Think we need new endorsements?

[Graueradler]

We are already regulated to death.

 

[ziege]

Hard to legally give an endorsement without the training.

Endorsement = training.

Substitute a for b

Not one life has been saved by training....

Totally invalid/illogical substitution. You can have the training without the endorsement, and you can have the endorsement without the training. A does NOT substitute for B or vice versa.

As for making claims, I'm not. I'm simply observing that, absent any legitimate claim FOR a thing, the default assumption must be negative. That's logic.

Is there evidence FOR a link between bubblegum and promiscuity? No? Then you cannot claim that there is a link and demand that another produce evidence to refute your claim.

Is there evidence FOR a link between boilerplate written in a book, and lives being saved? No? Then you cannot claim that there is a link and demand that someone else produce evidence to refute your claim.

Now, on a completely different subject, someone could try to argue that the REQUIREMENT for endorsements has saved lives through the mechanism of encouraging additional training...but to sustain that they must address several facts.

A) There are many ways to encourage training. This is not a "require endorsements or people die" question but a "what's the most effective way of encouraging safety" question.

B) (AKA B ) The endorsement system has costs - those costs pull resources away from other safety initiatives. This is not a, "requiring endorsements is free so why not do it," question, but, "what's the best return for a given level of program costs?" By claiming that requiring endorsements saves lives, they would be asserting that other programs with similar costs cannot save an equal or greater number. That is very difficult to prove.

C) Force has a demonstrated history of causing non-compliance for known psychological reasons. Human history demonstrates this repeatedly and any parent of a teen can attest to the effect personally. Imperative demands, "you must do this", foment rebellion. Rebellion can be expressed as non-compliance. By linking the idea of training to a use of Imperative Force, you create a situation where willful non-compliance can be predicted and will be expressed with refusal to train. This would be called a paradoxical effect by some, and an obvious expression of human nature by others, but in either case it means that some people are receiving LESS training because of the endorsement system than if there was nothing at all, and perhaps much less than if there was another system which didn't run afoul of basic psychology.

To judge whether requiring endorsements has saved lives you must consider the effectiveness of other approaches when they receive similar funding/support, and must look at both the positive and negative aspects of all of the systems acknowledging that any of them can cause a subset of the population to receive LESS training than another approach would.

Forced to choose between requiring endorsements and something dumb like giving pilots a free lottery ticket for every hour of dual received, they'd be hard pressed to demonstrate that requiring endorsements has had a net positive influence. Positive relative to nothing? Sure. Positive relative to other methods with similar costs? Much harder to prove. It may be that requiring endorsements has actually had a net negative impact, killing people who would have lived if another method had been chosen. That's a whole different argument though and much harder to support either way. At a guess you could affect a more positive, and cost effective, improvement in safety by making training (any safety training, but pilot training in this case) tax deductible or even have an income tax credit. Allow taxpayers to deduct liability insurance premiums (again, across the board but certainly aviation insurance) and let the private sector manage the risk (e.g. with insurance company requirements for time in type etc.).

Now, I'm not accusing you of making such arguments. But if you did you'd be hard pressed to prove any of them...and, since we're being logical here, uncertain is also false. In other words, if you don't know/can't prove whether requiring endorsements has had a net positive effect relative to all the other options that are available to achieve the stated goal, any statement like, "Requiring endorsements has saved lives," is false.

That, again, is logic for you.

 

[Telemakhos]

Geez, guys. I am surprised that the requirement for, say, a tailwheel endorsement brings out so much angst.
I really can't see how anyone would consider mandatory initial training to be an onerous regulation. It seems to me to be common sense. Landing a tailwheel aircraft, and taxiing one, is remarkably different than doing the same with a trike gear plane. Not only is it different, but ignorance of the difference can ruin a pilot's day really quickly. It is a different skill set than trike gear pilots have, and therefore requires different training.
Many here have said something along the lines of "people do it without training anyway, and requiring training won't deter these people, so why require it anyway?" It doesn't make very much sense to me to legitimize their recklessness, which is precisely what gutting the endorsement system would do.
Maybe some people here are such baller pilots that they think they can get into any plane and land it safely without any sort of checkout or anything. Maybe we have a bunch of super awesome Bob Hoovers in our midst. Personally, I'm happy with the current system, which attempts to prevent that type of personality from attempting to teach themselves new skills at a greatly increased risk of loss of life, limb, or airplanes.
Except for the high performance endorsement. Really, the difference between a "low horsepower" 180 hp Lycoming and a "high performance" 210 hp Continental is some extra feet per minute in the climb.
You know what, though? Anyone who is transitioning to a new airframe should get a checkout anyway, and the endorsement training can be conducted concurrently with the checkout. So no big deal, and no extra cash spent.

 

[MSPAviator]

I was already a 100hr. private pilot in tricycles when I got my tailwheel. Took me almost 20 hrs. to solo. Crosswind landings were much tougher than I was accustomed to!

 

[ziege]

I really can't see how anyone would consider mandatory initial training to be an onerous regulation. ...

It's not the training that is at issue. As you point out, receiving training before doing something new, if possible, is common sense. Training is not only beneficial from a safety perspective, it can be fun too. The goal - the goal we share - is to cause people to receive training. However, that goal has been lost for a lot of people because of how the regulations approach the problem.

It's a matter of weighing the effectiveness of different safety initiatives and selecting those which produce the most positive net outcome for a given cost. The endorsement requirement, based on both basic psychology and practical experience, has flaws. There are other ways that our safety-oriented resources could be spent which may (I say would) result in more positive outcomes for the same dollar. That is to say they would be more effective and more efficient.

I really can't see why anyone would latch onto one method, endorsements, and act as though any comment against that method is evidence of angst and bother or a desire to avoid training, instead of openly discussing the flaws with compulsion based systems and accepting that with a better understanding of how humans think you can achieve better outcomes with the same resources.

The fact that proponents of the endorsement system use red herrings (endorsement = training/complaint against endorsement = complaint against training) is further demonstration of how weak the logic behind the endorsement system really is.

 

[Bobcat1]

...Maybe some people here are such baller pilots that they think they can get into any plane and land it safely without any sort of checkout or anything...

If you feel the need for a checkout from an instructor in order to transition from a C-150 to a Cherokee then you never really were taught how to fly an airplane in the first place. If your certificate says ASEL, then you should be able to sit down with the manual for couple of hours and safely fly ANY single engine land airplane. The fact that folks haven't been doing this kind of study beforehand has led to accidents, incidents, and the need for all these BS endorsements.

Yes, getting a checkout from an instructor is helpful in getting to know an airplane, but presumably you should already know how to fly.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

If your certificate says ASEL, then you should be able to sit down with the manual for couple of hours and safely fly ANY single engine land airplane.

Okay, let's say I trained in a 150 and I have a fresh PP-ASEL with the ink still wet. You think I (or anyone in the same situation) should be able to sit down with a manual for a couple of hours and fly a PC-12 or TBM850? Those don't legally require anything other than the PP-ASEL and HP/complex endorsements, but they're much bigger, faster, more complex systems, yadda yadda.

 

[EdFred]

If you feel the need for a checkout from an instructor in order to transition from a C-150 to a Cherokee then you never really were taught how to fly an airplane in the first place. If your certificate says ASEL, then you should be able to sit down with the manual for couple of hours and safely fly ANY single engine land airplane. The fact that folks haven't been doing this kind of study beforehand has led to accidents, incidents, and the need for all these BS endorsements.

Yes, getting a checkout from an instructor is helpful in getting to know an airplane, but presumably you should already know how to fly.

I used to say the same thing. But there are a few planes out there that are much less forgiving on landing others. And no amount of reading the manual is going to substitute for actually getting some training.

 

[Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe]

I was already a 100hr. private pilot in tricycles when I got my tailwheel. Took me almost 20 hrs. to solo. Crosswind landings were much tougher than I was accustomed to!

I suspect you had some unlearning to do before you could learn...

Geez, guys. I am surprised that the requirement for, say, a tailwheel endorsement brings out so much angst.
I really can't see how anyone would consider mandatory initial training to be an onerous regulation. It seems to me to be common sense. Landing a tailwheel aircraft, and taxiing one, is remarkably different than doing the same with a trike gear plane. Not only is it different, but ignorance of the difference can ruin a pilot's day really quickly. It is a different skill set than trike gear pilots have, and therefore requires different training.

And yet, there is no requirement for a nosewheel endorsement / training for those of us who learned to fly with a tailwheel (as God intended :wink2: ).

 

[Bobcat1]

Okay, let's say I trained in a 150 and I have a fresh PP-ASEL with the ink still wet. You think I (or anyone in the same situation) should be able to sit down with a manual for a couple of hours and fly a PC-12 or TBM850? Those don't legally require anything other than the PP-ASEL and HP/complex endorsements, but they're much bigger, faster, more complex systems, yadda yadda.

Damn Skippy! THAT is an excellent point! However, I'm not saying that they should, (OK I was a little unclear on that point) only that they should know enough to know the "how's" involved.
How many times have you had students show up unprepared for a checkout in an airplane only to expect you to spoon feed them everything? That's my big gripe. Your ticket says that you're an aviator, now show me that you know how to be one.

If the guy knows what he's about, then much of the insurance time is paid babysitting on the part of the instructor.

 

[Bobcat1]

I used to say the same thing. But there are a few planes out there that are much less forgiving on landing others. And no amount of reading the manual is going to substitute for actually getting some training.

On the other hand, if it's a single seat you've got to know enough to be able to check yourself out in it.

 

[Telemakhos]

If you feel the need for a checkout from an instructor in order to transition from a C-150 to a Cherokee then you never really were taught how to fly an airplane in the first place...

Yes, getting a checkout from an instructor is helpful in getting to know an airplane, but presumably you should already know how to fly.

I guess prudence and caution don't mean very much in the face of what must be an enormous reservoir of knowledge, skill, and experience on your part.
I learned to fly in a 172SP. When I joined a flying club that had 172Ps, I requested a checkout in that specifically for the carb heat and different radios/electrical setup. When I wanted to fly the club's 152, I did the same thing. They're not much different, but different enough.
Thing is: I don't like being surprised whilst flying, and learning on the go is great so long as I have someone next to me that won't be surprised by a slightly different sight picture, or engine setting on short final, or whatever. Every airframe has its own little quirks, and I never want to be surprised by them.
I guess you just learned flying the "right way," and you're so far ahead of the airplane that nothing could ever rattle your pilot-tastic nerves of aircraft aluminum.
You, sir, must have The Right Stuff.
I'll keep getting checkouts.

 

[MSPAviator]

I suspect you had some unlearning to do before you could learn...

Exactly right!

 

[Bobcat1]

When I joined a flying club that had 172Ps, I requested a checkout in that specifically for the carb heat and different radios/electrical setup...

If it's considered ballsy to not get a checkout because of carb heat and a different radio stack, then you've made my point better than I ever could have.
I rest my case.

 

[ajstoner21]

I wouldn't go get a checkout simply because of a new radio stack or fuel injection instead of carb heat, however, it might be helpful to go over new avionics on the ground. But that doesnt have to involve a flight.

If you are flying a really different aircraft, sure, go get a checkout from an instructor with familiarity with the aircraft, but I think most checkouts are mostly a requirement of rental operations for insurance reasons.

Example, I dont think a checkout is needed to go from a 172N to a 172SP.

If you go from a low wing, to a high wing for the first time, maybe getting a checkout would be nice. They do have certain distinct characteristics, but I still wouldnt say its critical that you get checked out.

 

[RyanShort1]

I wouldn't go get a checkout simply because of a new radio stack or fuel injection instead of carb heat, however, it might be helpful to go over new avionics on the ground. But that doesnt have to involve a flight.

Example, I dont think a checkout is needed to go from a 172N to a 172SP.

School I was at would've required that because of the fuel injection. You get some guys who've never flown an injected engine before, and hot starts, etc... are an issue. It wouldn't have to be a long checkout, but done anyway.

Ryan

 

[Ted]

Okay, let's say I trained in a 150 and I have a fresh PP-ASEL with the ink still wet. You think I (or anyone in the same situation) should be able to sit down with a manual for a couple of hours and fly a PC-12 or TBM850? Those don't legally require anything other than the PP-ASEL and HP/complex endorsements, but they're much bigger, faster, more complex systems, yadda yadda.

Oh, wait, that's where the insurance and owner requirements would ensure all required training would happen first.

And if someone with training in a C-150 went out and bought a PC-12 or TBM850 without getting any additional training, well, there'd be an accident report before long.

 

[alaskaflyer]

And I'll bring up the subject of CFI privileges again. Not because I'm sore about it, but because it is illustrative.

As far as the FAA is concerned, as a 350 hour CFI I can teach almost anyone almost anything if I have the equivalent rating, or privilege on my commercial or ATP certificate. No real experience required. The ii is the only exception I can immediately recall.

As an example above the CFI checking out someone on a PC12 may have no turbine time either.

Why not have a CFI endorsement system for certain things? Probably more important than pilot endorsements.

 

[ClimbnSink]

Why not just leave well enough alone? Godspeed to the one or two freak cases that aren't bound by insurance requirements and don't have the sense to get some training. Burdening everyone for everything to try and prevent a case or two of stupidity is a bigger crime against humanity than letting a few dumbasses kill themselves(and perhaps those dumb enough to fly with them), those pilots probably would kill themselves anyway.
Cue the 'any restriction to protect GAs image is ok' apologists.

 

[Ghery]

Simple fix for that problem: Move to New Jersey.

Or Oregon.