The following was taken from "Kathryn's Report" and concerns an Everglades crash that killed the sole occupant who had taken the aircraft solo when his instructor didn't show up.
"Moreover, Dean said, (the pilot) was not supposed to be flying in the dark without a co-pilot.
A trainer at the school said flying solo should only come after years of experience. “You take your time, you log your hours, but those hours do not really guarantee the right experience or the right to control the aircraft,â€
I'm hoping the "trainer" was misquoted. I wouldn't want to go for a night rating at that school...
NIGHT FLYING
-
DeflectionShot
I'm thinking it's a quote taken out of context. There is no separate night rating requirement in the US for PPLs so maybe he means that you need lots of solo experience to fly competently and safely at night as a VFR pilot. In which case, the comment makes sense.
BTW Kathryn's Report is an excellent, if slightly unsettling, site.
BTW Kathryn's Report is an excellent, if slightly unsettling, site.
-
Colonel
- Posts: 3450
- Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2015 10:31 am
[quote]flying solo should only come after years of experience[/quote]
WTF?!
[quote]maybe he means that you need lots of solo experience to fly competently and safely at night as a VFR pilot[/quote]
Sigh. This makes me sad. In the civilian world, training
is inconsistent and generally pretty crappy, so as a substitute,
civilian pilots have to go out and get 1000 hours of doing
something as proof that they have taught themselves to
a safe level.
Or, you could get good training and be safe after 10 hours.
Do you know in the RCAF, the student's [b]5th[/b] formation
flight is his eval? Not a typo. 5th. Now, that's a bit
extreme, driven by continual budget cuts, but you get
the idea.
There are only a few things you need to learn, to be
safe at night. Here's a freebie.
The [i]transition [/i]from VFR out-the-window flying, to
loss-of-horizon - which can happen in many different
circumstances, not just at night - [b]is what will kill
you[/b].
Case study: JFK, jr. Classic flight out over the
water, VFR at night. Lights disappear, he rolls
upside down. If someone had told him to look
at the attitude indicator or just flip on the frikken
auto-pilot, he and his pax would be alive.
Problem is shitty training. Instructor tells you
to put on the hood and you start flying on the dials.
Like doing circuits with the gear down, that's
really inferior training, and missed the point.
When I did night ratings, I would take off from
CYSH and tell the student to climb to 4500 feet
and put the big W on the compass. Out over
the woods we would go. Inevitably, the lights
on the horizon would disappear and upside down
we would go, because the student did not notice
the loss of visual horizon. He did not get on the
attitude indicator.
I don't really mind being upside down at night.
It's kind of fun, if you're into that sort of thing.
But for the students, it was a lesson they would
never ever forget. [b]The transition[/b].
Now a lesson for instructors. I used to teach a
lot of them, both normal and aerobatic.
You can talk about something important until
you are blue in the face to a student on the ground,
and he will repeat it all back, but in the airplane,
it will all be forgotten.
This is puzzling at first, but is a really valuable
lesson for new instructors. As some guys say,
when the helmet goes on, the IQ halves.
Lesson for pilots. Learn to recognize shitty
training and good training. When you get
shitty training, you're going to have to teach
yourself afterwards if you want to continue
living. This is the basis for almost all civilian
flight training.
WTF?!
[quote]maybe he means that you need lots of solo experience to fly competently and safely at night as a VFR pilot[/quote]
Sigh. This makes me sad. In the civilian world, training
is inconsistent and generally pretty crappy, so as a substitute,
civilian pilots have to go out and get 1000 hours of doing
something as proof that they have taught themselves to
a safe level.
Or, you could get good training and be safe after 10 hours.
Do you know in the RCAF, the student's [b]5th[/b] formation
flight is his eval? Not a typo. 5th. Now, that's a bit
extreme, driven by continual budget cuts, but you get
the idea.
There are only a few things you need to learn, to be
safe at night. Here's a freebie.
The [i]transition [/i]from VFR out-the-window flying, to
loss-of-horizon - which can happen in many different
circumstances, not just at night - [b]is what will kill
you[/b].
Case study: JFK, jr. Classic flight out over the
water, VFR at night. Lights disappear, he rolls
upside down. If someone had told him to look
at the attitude indicator or just flip on the frikken
auto-pilot, he and his pax would be alive.
Problem is shitty training. Instructor tells you
to put on the hood and you start flying on the dials.
Like doing circuits with the gear down, that's
really inferior training, and missed the point.
When I did night ratings, I would take off from
CYSH and tell the student to climb to 4500 feet
and put the big W on the compass. Out over
the woods we would go. Inevitably, the lights
on the horizon would disappear and upside down
we would go, because the student did not notice
the loss of visual horizon. He did not get on the
attitude indicator.
I don't really mind being upside down at night.
It's kind of fun, if you're into that sort of thing.
But for the students, it was a lesson they would
never ever forget. [b]The transition[/b].
Now a lesson for instructors. I used to teach a
lot of them, both normal and aerobatic.
You can talk about something important until
you are blue in the face to a student on the ground,
and he will repeat it all back, but in the airplane,
it will all be forgotten.
This is puzzling at first, but is a really valuable
lesson for new instructors. As some guys say,
when the helmet goes on, the IQ halves.
Lesson for pilots. Learn to recognize shitty
training and good training. When you get
shitty training, you're going to have to teach
yourself afterwards if you want to continue
living. This is the basis for almost all civilian
flight training.
-
DeflectionShot
[quote]Lesson for pilots. Learn to recognize shitty
training and good training. When you get
shitty training, you're going to have to teach
yourself afterwards if you want to continue
living.[/quote]
+1 - problem is you don't know what you don't know. I once asked an instructor if we could cover up the ASI and do circuits just by attitude (based on recommendations here IIRC)...he asked me if that was a WW2 thing and then moved on to another subject.
training and good training. When you get
shitty training, you're going to have to teach
yourself afterwards if you want to continue
living.[/quote]
+1 - problem is you don't know what you don't know. I once asked an instructor if we could cover up the ASI and do circuits just by attitude (based on recommendations here IIRC)...he asked me if that was a WW2 thing and then moved on to another subject.
-
Colonel
- Posts: 3450
- Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2015 10:31 am
[quote]could cover up the ASI and do circuits[/quote]
One of the most useful things you can do as an
instructor, is getting the primary students using
the [u]Big Attitude Indicator[/u] - the horizon.
[b]LOOK OUTSIDE[/b]
This is especially important for the sim wizards.
Using a couple 8.5x11 blank pieces of paper from
the printer/copier, cover up all the gauges on the
left side of the dash. Push them over the knobs
sticking out. All I care about is the oil pressure,
on the right side. Pet peeve of mine is the
inclinometer but it's second order at best at this
point.
Start up, take off, climb up, fly to the practice
area. Slow it down, fly around with the stall warning
on, drop a wing, recover. No gauges at all.
Come back, join the circuit and land. No gauges.
TC probably thinks I'm a [i]bad person[/i] for recommending
it, but it's a tremendously useful lesson. You don't
need any of that shit in the dash to fly a little airplane
in good wx.
I did some RV training. No dials. Two black panels.
Owner told me he would die if they went blank. You
guessed it, breakers come out, panels go blank, off
we go flying.
[b]ATTITUDE + POWER = PERFORMANCE[/b]
AF447 never learned that lesson.
One of the most useful things you can do as an
instructor, is getting the primary students using
the [u]Big Attitude Indicator[/u] - the horizon.
[b]LOOK OUTSIDE[/b]
This is especially important for the sim wizards.
Using a couple 8.5x11 blank pieces of paper from
the printer/copier, cover up all the gauges on the
left side of the dash. Push them over the knobs
sticking out. All I care about is the oil pressure,
on the right side. Pet peeve of mine is the
inclinometer but it's second order at best at this
point.
Start up, take off, climb up, fly to the practice
area. Slow it down, fly around with the stall warning
on, drop a wing, recover. No gauges at all.
Come back, join the circuit and land. No gauges.
TC probably thinks I'm a [i]bad person[/i] for recommending
it, but it's a tremendously useful lesson. You don't
need any of that shit in the dash to fly a little airplane
in good wx.
I did some RV training. No dials. Two black panels.
Owner told me he would die if they went blank. You
guessed it, breakers come out, panels go blank, off
we go flying.
[b]ATTITUDE + POWER = PERFORMANCE[/b]
AF447 never learned that lesson.
-
vanNostrum
- Posts: 338
- Joined: Wed Nov 04, 2015 9:04 pm
That school trains mostly foreign students
Then they go and fly the bus overseas
Then they go and fly the bus overseas
-
Colonel
- Posts: 3450
- Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2015 10:31 am
[img width=500 height=342]http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_ ... -crash.jpg[/img]
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