I saw this happen

[Weasil]

That's right.. they set a minimum. My question is why did they put full stop landings as part of the minimum requirement instead of touch and goes if those are so much more valuable a teaching tool. Like I stated previously, doing full stops does not ensure the student has to contact ground control. The towered field might not even have ground control and even if they do, lots of times when staying in the traffic pattern you just taxi back to the runway while remaining on tower frequency. Or what if you did full stop, stop and goes... these would have no different experience for a solo student in dealing with a control tower than touch and goes. The towered experience would be the same in this case whether they were full stop or not.

 

[Crizz]

Dude... why would they put the tower stipulation in there if their intent was to make the student do full stops? Why wouldnt they just word it "3 solo landings to a full stop"

If your contention is that the tower has no value, then explain the stipulation.

 

[Weasil]

i'm not saying the tower has no value. the tower has lots of value.. of course it does. I'm saying both stipulations are in there, the tower requirement and the requirement for full stops.

A couple of earlier posts said that they added full stops to make you deal with ground control. But if you were to do stop and go landings then you would not deal with ground control. So it seems to me that the requirement to do the landings at a towered field is considered to have value and the requirement to do full stops is also considered to have separate value.

 

[liv'n_on_credit]

PIC

Nobody's mentioned it so I will. How can a student pilot have 6 hours of PIC time? We all know pre-private solo time is not loggable as PIC.

If the student is the only person in the airplane but not the PIC, then what Pilot is In Command? I sure hope someone is in command of the plane.

 

[Timebuilder]

I was told that the FAA addressed this enigma in the 1990's, and made all solo time PIC time.

In one hundred hours of flight, six hours of PIC (solo) time seems low to me. Of course, if someone flies twenty hours a year, at a rate of one hour every two plus weeks, then in five years you probably wouldn't be a private pilot, and would be lucky to fly well enough to generate six hours of solo time.

It's just that this is not the norm.

 

[TWA Dude]

Re: PIC

If the student is the only person in the airplane but not the PIC, then what Pilot is In Command? I sure hope someone is in command of the plane.

There's a big difference between acting as PIC and logging time as PIC. I was referring to logging only.

Weasil:

I recall logging my pre-private solo time as PIC back in 1991 because my CFI told me I could. I also remember having to "correct" that issue in my logbook so the interviewers at United wouldn't throw a poop-fit. Students with times like the guy in question probably aren't cut out for an airline career anyway so I guess it's moot.

Dude

 

[SierraPilot]

FAR 61.51

(e) Logging pilot-in-command flight time.

(4) A student pilot may log pilot-in-command time only when the student pilot --

(i) Is the sole occupant of the aircraft OR is performing the duties of pilot of command of an airship requiring more than one pilot flight crewmember;

(ii) Has a current solo flight endorsement as required under § 61.87 of this part; and

(iii) Is undergoing training for a pilot certificate or rating.

 

[Weasil]

61.109aii refers to dual instruction at night. The discussion is about solo in the daytime.

However, why do you think the dual night landings have to be full stops instead of touch and goes? These don't have to be at a towered field so the argument that doing full stops is just to expose you to a tower and ground operation makes no sense. There must be some other reason for making them full stops.

 

[dmspilot00]

61.109aii refers to dual instruction at night. The discussion is about solo in the daytime.

However, why do you think the dual night landings have to be full stops instead of touch and goes? These don't have to be at a towered field so the argument that doing full stops is just to expose you to a tower and ground operation makes no sense. There must be some other reason for making them full stops.

You are right about the regulation referring to night. Sorry.

You asked me for my opinion, so I'll say I think that dual night landings have to be full stops because taxiing at night is much more difficult than in the daytime. Taxiing at a controlled airport is much more difficult than taxiing at an uncontrolled airport. I do not think the regulation intended for anyone to do stop-and-goes, however only the people that wrote the regulations can answer that.

I do not understand why you are trying to say that the towered airport landings have to be full stop for the practice of performing full stop landings. Obviously if the student makes at least 3 solo flights then the student will have to make 3 full stop landings. You can't terminate a flight without doing a full stop landing.

In order to not do 3 solo full stop landings the student would have to go on no more than two flights with an average of 5 hours each, way beyond the range of most airplanes.

I believe that the FAA would have made a separate regulation if they wanted the student to get extra practice in "full stop" landings.

 

[Weasil]

Hi, all good points. What if you were doing your training at a non-towered airport though. Then you might only go to a towered field once while soloing.

I don't know the answer to this question, I'm just putting it out there. It seems a lot of people agree with teaching their students to do solo touch and goes. What about having your students do solo soft field touch and goes? Is that a good idea?

I remember a guy up in Milwaukee who had his student doing solo short field landings and he landed short of the runway. The FAA were talking about this at a seminar and they said that there was no record in the student's logbook that he had been show how to do short field landings prior to going solo. The instructor said he had taught him to do them but got in trouble for not telling the student not to do them solo because his logbook didn't indicate he had bee trained on them.