Re: Do you like gliders but hate FAA checkrides?

[Bruce Hoult]

In article >,
(Michael) wrote:

> Bruce Hoult > wrote
> > You don't call the Janus "even vaguely high performance"?
>
> Every rule like that has the odd exception, and in this case the Janus
> is it. Maybe you can find one or two more. Doesn't change the fact
> that the vast majority of even vaguely high performance gliders have a
> Vne in excess of 120 kt.

Most, yes. But you said that having a sport pilot ticket prevents you
from EVER flying anything even vaguely high peformance. It only takes
one example to disprove that claim.

Oh, and here's another one: Std Libelle, 38:1 and Vne 115 knots.

And another: Std Cirrus, still quite a weapon when full of water: Vne
119 knots.

Open Cirrus: Vne 119 knots.

ASW15 -- the glider used by Reichman as his running example: Vne 119
knots.

SZD51 "Junior": Vne 119 knots

H301 Libelle: Vne 108 knots


I expect I could find more. But the point is made.


> > it's
> > roughly comparable to the modern Duo Discus and DG1000 in performance,
> > and certainly will **** all over a Grob 102 or 103 or ASK21.
>
> Not arguing the point - but all the gliders you mention have a Vne in
> excess of 120 kt. Which is really my point - it makes a lot of sense
> to build a glider as an LSA and bypass FAA certification - the 120 kt
> Vne is not particularly a handicap in that regard, as the Janus
> proves, and the advantages of building to industry standards rather
> than dealing with FAA engineering are huge.

True.


> On the other hand, the
> sport pilot ticket makes no sense in terms of flying existing gliders
> - sure, you could fly the Janus - but not most other comparable
> gliders.

You'd be restricted in your choice, for sure, but you'd certainly have a
pretty good choice of still quite nice gliders, certainly more than
adequate for getting a full set of diamonds.

You wouldn't be allowed to fly a PW-5 though. Vne 121 knots.

It all depends on how much harder it is to get the PP-G. If there isn't
much difference then there is little point in stopping at sport pilot,
but saying that sport pilots have no decent choices available is simply
incorrect.

-- Bruce

[Michael]

(Mark James Boyd) wrote
> If you fail a DE or FAA checkride, it goes in your file, and
> you need to mention this at your airline interview, when you apply for
> an airline job. I have two experienced 1500+ hour power pilot/CFI's
> who prefer the SP "proficiency check" because, like an IPC or a
> flight review, there is no record of failure.

That's a misconception. There is no way for an airline interviewer to
find out that you failed a checkride. The record kept is in the CFI's
file - because the FAA believes that when a student fails, it is
because the CFI did not do his job properly. It is not considered the
student's fault.

> Additionally, there are more than 10 times as many CFI - Gliders, than
> DPE's or FAA qualified checkpilots. Scheduling a proficiency
> check is at least ten times easier than a checkride just because
> of the added availability.

I don't buy that either. There is always a DE in the area. You're
talking about a couple of weeks delay.

> What downside? 10 minutes after the proficiency check, that same
> pilot can likely get a signoff endorsement for the Private - Glider.
> This is what I plan to do. Since I'll be training SP's to the
> same standard required to pass a PPL - G, I'm going to give them
> an 8710-1 at the end too (as long as they have the min flights/hours).
> At that point it's up to them if they want to pay the extra
> $250 (DPE checkride) and $150 (tows and rental) to take another ride
> from the DPE to remove the SP restricitions...

Then why do they need to fly with you? They can already fly solo, and
their recommending CFI can give them an 8710.

> >Also, a private pilot can use controlled fields as potential
> >outlanding sites; a sport pilot will need additional training and
> >endorsement - and there goes your time advantage.
>
> I've never flown a glider in any airspace that required
> radio communication.

I have. Nearly outlanded at a Class-D field, and would have had to
outland if I couldn't have communicated with tower and entered the
surface area. But I did communicate with tower, did enter the surface
area, scratched around for a while, eventually found a thermal and
made it home.

> So we are just talking about a paasenger in a two-place
> LSA glider. The 2-33 is one. The 2-22 is one. The K-13
> is another. I'm not aware of other qualifying two-seat gliders
> that number over 1 dozen.

That's a big problem. Even such common trainers as the L-13/L-23 and
G-103 are off limits. So really, what's the point? So you can take a
passenger up in a 2-33? Might as well stick with the solo
endorsement.

> Having two extra instructors available will be a great boon to
> our operation... So presumably the two new SP glider instructors will
> be trained and tested to the same standards, but have saved $400

OK, here we are. At the CFI level, the savings is about $400. Hardly
seems like all that much, considering all the other costs. I mean
these CFI's still need to gain soaring and XC experience, right?
Surely you're not suggesting that someone who has never flown XC
should be instructing in gliders, right?

> If your student wanted full CFI - G priveleges, didn't have
> a commercial or cfi in another cat/class

He was a CFI single, multi, and instrument. Had the SP been
available, he could have saved $400 - except that the available
trainers were Blaniks, and he would not have been able to instruct in
those - or even carry a passenger.

> and had an extra $600 (presumably
> one must pay for TWO checkride fees, at $300 each),

Not if they're taken in the same day - you do get a break. I believe
he paid $500 for the two - at least that's what I paid to take my
Comm/ASEL and CFI/ASE add-ons when I did them on the same day. But he
could have saved $400 or so doing it with a CFI, if he didn't mind not
being able to teach in some of the most common trainers available.

Michael

[Bruce Hoult]

In article <411140ff@darkstar>, (Mark James Boyd)
wrote:

> Some will mind, and some won't. I LOVE the L-13 Blanik. But
> I think the 2-33 is a better primary trainer. I can safely
> solo someone with no prior experience faster in the 2-33, and
> transition pilots safely faster in a 2-33, than I can in the
> Blanik. The lower wings, getting them not to slam down the tail,
> the hand brake separate from the spoiler, the lower wing loading, the
> intentionally dramatic stall characteristics, the "two-stage" tow release,
> and having the spoiler and flap handles so similar adds to the
> training time. I have read about or seen or heard about solo
> pilots damaging aircraft due to all of these factors. Teaching in
> the 2-33 means I don't have to spend time in these areas.

So you can transition (or solo) people in the 2-33 faster. But what if
they want to fly sailplanes later?

[Michael]

Tony Verhulst > wrote
> > ...Nearly outlanded at a Class-D field, and would have had to
> > outland if I couldn't have communicated with tower ......
>
> No. There are procedures to deal with that situation. See the Airman
> Information Manual and FAR 91.129(d). Hint: know your light gun signals.

I know my light gun signals. Light gun signals and the appropriate
responses are considered communication with ATC. So as a private
pilot, I could enter the Class D surface area without a radio.

This option is not open to the sport pilot; the issue is not lack of a
radio but lack of operating privileges in airspace requiring
communication with ATC. The sport pilot will not be required to know
light gun signals either.

Michael

[Michael]

(Mark James Boyd) wrote
> I think you need a steak dinner at Harris Ranch.

I think I feel a power XC flight coming on. Where is that again?

> Unfortunately, this is a power thread, so I'm gonna have to
> let it die on RAS.

Might consider reposting on r.a.piloting or .student. Might generate
some lively discussion.

Michael

[Michael]

(Mark James Boyd) wrote
> First of all, I'm VERY pleased that you take the time and effort
> to respond to these posts. I hope our back-and-forth is helpful to
> others reading this, and I am grateful for your viewpoint and time.

Well, thank you. Somehow I always thought that this was the point of
the forum.

> >That's a misconception. There is no way for an airline interviewer to
> >find out that you failed a checkride.
>
> LOL! In many cases the CFI who signed off for the failed checkride
> works for the company or is part of the interview team!

Yes, and he's the least likely person to bring it up.

> In any case,
> lying during an airline interview is considered poor form...

Not a matter of lying - more a matter of it won't be asked. I know a
couple of people who do interviewing, and when they do ask (rarely)
they don't actually care whether the applicant failed - they're using
that as simply one way to put him on the spot, and if that doesn't do
it, they'll do something else.

> An airline considers that if a highly qualified pilot
> fails an optional checkride late in his career, he doesn't have enough
> ability to evaluate his own skills and apply them to a well-defined
> standard.

I know quite a few airline people, and this is the first time I've
heard this.

> >I don't buy that either. There is always a DE in the area. You're
> >talking about a couple of weeks delay.
>
> I'm talking about satisfaction
> within a couple of days, not a couple of weeks.

And dealing with the general public, that might indeed be meaningful.
But if you're dealing with someone who is already an experienced
pilot, you're dealing with someone used to waiting a couple of weeks
for a checkride.

> >Then why do they need to fly with you? They can already fly solo, and
> >their recommending CFI can give them an 8710.
>
> Because in the three intervening weeks before the DPE checkride,
> they can fly with passengers and get experience.

They can fly solo and get experience as well. And I'm not sure how
valuable 2-33 experience is anyway. I suppose they could teach, but I
do have an issue with this - see below.

> If your weather never goes bad, aircraft never break or you have spares,
> and nobody ever fails a checkride, this isn't a factor. Otherwise,
> the word "hassle" comes into mind.

Yes, but as I noted before, this is a hassle pilots are used to. In
fact, I would argue that since we're mostly focusing on CFI's, this is
a hassle ALL of your potential SP instructors are well used to and
hardly notice.

> If you fly out of class D or near it, give the added endorsement.

Well, that's great, but have you seen the requirements for that
endorsement? Neither have I. Want to bet it includes a landing at a
controlled field?

> You had this happen once in HOW many hours of flight?

Not that many - I've largely abandoned soaring in favor of power. I
doubt I have even 100 hours in gliders.

> If you had
> no radio could you have planned the flight differently to avoid
> the 4 mile radius circle?

Not realistically. It was the only available airport along the route
- making it unusable meant a significantly increased risk of
outlanding. In fact, not being able to enter the surface area would
have assured an outlanding.

> This is a bit moot however, since I'm talking about transition pilots
> exclusively, who already have radio experience in another
> cat/class. For them I'm likely to just simulate ATC
> calls on the ground (always call out "glider - minimum fuel!")
> and then sign them off for SP radio endorsement.

That's fine if the regs let you do that.

> Again, at my club, the point may be that we triple the number of
> available instructors who can fly in the 2-33s.

I have a real problem with this.

> Again, we are only talking about transition pilots. They all
> have X-C experience. They don't necessarily have
> glider XC experience, though. And yes, I'm suggesting
> that someone who has never flown a glider XC, but has flown
> 50+ hours of airplane X-C, can instruct in gliders quite safely.

Safely, yes. Effectively? I don't believe so.

I realize that an instructor shortage does bad things to a club. I
can certainly see the motivation to make CFIG's out of power CFI's who
join the club. Unfortunately, this is not the winning strategy you
might think. Who wants to be taught by someone who has been flying
gliders for a week? Sure, it's possible - a current and proficient
power CFI can join a club, solo in half a dozen flights, make three
solo flights and get his SP-glider, and at exactly 15 flights in
gliders can become a CFI-SP-G. What's more, he is probably safe. He
can teach aircraft handling - takeoff, tow, maneuvers, and landing.
But he can't teach soaring.

For a proficient and reasonably experienced fixed wing pilot, even
getting
a full-blown CFIG is laughably easy even if he only holds a private
ticket in
airplanes. I took my initial commercial and CFI in a glider, and the
total instruction and practice time including both checkrides came out
to significantly less than 10 hours. The writtens and checkrides were
a cakewalk. Getting a CFI-SP-G for a current power CFI should be a
matter of days - and he can quite comfortably teach gliding.

Having a couple of instructors like that is not a big deal - there are
a lot of things to teach in presolo training other than soaring. In
the short run,
it reduces instructor workload and/or makes instruction more
available, thus making recruitment of new members easier.

But if such instructors become a significant chunk of the staff, a
certain attitude begins to permeate the flight training. Soaring
opportunities are ignored in training unless they are spectacular (and
maybe even then) and the
soaring characteristics of the trainers are ignored as well. Of
course the 2-33 is probably the second worst soaring trainer available
- the 2-22 being the worst. Maybe it gets the students to solo (and
maybe even the private certificate) faster, and safety is not
compromised, but they don't learn the skills necessary to stay up in
anything less than ideal conditions, and thus
lack the skills necessary to advance to XC. They fly circles around
the home field for a while and get bored. Some quit, others fly a few
hours a year and never progress. This is poor retention, and it means
there's no possibility of having a pool of experienced active pilots
from which instructors can be drawn.

Of course that means you never can grow enough instructors in the
club, and are even more dependent on bringing in power CFI's. And the
vicious circle begins anew.

> Apparently the FAA agrees, since there is no glider or CFI - G
> X-C flight experience requirement whatsoever.

The FAA is not concerned with the growth or decline of soaring - and I
have no doubt that an experienced power CFI can get to a point where
he can safely teach glider handling in a matter of only a few hours -
especially if the glider we're talking about is a 2-33.

> I think the 2-33 is a better primary trainer. I can safely
> solo someone with no prior experience faster in the 2-33, and
> transition pilots safely faster in a 2-33, than I can in the
> Blanik.

No question of it. The 2-33 is less demanding to fly. The problem is
that it's much more demanding to soar - high sink rate, poor glide
ratio, nil penetration. So you will accelerate solo - and maybe
getting the license - but at the cost of delaying the teaching of
soaring.

I think your approach might have significant value for ab-initio
training in gliders - where the initial goal is to impart safe
aircraft handling skills, like takeoff, tow, pattern, and landing.
The inexperienced glider pilot who has become an instructor could
effectively and safely teach these things in the mornings and
evenings, when there's no lift to work anyway. Maybe he could use the
middle of the day, when there is lift, to develop his own soaring
skills. If you organize it correctly, it could work.

I expect, however, that the reality will be very different. I expect
that you're going to see instructors with very marginal soaring
ability and no XC experience at all training glider pilots who can
only stay up under ideal conditions and can't go XC at all. These
pilots will then get bored and quit or fly very little.

> I have to add that I think it's a bit about marketing too.
> ... the main thing is I couldn't
> draw them in with the whole DPE checkride business, and now I
> can draw them in and get them halfway there and
> make the next step look much smaller.

My experience with power pilots interested in soaring is this - NONE
of them are concerned about taking a checkride. They've all taken
checkrides before, and consider them no big deal. The things that
keep them out of soaring (and some actually have ratings) have to do
with hassles they're not used to, not the checkride hassles they ARE
used to.

> Little steps. This is why I'm pushing the FAA to allow
> endorsements for adding privileges to SP power too.
> It makes sense to have an endorsement for night, and
> for lower visibility, once the CFI has trained
> the SP to those sections outlined in the Private
> pilot areas (3 hrs night, 3 hrs instrument respectively).

Actually I would be VERY uncomfortable with granting night privileges
without any instrument training - were it up to me, MVFR and VFR-OTT
would be the same endorsement (requiring the 3 hours of instrument and
a proficiency check) and would be a pre-requisite for the night
endorsement. But that's a quibble - I agree with your basic approach,
I merely disagree that night flight can safely be accomplished without
emergency instrument skills.

But there really needs to be a reasonable change in requirements to
justify the change in privileges. I just don't see that happening for
the glider ratings. For power ratings, it is huge.

Michael

[Tony Verhulst]

> This option is not open to the sport pilot; the issue is not lack of a
> radio but lack of operating privileges in airspace requiring
> communication with ATC. The sport pilot will not be required to know
> light gun signals either.

You are correct.

Tony

[Doug Haluza]

In some FAA regions there are no glider DEs or qualified FAA
examiners. This has been a long standing problem in the Farmingdale,
NY FSDO. In this case, the Sport Pilot can be a logical goal the pilot
can attain, before building additional time for the private, and
looking for a place to go for the test.

We never get to 10,000 feet here on the East coast, and have plenty of
Schweizers that meet the LSA requirements. So it can be well worth it.

(Michael) wrote in message >...
> Bruce Hoult > wrote
> > Most, yes. But you said that having a sport pilot ticket prevents you
> > from EVER flying anything even vaguely high peformance. It only takes
> > one example to disprove that claim.
>
> Very well, consider the claim disproved. If you take the time and
> effort to seek out one of the minority of reasonably high performance
> gliders with Vne under 120 kt, you're OK. BTW - any of those two
> seaters? If not, well, a single seater can always be flown on a solo
> endorsement - and AFAIK, the solo endorsement given to a rated pilot
> for purposes of operating a different category and class of aircraft
> does not expire. In fact, I'm not sure what privilege a sport pilot
> operating a single seat glider in solo flight has that a private power
> pilot operating the same glider on a solo endorsement does not have.
> Can't think of any, really. In fact, it seems like the private pilot
> with solo endorsement has MORE privileges - certainly with regard to
> landing at controlled fields, marginal visibility, etc.
>
> > It all depends on how much harder it is to get the PP-G.
>
> That's sort of the point. The requirements for solo are the same, and
> so are the maneuvers. The difference is that to get the private, you
> have to make 10 solo flights and fly with a DE. To get the sport, you
> have to make 3 solo flights and fly with another instructor.
>
> Given the reduction in privileges, it hardly seems worth it.
>
> Michael

[Mark James Boyd]

Doug Haluza > wrote:
>In some FAA regions there are no glider DEs or qualified FAA
>examiners. This has been a long standing problem in the Farmingdale,
>NY FSDO. In this case, the Sport Pilot can be a logical goal the pilot
>can attain, before building additional time for the private, and
>looking for a place to go for the test.
>
>We never get to 10,000 feet here on the East coast, and have plenty of
>Schweizers that meet the LSA requirements. So it can be well worth it.

I read in the USA Soaring magazine yesterday about a club wanting to get
more activity out of their low performance Ka-7 and ASK-13 gliders. Hmmm...
I suspect they will be fine candidates for SP.

I've also had some recent fine discussions with the FSDO at Fresno,
and it looks like SP glider transitions will be a fine and simple test case
for SP. Because the PP and Commercial and CFIG PTS are already so similar to
what one would expect from the SP practical tests, there seems to be little
work to be done to come up with the SP standards.

Of any area of aviation that can benefit from SP, I think glider transitions
is the most promising...


--

------------+
Mark Boyd
Avenal, California, USA