On Sat, 08 Dec 2007 20:20:06 -0500, Dudley Henriques
wrote:

Airbus wrote:
In article ,
says...

Dallas wrote:
On Sat, 08 Dec 2007 14:01:37 -0500, Dudley Henriques wrote:

Might as well give in Dallas; it's the way the system works.
Oh well, it's only money. (grumble :-)



I know what you mean. It's getting damn expensive to fly these days.
When I was instructing (general instruction not private aerobatic
tutoring) you could walk in cold off the street, announce you wanted to
rent one of our 172's or Cherokees, fly with me for a half hour on the
Hobbs, hopefully learn at least one new thing in the process :-) and get
checked out to go off on your own for about 50 bucks.



"These days" fine. . .
But I recall an experience a couple decades ago - before I had a
certificate myself. I went with a friend to a local airport to rent a C-150
for some sightseeing. My friend was at the time an American Airlines first
officer on Shorts 360, operating daily out of JFK - no matter, I waited on
the ramp for the better part of two hours while they put her through every
possible manoeuver - I think they had her doing wing-walking routines up
there before they were willing to let her take the plane up. By the time
they were done with her its was almost getting dark. We paid much more for
the checkride than for the pleasure flight we had planned on. . .

No Offense here but being current in one aircraft is absolutely no
indication at all of competence in another. In fact, some of the most

Ain't it da truth!

After flying the Deb for about 4 or 5 years I was having some work
done that was going to take a few weeks. I decided to rent a 172 just
to keep in shape.

A friend/CFI and I headed out to the practice area to get in a wee bit
of re familiarization. First up was a steep turn. As I've mentioned
before I had to learn them at 60 degrees so that's what I still do, or
in this case had intended to do. I rolled left and the nose went
right. I recognized my error immediately, accompanied by a rather
embarrassing moment of sideways flight. That skid reminded me I was
no longer flying the Deb.

After the laughter subsided from the right seat along with a few
comments about lazy pilots not using their feet the rest of the
checkout went fine and only took a bit over half an hour. Planning
ahead you can easily do every maneuver required for the PPL PTS in
less than half an hour...except the cross country part. :-))

The only thing I noted over the next few weeks was that 172 sure
screwed up my mental flight planning on trips. Even short trips took
surprisingly longer than expected. After 4 or 5 years at 130 hours a
year in the Deb flying the 172 cross country was a shock. :-))
However flying the pattern was little different than in the Deb. Well,
other than the 172 was like a kite coming down final with about half
the glide ratio of the Deb.

extensive checkouts I ever had to give were for active airline pilots
seeking to rent Cessna 150's.
This doesn't mean these pilots were incompetent. It simply means that
handling light airplanes after handling large heavy airplanes sometimes
needs a bit of "refreshment dual :-)"

I was checked out to rent a Cherokee 180 over at Beverly field by an
ex WWII P-51 pilot. They told me to expect an hour or two. We took
off, headed north doing some S-turns, followed by a steep turn,
followed by a stall. He said, "Lets go back". He pulled the power on
down wind and I set 'er down right where he wanted. Total check out
was bout half an hour. 45 minutes counting the preflight.


On the other hand, there certainly were FBO's out there when I was
active that could be unnecessarily profit oriented when doing checkouts.
I will say that in my entire career as a check pilot I never flew with a
pilot coming out of major big iron that needed any longer than an hour
to let loose.
Sorry you ran into a profit mill :-))

And unless you are from the area it's difficult to know which FBO to
use.

Roger (K8RI)