Total hours vs dual received.

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I would assume that totals hours vs dual received hours, as a percentage, probably becomes smaller and smaller for the commercial pilot, but maybe I'm wrong...

I'm not a commercial pilot, but I've been flying for almost 30 years. I have a PPL, instrument rating, complex, high performance, and tailwheel endorsements. My ratio of dual received / total hours is 8% (94 hrs dual, 1180 total hours).

Just curious where others may be at. Obviously, new pilots, low time pilots, and pilots with lots of ratings will be higher.
 
Mine is probably higher, but I also opted for 40 hours of instrument training and 0 safety pilot time, so I was 2/3 of the way to that 94 before I took the IR ride. Then I had the commercial, the CFI, the ASES, AMEL, plus a few flight reviews, checkouts, and IPCs along the way. Logbook is at home so I can't see %'s right now.
 
I ain’t gonna go look for the numbers but my ratio is probably pretty high, or is that low, compared to someone who gets their license and then just goes flying. Commercial and Instrument Certification of course adds a lot of dual. MEL 10. And then I did a pretty extensive IPC after taking about 25 years off from flying and then returned into the RNAV era.
 
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When I was more actively instructing I had a lot of students that were working on their flight instructor certificates. I started noticing a trend, which was that all the students had roughly 180 hours of dual received by the time they were wrapping up the last of the typical certificates/ratings needed to start an aviation career. That number didn’t change much regardless of what training environment they learned in. Total times were usually between 280 and 320.

I’ve got about 3000 hours and have 300ish hours of instruction received.
 
2450 total time and I have about 160 dual received logged. The rest is me teaching myself to do better and not cut corners.
 
I have 125 dual received. That’s PPL/IR/CPLSE/CPLME/CFI/CFII.

Which seems suspiciously low. Probably made a mistake somewhere.
 
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My dual % / training received is probably higher. When initially traininf for IFR, I opted to use a CFII more so than SP. Now post getting IFR, I still use a CFII monthly for currenty training. A different approach (pun intended), maybe overkill, but I'm finding it valuable. As I got my IFR 10 months ago maybe I'll move to using SPs more next year. Then again, I'm also flying with a CFI for complex now, and next year I'm sure it will be something else (Commercial maybe).
 
Bonchie said:
I have 125 dual received. That’s PPL/IR/CPLSE/CPLME/CFI/CFII.

Which seems suspiciously low. Probably made a mistake somewhere.
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It's low but not unreasonable.

If you figure 40 for Private, 40 for instrument, 10 for each Commercial, 15 for CFI and 10 for CFII that would make 125. All of those ratings "could" have been done in those amounts of instruction, some of them in less time than my guesses.
 
Yikes! I’m 215/530 (PPL+IRA+CPL+MEL+Mountain+HP+Complex+TW+lots of types from clubs which all require checkout and subsequent recurrent)

Once I own I suspect the ratio will normalize some.
 
Sitting around 25% currently for everything up to CFI, working on CFII and MEI, but instructing full time so that number is finally dropping. Was more than a little demoralizing a few years ago when that ratio was closer to 95% :lol:
 
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Total hours 357
Dual received: 90

So just about 25%.

I have a PPL, night rating and over the top rating which are all separate ratings in Canada that require some additional dual hours. I started my instrument training but I’m nowhere near completing it. Also, I try to fly with an instructor whenever I don’t fly for over a month just to get back into it safely.
 
My dual fraction is extremely high and my total time isn't all that high...so probably the record high here.....203.1/321.7 = 0.63
training was my reason to go fly back when I was hyper active. It gave purpose and justification to spend the time and money. When I wasn't training it was too easy to let life get in the way. I also blame it on never having bought an aircraft...renting is hard to schedule and expensive for the headaches it brings.
Anyway, I went pretty much straight from PPL to Instrument to conventional gear to multi
+ my best friend was also my CFI so when we'd go for fun somewhere it wasn't always logged but it often was because it would be a safety pilot thing or always some sort of learning situation working on that next thing...
then I moved out of state and got rusty so when I started back flying again I had a lot of dual time to get recurrent. Hard time getting rentals, etc...
then rusty again...repeat.... I think a couple more times
and at one point when I started my efforts to get recurrent again I decided to start working on my commercial rating...but sadly moved again before I finished
then rusty again, repeat....
May daydream now though is to get something to fly or maybe build a kit.... and start going places. Really dreaming about retirement to have some time!
 
Chrisgoesflying said:
over the top rating
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That's interesting... I was aware of the night endorsement, but hadn't heard of that one.

I'm right under 20% with 550 hours and just over 100 dual. Got my first hour of dual in 2 years this summer with my first flight review. I keep saying I'm going to start on my commercial, but like @kaiser buying an airplane... it's never really going to happen.
 
Mines a lot higher than I expected at about 11%. 104 out of 956.
 
50% 203.2/399.8

PP, 4 runs at IR, CP ME. And it's going to continue for a bit as I plan to do CP-SES, CP-MES and CP Glider. Plus tailwheel.
 
Jim K said:
That's interesting... I was aware of the night endorsement, but hadn't heard of that one.
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Yup, it’s an extra few hours of instrument training. By the time a Canadian PPL holder has the same privileges as an American PPL holder, the Canadian has a minimum of 15 hours (likely more) of instrument time.
 
Mine is at 11.4%, as a low time pilot with only PP and a HP endorsement.
 
for no real useful purpose that I can think of, this would make an interesting graph....but I think it would need to be completed with each pilot's fraction at various points along the way..... everyone at some point early on would be 100%..... then plot points along the way, say at 100 hours, 200 hr, 300 hrs, 500 hrs, 1000 hrs, 1,500 hrs, etc... to get an idea when the divergence happens...
but I recon only just from just these few data points presented here pilots generally top out at around maybe 150 to 300 hours total dual. Makes sense given that dual time will slow to only just flight reviews or an occasional type rating or whatever after the basic ratings and endorsements are earned
It's just a question then of how long it takes to get there.
 
Brad W said:
for no real useful purpose that I can think of, this would make an interesting graph....but I think it would need to be completed with each pilot's fraction at various points along the way..... everyone at some point early on would be 100%..... then plot points along the way, say at 100 hours, 200 hr, 300 hrs, 500 hrs, 1000 hrs, 1,500 hrs, etc... to get an idea when the divergence happens...
but I recon only just from just these few data points presented here pilots generally top out at around maybe 150 to 300 hours total dual. Makes sense given that dual time will slow to only just flight reviews or an occasional type rating or whatever after the basic ratings and endorsements are earned
It's just a question then of how long it takes to get there.
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Not that interesting really. First one is up to today. Second one is just my first 3 years.

Screen Shot 2022-11-22 at 9.52.16 AM.png

Screen Shot 2022-11-22 at 10.22.52 AM.png
 
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Brad W said:
for no real useful purpose that I can think of, this would make an interesting graph....but I think it would need to be completed with each pilot's fraction at various points along the way..... everyone at some point early on would be 100%..... then plot points along the way, say at 100 hours, 200 hr, 300 hrs, 500 hrs, 1000 hrs, 1,500 hrs, etc... to get an idea when the divergence happens...
but I recon only just from just these few data points presented here pilots generally top out at around maybe 150 to 300 hours total dual. Makes sense given that dual time will slow to only just flight reviews or an occasional type rating or whatever after the basic ratings and endorsements are earned
It's just a question then of how long it takes to get there.
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It tops out around there I would say primarily because career pilots end up doing most of their "dual" in the simulator, which many career pilots probably don't bother including in their logbooks as "dual received".

And since it counts as "dual received" but not "total time", would tend to skew the ratio, even though at that point it's inconsequential.

However, it does cause the situation where it's possible for someone at the early stages of training and flying to actually have more dual received than total time.
 
I have about 30% dual based on logged time. I think I'm heavy on ratings and various endorsements for my total time, but I also fly with CFI friends a lot and just log dual.
 
This is probably the graph you really wanted.

Screen Shot 2022-11-22 at 1.13.45 PM.png
 
Brad W said:
for no real useful purpose that I can think of, this would make an interesting graph....but I think it would need to be completed with each pilot's fraction at various points along the way..... everyone at some point early on would be 100%..... then plot points along the way, say at 100 hours, 200 hr, 300 hrs, 500 hrs, 1000 hrs, 1,500 hrs, etc... to get an idea when the divergence happens...
but I recon only just from just these few data points presented here pilots generally top out at around maybe 150 to 300 hours total dual. Makes sense given that dual time will slow to only just flight reviews or an occasional type rating or whatever after the basic ratings and endorsements are earned
It's just a question then of how long it takes to get there.
Click to expand...

Your graph idea doesn't seem to take into account the folks who hold ratings in multiple categories. That will skew the numbers.
 
Salty's graph is what i was picturing....except that mine would superimpose a whole gaggle of pilots to get an idea of averages for different types of pilots
so his diverged right after PPL....
mine on the other hand would stay closer much further out...because it took me longer on the calendar to PPL then almost immediately i jumped into instrument, etc...
 
A bit over 19% dual.

But PP ASEL was split into two parts. Added PP ASES.

Did MIL time so a lot of dual there. Comm AMEL and IA came from there.

Added Comm Glider (had enough flights, so prep/training was one flight) Comm ASEL and CFI ASE, then CFII.

Started flying helicopters, so dual for PP, Comm, and CFI RH. Somewhere in there, added the CFI G.

Then add in various FR, IPC, aircraft transitions….
 
Finally got around to looking at the logbook: 8%, even with the extra ratings and certificates.
 
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