instead of getting a rec rating with the hours I would accumulate doing it the way it makes you guys happy and walking away is okay instead of getting a rating that I would already qualify for? thats stupid.... and you are leaving out the tid bit of information that I and all other veterans paid into the GI Bill directly then had taxes taken out of our checks, and am still paying taxes. So I did indeed pay for with with money not just my service.

You see the issue? If i leave with a log book all of you are happy, but if I take that logbook and use it to get a lower rating I am cheating the system? its BS
 
There's a reason there are few recreational pilots. Sure, you can drop out of the degree program that qualified you for VA flight training and settle for a recreational or sport pilot certificate, but why? Talk to a VA counselor, take the F for the course, get more flight hours, and get a certificate you can build on. The private is not an easy rating and its not unusual to need more than the minimum hours to get proficient. You should know enough to look up the restrictions placed on a recreational pilot and see why most people just get a private even if it ends up costing more.

If you decide that flying is not your cup of tea beyond the tree recreational level then by all means get the recreational pilot certificate but you'll have to live with its limitations and you'll end up needing to get the private down the line when you want to do more.
 
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Witmo said:
There's a reason there are few recreational pilots. Sure, you can drop out of the degree program that qualified you for VA flight training and settle for a recreational or sport pilot certificate, but why? Talk to a VA counselor, take the F for the course, get more flight hours, and get a certificate you can build on. The private is not an easy rating and its not unusual to need more than the minimum hours to get proficient. You should know enough to look up the restrictions placed on a recreational pilot and see why most people just get a private even if it ends up costing more.

If you decide that flying is not your cup of tea beyond the tree recreational level then by all means get the recreational pilot certificate but you'll have to live with its limitations and you'll end up needing to get the private down the line when you want to do more.
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See it is my understanding that if I fail the course then I have to pay the money they spent back... I also thought about seeing if I could take the course again as an additonal elective but I think with the minor I have all my elective full.

I also dont like the single passenger restriction of a rec pilot.


And be careful, you may get attacked for gaming the system by suggesting that I fail.... lol
 
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