Sylvain wrote in
:

Michael wrote:

How exactly does a commercial certificate help? In my experience,
commercial pilots are NOT better pilots than private pilots with the
same number of hours.

well, it could be argued that someone who worked towards a commercial
ticket has had a lot more recurrent training -- and demonstrated a
greater interest in improving his/her knowledge and skills -- than
someone who spent the same number of hours making holes in the sky...
the number of hours doesn't tell the whole story either.

but seriously, one could also wonder how someone who cannot land a
small aircraft -- I presume that's what we are talking about -- on a
2000' runway managed to get a private certificate in the first
place...

I am not really sure how a club/FBO could improve their safety records
via just imposing more arbitrary rules that are a pain in the neck to
the majority of pilots who would be doing just fine without them;
there are 'problem pilots' out there -- I can think of one guy
hanging around on my local field who managed to run out of fuel in
one incident, do a gear up landing in another, and who knows what
else -- and we kind of all know who they are; not much an issue of
number of hours or ratings as you point out, but of attitude; not
even sure recurrent training would do the trick either...

--Sylvain

Are you referring to the guy who did a gear up in SQ2's Arrow 33807 a few
years ago? If so, he is a real terror. He has run an Arrow out of fuel at
least 2 times. One time he managed to badly damage his son for life. Yet
he doesn't learn. I once had an Arrow 7526J reserved for an Angel Flight.
He returns the aircraft late (around 11:15 AM, it was due back 8 PM the
night before), totally unapologetic, and with less than 0.3 gallons of
usable fuel. Not a typo. We put slightly over 47.7 gallons in to top it
off. Even the fuel truck operator couldn't believe it. (I don't want to
put the specifics in the public forum, so I sent this to you as a private
email.)

--
Marty Shapiro
Silicon Rallye Inc.