Skylune wrote:

"Training issues" indeed. I went on the EAA website yesterday for the
first time. A sport pilot license with just a state issued drivers
license for the medical and just 20 hours of instruction, including 5
solo.

Gimme a break! I don't care if they are restricted to daytime hours, no
x-countrys, etc. They can't be safe, esp in airports that have busy
patterns.

By the time you have 20 hours you should be able to safely fly the
plane. The rest of the training revolves around night and cross country
flying, which are not applicable to Sport Pilots. Additionally, as
others stated, if you aren't ready to take the checkride in 20 hours,
your instructor won't sign you off. When it comes right down to it, in
CAVU conditions, pilots with fresh tickets tend to be safer than pilots
with many years of "experience". Most bad pilots are pilots that don't
fly very much. For example, a pilot may have been flying for twenty
years, but may only have 200 hours. And 60-70 of that in the first year
because that's when he was getting his ticket.

I don't have any stats in front of me with the average number of hours
flown by private pilots every year, but for many, it's less than an hour
or two a month. If given the choice between riding with a random pilot
with a fresh ticket and one with twenty years of "experience" (no other
information known), I would choose the fresh pilot.


-m
--
## Mark T. Dame
## VP, Product Development
## MFM Software, Inc. (http://www.mfm.com/)
"To fly is heavenly, to hover is divine."