Are your students ready to solo?

[mcjohn]

At my wacky job the cheif pilot stopped me just as I was about to endorse a student to for long solo XC. He was going to fly the route the next day when I would be unavailable to look over his flight plan/log. This would be his 4th attempt to make the flight and not be weathered out. I had seen all the previous flight logs and they were good. So I figured, I'm comfortable endorsing him and I'll have the other flight instructor who would be available look over his flight plan before the student goes. Well, the chief said "No. Leroy (not the real instructor's name) will endorse him tommorow after he O.K.s his flight log/plan." I said, "But Leroy has never flown with this student before and I assume would not be comfortable to endorse him for a solo XC." The chief said, "Leroy will have to endorse him."
I said, "Well, shouldn't I call Leroy to she if that's O.K.?"
Chief said, "No, that won't be necessary."

Anyway, strange story I know. But if I were told that I would have to endorse another instructor's student that I knew nothing about, I'd just laugh at the chief and say "Hell no."

Well, the student showed up the next day. Leroy endorsed him and the flight went fine. Wacky freakin flight school!

Oh, in regard to failures in flight. 2 days ago I was instructing in a 2004 model 172SP and the engine began to run just a little rough about half way through the flight. No big deal. Continued the lesson with a close eye on everything. Landed and decided to check the mags again. Right side was completely dead. Almost a brand new plane and very well maintained!

Be careful out there and try to train for emergencies at least a little each lesson.

BTW, I got my tailwheel endorsement yesterday in a C170 A. If you're an instructor get your TW. You will never let a student land unaligned again and will find that you can grease every landing without much effort even in strong cross winds.

I'm off to tow banners until labor day in a week so that'll begin the new TW chapter in my life. Looking foward to it.

 

[midlifeflyer]

At my wacky job the cheif pilot stopped me just as I was about to endorse a student to for long solo XC. He was going to fly the route the next day when I would be unavailable to look over his flight plan/log. This would be his 4th attempt to make the flight and not be weathered out. I had seen all the previous flight logs and they were good. So I figured, I'm comfortable endorsing him and I'll have the other flight instructor who would be available look over his flight plan before the student goes.

It's a good call by the Chief on two counts. First, as Tonala pointed out, the 61.93(c) endorsement is only an endorsement that the planning was adequate, the weather acceptable, and that the flight complies with any limitations on the students regular solo endorsements.

Second, there already is an NTSB case out there where a CFI was violated on the issue of timely endorsements. As they usually are when they get to the NTSB, the facts are worse than your situation. They were having so much trouble with cancellations that the CFI did an endorsement covering the flight for anything covering more than a month. The student in fact did the flight 3 days after the endorsement, ran into bad weather and turned back. I can't tell from the NTSB opinion, but I don't think the student was even injured or that there was an accident.

The NTSB said that the planning endorsement requirement (I'm adding the emphasis)
==============================
means that the instructor must participate actively in the weather briefing at the time of the flight, not 3 days earlier, as he may not endorse the log until he can attest to the safety of the actual circumstances of the flight.
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the case is here if you want to read it: http://www.ntsb.gov/O_n_O/docs/AVIATION/4253.PDF

The worst part may be that the CFI died while the case was pending and they =still= upheld the violation.

 

[nosehair]

But if I were told that I would have to endorse another instructor's student that I knew nothing about, I'd just laugh at the chief and say "Hell no."

The endorsement required by 61.93(c)(2)(ii) is a statement that an authorized instructor has reviewed the x/c planning of the student; that's all - the planning. Not the flying. The planning.
The flying part of that (or any) x/c is endorsed on the certificate and in the logbook as required by 61.93(c)(1)&(2)(1). That endorsement does have to be by the CFI who gave the x/c training required by 61.93(e).

I am thinking you misunderstand the intention and/or legal responsibility of the individual x/c endorsement. Your only responsibility is to insure the x/c planning is good. You will not be held accountable for any action of the student. The only way you would be accountable would be if the student's x/c planning (including forcast weather) is bad. That is all you are endorseing.

So, when my student gets lost, or the weather diverts him to your airport, it is in all our best interest if you would hold up to your implied agreement of being an instructor, and look over my student's x/c planning and if you are satisfied that his/her planning and the weather is good, endorse that fact in his/her logbook.

That's one of our jobs as flight instructors. As in providing a service to the aviation community. There is more to it than only teaching your students to fly.

Oh, sure, you can take that attitude; but I don't think that is what you mean, is it?

 

[flyingnome]

as stated above the only requirement for a CFI to sign off a solo xc is to review the flight planning, it is suprising that we are not required to fly with the student, but that is not the what the endorsement is about. That part should have been taken care of long before the student is ready to go cross country.

And while it would have been nice for my student to have a local CFI when she was camping out for the night that service just was not available in the po-dunk airport she had diverted to during that cross country. It was a very good learning expirience for both myself and for the student.

 

[midlifeflyer]

Your only responsibility is to insure the x/c planning is good.

I don't think that it's entirely correct that this is our =only= responsibility. The FAR is probably designed to do a good job to shield us from responsibility for piloting skill issues, but there are other things that our =professional= status can make us responsible for that are not written into the FAR.

Example: the student can barely keep his eyes open and confesses he spent the whole night awake planning the flight. The flight planning is flawless but the student lacks the good judgment to ground himself. Do you endorse the flight?

That's not meant to cause unnecessary worry. As I said, it's extreme, and unless it is something pretty obvious, the likelihood of a real problem is small.

 

[midlifeflyer]

as stated above the only requirement for a CFI to sign off a solo cross country is to review the flight planning, it is suprising that we are not required to fly with the student

It's really not that surprising. I think the regulation is dividing responsibility in a sensible way (surprise!).

Look at the long list of tasks that need to be accomplished in order to solo a student and the long lists of requirements for the general solo and solo cross country endorsements, all of which need to be accomplished by the CFI making the endorsement.

Take the example of the overnight break in the solo cross country. Without the separation of the general and specific endorsements, the remote CFI would pretty much have to give the student a checkride before sending her on her way home. Not only a pain, but it would put unnecessary bumps in what has been a pretty smooth road.

 

[flyingnome]

Example: the student can barely keep his eyes open and confesses he spent the whole night awake planning the flight. The flight planning is flawless but the student lacks the good judgment to ground himself. Do you endorse the flight?

That's not meant to cause unnecessary worry. As I said, it's extreme, and unless it is something pretty obvious, the likelihood of a real problem is small.

Yup and that all falls under the job description for the flight insctuctor as the practical psychologist... yeah FOI...

 

[flyingnome]

It's really not that surprising. I think the regulation is dividing responsibility in a sensible way (surprise!).

Look at the long list of tasks that need to be accomplished in order to solo a student and the long lists of requirements for the general solo and solo cross country endorsements, all of which need to be accomplished by the CFI making the endorsement.

Take the example of the overnight break in the solo cross country. Without the separation of the general and specific endorsements, the remote CFI would pretty much have to give the student a checkride before sending her on her way home. Not only a pain, but it would put unnecessary bumps in what has been a pretty smooth road.

yeah I can see where you are comming from and why the reg was written the way it was. in MOST cases it will work out great. Although currently there is a student that has been hanging around our FBO for some time. His last flight instructor endorsed him for his Pvt Checkride back in August then he bailed for another job. The student didnt fly for the next couple months and I came in one evening to find him doing night solo touch and go's.

after checking his logbook his endorsements had long expired and he wanted me to just re-endorse him. Well luckily our FBO required a 90 day check out flight, if you dont fly for 90 days you must be rechecked. It took about .4 of flying to realize that this student had along long way to go before the checkride let alone flying around by himself.

 

[mcjohn]

Thanks for the all the info there. It definetly clears a few things up for me.
Heres another interesting one:
I recently picked up a flight review client who hadn't flown since his PPL checkride a few years ago so I've been doing one of those long flight reviews to retrain him and resolo etc.. I recently endorsed him to solo and he did fine. A couple days later he scheduled himself to solo again but made a note that he was bringing his airline captain friend with him. Whoops can't do that you know. He didn't have the flight review signoff yet to act as PIC and could only act as PIC for 90 days IF he were alone in the plane. Well, I called him to give him the news and of course got the "But my friend is an airline captain" thing. I said, "It doesn't matter, he's not checked out to rent out planes. He can do a checkout with us or you can fly solo. Those are your only two options."

The flight review client understood and everything was fine. But, I have to make this point that a hate constantly facing these serious situations. I feel like I have to constantly stay on my toes and stay paranoid about what our client/students are doing at any given time.

I'm looking foward to towing the banners for a little while.

 

[midlifeflyer]

um, mcjohn,

what was your regulatory authority to solo him? He has a private pilot certificate with the appropriate category and class ratings. Either he can act as PIC or he can't. AFAIK, there is no such thing as a solo endorsement for a certificated pilot (other than one heading for a different category, class or type rating).

There probably should be one. It would give CFIs a lot more leeway in situations like the one you describe and in high performance and complex transitions. But AFAIK, your "student" was just as illegal flying solo as he was with a passenger.