Plan a realistic training period
I have around 90 hours of flying experience, which I gained at various times. I always have to stop because of the magic thing known as money. Do you think it's possible, after I pass the knowledge test, to finish my private pilot certificate in four to five days if I still need to do all my solo cross-country flights and review all the maneuvers? I haven't flown for six months; right now I'm studying to take the knowledge test.
Thanks,
Ronald
Greetings Ronald:
OK, here's the good news. I have no doubt that you'll become a private pilot some day. The bad news is that, in your case, it's probably not going to happen in four to five days. It's highly unlikely, given all the things that can upset your training (weather, flight delays, maintenance issues, etc.) that you'll be able to finish your private training in such a short period of time. Your chances of instant success are further reduced given that you haven't flown in six months. You will have to bring all your skills back up to speed, complete your uncompleted requirements, and then take the flight test. I wish I could be more encouraging here, but my experience says that four to five days is not a realistic time frame for all that. I suggest you plan for a longer, more realistic training period.
Flight review faux pas
Dear Rod:
I've been a bad boy this year. I overflew my flight review expiration, by accident. What do I do to get current, and what do I do about the time I've flown since, which I logged as PIC time? If I apply to the airlines later, will they escort me to the door and tell me to take a hike?
Sincerely,
Guilty Party
Greetings Guilty Party:
You sure do know how to get your mug shot on the FBI's 10 least wanted criminal list, don't you? The real issue here is that you violated a federal aviation regulation and now have proof of it in your logbook. Since I don't know how much time you've flown or over what period you flew it, I must offer you the most conservative advice possible. Your salvation here lies in the fact that you are not required to log all your flight time. Only that needed for currency (like the flight review you should have taken earlier) and to obtain a higher rating need be logged. And there's no law that says once you log this nonmandatory flight time that you can't unlog it.
Therefore, it would not be at all unreasonable for you to "unlog" that flight time by removing those pages from your logbook containing the time flown beyond the last flight review's expiration date. There's nothing ethically or legally wrong with doing this as long as you don't try and claim the removed time for currency or toward a higher rating. Remember, you didn't need to log it in the first place, so you can remove it at your whim. You simply made a mistake and are now accepting a self-imposed sanction by removing any credit for those accumulated flight hours.
If the removed pages contained flight time necessary for instrument currency, then you'll have to do what's necessary to get instrument current again once you complete your flight review. Sorry, but that's life in the big city. If you received any endorsement from a CFI during the same period, you'll need to contact that CFI and ask that he make another endorsement in your logbook after you've removed the appropriate pages. On the other hand, there's nothing wrong with cutting out the line in the logbook containing that endorsement and pasting it anywhere else in that logbook. The problem here is that too much cut and paste could give your logbook the patina of a ransom note and generate more questions you don't care to answer.
As a final note, if you have critical CFI endorsements in your book on the pages to be removed, you can always use a marker to blacken out the entries that aren't required to be there. This, too, is bound to attract a bit of attention, and you may be asked to explain what happened. Of course, you can simply state that you made a logging mistake, which is not untrue. I wouldn't, however, say that the blackened-out flights were classified "top secret" missions you flew for the government.
The flight instructor challenge
Dear Rod:
I'm currently working on becoming a CFI, and the amount of knowledge required is daunting. How do you recommend studying for this checkride?
Sincerely,
Richard Greetings Richard:
You're correct. There is a great deal of information to study. Here's how I would proceed. There are basically a minimum (and I do mean, minimum) of four books you'll want to study. First, the FAA's Airplane Flying Handbook should definitely be on the list. It contains a great deal of practical information about flying the airplane, and you'll certainly want to master all its contents. Next, you'll want to read the relevant sections of the Aeronautical Information Manual. You'll also want to read the relevant parts of the federal aviation regulations, with particular emphasis on Part 61. Finally, you'll need to find a good basic-knowledge aviation textbook that explains aviation concepts in easy-to-understand terms, tells you why these concepts exist, and provides you a model of how to teach these concepts. There are several good texts like this on the market.
With these four books in your library and under study, you'll want to find an experienced CFI who can help you develop and deliver lesson plans. This may be the most challenging part of your preparation. Depending on where you're located, it's sometimes difficult to find a CFI with the qualifications, time, and desire to provide you with this type of instruction. You may even have to travel some distance to obtain these lessons.
Of course, there's also the flight training to consider. Here is where you'll want to begin doing all your flying from the right seat. If you don't feel comfortable in the right seat or haven't as yet flown from this position, then I suggest you hook up with any CFI and have him or her ride along until you feel comfortable.
And that's a rough idea of how to begin. Even if you don't as yet have a good CFI to work with, you can still begin your preparation by studying the books I recommended.
Twin twins
Dear Rod:
If a flight school is or offers Part 141 or 142 training and they don't have a twin-engine airplane, is this cool? I think any school with a structured training program should have at least two same-type twin-engine airplanes for training and time building. Am I wrong?
Sincerely,
Leo
Greetings Leo:
Yes, I believe you're wrong here if you define a "structured" training program as the only one that can provide "good" instruction. Not only is no twins cool, it's perfectly normal in my book. Twins are fine, but they have absolutely nothing to do with a school's ability to provide good flight training. I might even speculate that it's possible a company that doesn't offer twin training may be even more focused on providing good basic primary flight training. And there's nothing more valuable to this industry than a school that offers good basic private pilot flight training.
Rod Machado is a flight instructor, author, educator, and speaker. A pilot since 1970 and a CFI since 1973, he has flown more than 8,000 hours and owns a Beech A36 Bonanza. Visit his Web site.
Related Articles
