Are your students ready to solo?

[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.

 

[mcjohn]

Sh!t. I guess I assumed the solo endorsement would allow him to regain some confidence in the cockpit before I sign him off for good.
Yes, there does need to be some sort of solo endorsement for a certificated pilot that is not current. Oh, well.....I guess the better thing to do would be to just sign off for the flight review and then continue working with him. But this guy's skills were that of a 10 hour PPL student. I had to retrain him how to land etc. Another first solo seemed totally relevant. Man, some of the aspects of the FARs.....:uzi:

Like I said, I'm looking foward to doing something a little different for a change (not to mention a change to my cash flow.)

I think this is a great thread. As many CFIs who can should tell of similar stories regarding their FAR and student debacles. This is some serious stuff that is challenging to keep up with. Obviously, in my 1 year and 3 months of CFIing I've seen a few. I just passed 200 hours of dual given and its apparent why many schools insist that you have 200 hours of dual given already. The CP at my school was a little concerned that I soloed the guy but I told him that I didn't see any reason the 90 day solo end. wouldn't cover him to solo in the pattern as long as I made it clear that he HAD to stay in the pattern. He was fine with it after I said that. I think.

 

[midlifeflyer]

I was in a similar situation. The student hadn't flown in 15-20 years. We finally reached a point where I felt he was meeting the PTS consistently, but after so long a layoff I really wanted him to fly solo a bit before he took up any passengers. I wasn't worried about his skills, I was worried about his confidence in his skills - I think that's a big part of solo cross country.

Best I could do was a recommendation that he take a few flights solo after I endorsed his flight review. In this case it was oral and it was something he wanted to do also. I was once gioven similar advice by a CFII after an IPC - "I think you're good to go, but I'd get a little more experience before taking up the wife and kiddies."

I wonder -- even if you can't =officially= restrict him, why not put something like that in writing. I have not even though of the responsibility and ramifications of that. But every once in a while I read in an NTSB report how the probably cause of a crash was related to a specific weakness that was identified and commented on in a Flight Safety evaluation, so it sounds like something that is sometimes done.

Just a thought.

 

[Catbert]

Are your students ready to solo?

To a student, pretty much, nope. Lately, that includes private pilots coming to me looking for flight reviews. Makes me wonder where pilots come from.

I'm feeling that 1200 hour burnout coming on. Does it show?

Hey look, was that your pattern alititude 300 feet ago? Weeeeee! zzzzzzzz.

Please note the timestamp on this post.

 

[Catbert]

Just ignore the last message. It was late, I was tired, and I can no longer edit/delete it.

 

[midlifeflyer]

That message will never disappear. It will haunt you forever.

 

[Catbert]

D*mn this newfangled internet tomfoolery.

 

[flyingnome]

To a student, pretty much, nope. Lately, that includes private pilots coming to me looking for flight reviews. Makes me wonder where pilots come from.

I'm feeling that 1200 hour burnout coming on. Does it show?

Hey look, was that your pattern alititude 300 feet ago? Weeeeee! zzzzzzzz.

Please note the timestamp on this post.

wow while you may not like your comment the 1200 hour burn out really applys to me... espically lately. I took my first day off on saturday in a month, I can feel the final flames in the burn out just around the corner.

 

[Tonala2k]

flyingnome,
I'm employed and have to deal with sick days and waiting for vacation time to take Sat or Sun off, So I just call them Preemptive sick days. I learned that word from Prez. Bush

 

[Tonala2k]

I think it's time we all do a little home work before we post any further.

61.93 "Solo cross-country flight requirements"
(d) Limitations on authorized authorized instructors to permit solo cross-country flight.
(3) Determine that the student is proficient to conduct the flight safely.

Dreadful thought, but here it goes.
I review the flight plan and everything looks great. I've reviewed the student's log book and even spoke with the training instructor to determine the is able to make the flight safely. Airplane has an undetected oil leak. The engine quits and the student sets up short for a field. holds the nose up hoping to extend the landing, stalls the plane and falls 200 feet. Middle of no-where, unconscious, and didn't open the flight plan. Did I do my due diligence?

 

[midlifeflyer]

tonal, you're absolutely right about the wording. But, at least historically, the FAA has treated the 61.93(c)(2) endorsement independently as a planning-only endorsement, permitting the planning review CFI to rely on the general cross country endorsement as establishing flight proficiency.