Rental Checkride?

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. . .

On Sat, 08 Dec 2007 20:37:22 -0500, Dudley Henriques wrote:

Kind of reminds me of my grandfather who always told us how cheap a
bottle of beer had been when he was 20.

Hey, you're lucky!! I COULD have told you how we walked to school both
ways in the snow!
:-)))

--
Dudley Henriques

I did, both ways, part was uphill going and coming, though.
--
Remove numbers for gmail and for God's sake it ain't "gee" either!

On Thu, 6 Dec 2007 12:23:36 -0600, Dallas
wrote:


I was just checking the rental terms at an FBO in the city I plan to visit
over Christmas.

I've got most of my hours in the type I wanted to rent and the FBO said
they want 3 takes offs and landings, then a power on and power off stall.
They charge the time to do this as dual.

I can see 20 minutes of landings, then a climb to do the power on and off
stalls... depending on traffic, it seems like it would take .75 to 1.0 dual
hobbs time. Basically, I'd spend more money on the checkride than I
intended to spend on the actual flight.

Is this a little stiff or is it the normal practice?

It's normal.
You do have "Renters Insurance" don't you? Otherwise in many instances
it's you bend it, you fix it.

Have fun,

Roger (K8RI)

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)

On Dec 7, 5:51 pm, Arnold Sten wrote:
B A R R Y wrote: Dallas wrote:

Is this a little stiff or is it the normal practice?

It's more normal than not, in my experience.

On past sightseeing trips in places I don't go to often, I've just
brought the CFI with us, skipping the formal checkride.

That's what I have done on two different occasions. I see no point in
spending an hour or two getting checked out when all that you want to do
is sight see for an hour. Plus, some CFIs can be awfully good tour
guides since they know the area.

I just want to add my agreement to all the posters who said just take
the CFI on the sightseeing ride and skip the checkout. I've done this
several times, in places ranging from LA, NY, South Africa, and
England. It's a great way to fly and learn about flying from someone
new. The CFI works the radio and navigates, and you do the fun part
(fly the airplane and enjoy the sights!).

Oh, one additional tip for this plan: make sure you check out the CFI
on your camera before takeoff. I had a CFI in LA take what I thought
would be great pictures, turns out the camera had turned off, 5 minute
powersaver, and she didn't know it I'm still bummed I don't have
those pics of that KAL 747 taking off to the west as I flew over LAX.

On 12/7/2007 12:57:01 AM, Dallas wrote:

Three hours? Can I assume a large part of that was on the ground?

Did you consider those requirements fair?

In this case I got my money's worth: I had the instructor take me up to Big
Bear airport, an airport at 6,752 feet elevation about 45 minutes flight from
Palm Springs, for a high altitude airport checkout/lesson.

Now that you mention it there may have been some ground instruction; I don't
recall now. This was back in early 2003.


--
Peter

Xyzzy,

I'm still bummed I don't have
those pics of that KAL 747 taking off to the west as I flew over LAX.


Reminds of the time I flew by SFO and the controller asked "Do you have
the KLM 747 on the runway in sight?" Duh! "Affirmative" "Maintain
visual separation from that traffic and proceed midfield" That was easy
;-)

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)