Tab

[kell17]

AOPAPILOT -- The instructors at TAB aren't on the controls for any of the take-offs and landings. The student, flying in the right seat as the sole manipulator of the controls, logs the take offs and landings.

Obviously, you can't log the take-off and landing on the portion of the loft when you are in the back seat. On any given loft flight, you fly one leg and log one take-off and landing. At the outstation, you switch out with your partner, and log safety time for the cruise portion of the flight back to DeLand while your partner has his foggles on. Your partner flies and logs one take-off and landing for the return flight. The instructor is always in the right seat for take-off and landing, but one of the students is flying.

True, safety time is not the highest regarded form of PIC time...but it is completely legal to fly and log as PIC time. If you are not a MEI or the son or daughter of wealthy parents, how else can you build multiengine flight time? Who can afford to buy solo multi time?

The safety pilot time at TAB is not "down time" for the student. In addition to handling the ATC calls and Nav, the instructor is constantly asking scenario questions from the back. As the safety pilot, the student in the right seat has to think as a Captain...and the instructor forces the students to constantly think ahead...anticipate problems...be ready for the next phase of flight. In my opinion, it was much easier to be the pilot on the controls.

All of my safety pilot multiengine PIC time is clearly logged in my logbook, with the name of the PIC on the controls in the remarks block. I never had an interviewer question its validity.

 

[eyelevelflyer]

kell17, funny how you spout praise for TAB, and you have 1200hrs. Can you see the difference between you and a 0 to 370 TAB grad. Enough said! Well not enough yet, you then defend them in another post. Saying that times are tough and the school is new, and that only the lucky get hired. Fine then DON'T ADVERTISE THAT PEOPLE ARE GETTING HIRED DIRECTLY FROM TAB AND THAT THERE IS A SHORTAGE OF PILOTS, please tell the truth. Three words, marketing, marketing, deception.

 

[eyelevelflyer]

Gulfstream4ever

Get a clue, you get 100 in the King Air, but 50 as a Safety Pilot.

 

[MelbourneMatt]

Guess what I did as a TAB student today? I logged 5.5 hours cross country with 2 actual IFR (1 ILS, 1 VOR) and a night landing in the King Air.

Now tell me, what other flight school can touch that?

If you aren't interested in what TAB has to offer, then don't go there!

When we landed in Vero Beach today, I had two FSI students come up to me and the other FO and ask if we were hiring. You should've seen his face when I told him I was a student also. He just said, "Wasn't that you in that King Air?"

 

[cyork25]

I have to put my .02 in here. I recently looked at most of the flight schools in florida and a few other states. The school that most impressed me was TAB. The other thing that impressed me was how many airline pilots, that fly for the majors, recommended this school to me, not to mention the deg. examiner/check airman for the 757 and 767 at AA.

 

[bobbysamd]

FSI v. TAB

Guess what I did as a TAB student today? I logged 5.5 hours cross country with 2 actual IFR (1 ILS, 1 VOR) and a night landing in the King Air.

Now tell me, what other flight school can touch that . . . . . When we landed in Vero Beach today, I had two FSI students come up to me and the other FO and ask if we were hiring. You should've seen his face when I told him I was a student also. He just said, "Wasn't that you in that King Air?"

I instructed at FSI. I recall a couple of flights during which my Seminole instrument students shot the ILS in actual. I recall one flight during which ATC even gave us a real hold in actual. We did plenty of IFR training at night, including night landings.

At ERAU/Prescott, we routinely took Seminole instrument students to the L.A. Basin in actual to shoot approaches.

I recall getting actual and instrument approaches in actual when I was a student flying a lowly 172.

The truth is, you can log actual and shoot approaches in actual as a student at any school if you get the right kind of weather. Students in San Francisco and L.A. get safe actual conditions. Not to mention the Northeast. You can't say that only TAB offers IFR training in IMC. The King Air time is nice, but not that much of an advantage over recip at this stage of training, especially when costs are compared.

 

[Diesel]

Why is it so impressive that the instructors are "airline guys". Most airline guys I know are way out of the loop when it comes what's hapening in the real world.

When we landed in Vero Beach today, I had two FSI students come up to me and the other FO and ask if we were hiring. You should've seen his face when I told him I was a student also. He just said, "Wasn't that you in that King Air?"

Did you tell them how much you were paying for that flight? I'm surprised SunJet is letting you pump fuel without paying cash?

Guess what I did as a TAB student today? I logged 5.5 hours cross country with 2 actual IFR (1 ILS, 1 VOR) and a night landing in the King Air.

Was this as safety pilot or PIC?

Last question do you guys have to wear hats?

 

[172driver]

Hope you're not logging PIC safety pilot time during that two hrs of IMC? I don't think you are a safety pilot when there's no traffic to look for...Who foots that bill, as 2 pilots can't log the time? I have a good guess...you both pay and log it, right?

Also, better not log the approaches that the flying pilot performed. You can log the flight time while he shoots the approaches in VFR conditions under the hood but not the approaches themselves, unless you are the sole manipulator.

That feeling you get right now when others see you in the King Air is the same one you'll see from the other end in a year or two. My guess...you'll have to dig up yet more money for a CFI ticket and they'll be getting paid to fly a King Air.

Please respond as to how you log IMC time when sharing the plane. I'm very curious because I can't see one student footing the entire bill for two hrs of King Air time just to fly in the clouds. Valuable experience, yes. Loggable by two pilots, nope. Expensive, ummm, I'd say ridiculously so.

Do you really think your IMC time in the King Air was worth a thousand bucks an hr more than in a Seminole, or even a C172? News flash...most flight schools do fly IFR cross countries and offer much more IFR time and IMC time than you'll be getting at Tab. When I get done with CFI-ing 15 miles down the road from you, I'll have logged 75-100 hrs in the soup, legitimately, and hundreds of hrs in the IFR environment.

Have fun when you are forced into getting your CFI ticket, being actually in charge of a 2400 lb aircraft, with no AP, no co-pilot, in bumpy IMC, with a pale green student next to you, hoping you know what you're doing. Hope that CRM training in the King Air comes in handy.

Oh yeah...I forgot...you'll be flying for the regionals with your 250 hrs...

 

[eyelevelflyer]

Good Post 172driver, finally someone is seeing TAB for what they really are.

 

[bobbysamd]

Airline instructors v. real CFIs

Why is it so impressive that the instructors are "airline guys". Most airline guys I know are way out of the loop when it comes what's hapening in the real world.

I have reflected on the notion of "airline guys" as instructors (as if I have nothing better to do ). Based on my experience with airline pilots, I must second Diesel.

Airline pilots know well the environment in which they operate and the equipment they fly, but, unless they are CFIs who instruct primary, instrument and commercial students actively, they have nary a clue about student pilots, student training and student training aircraft.

My last aviation employer was a well-known small company that primarily sold type ratings and trained United applicants for their interviews. The place was owned by three United pilots. Somehow, the place landed a contract to train Middle East students for their Commercial-Multi-Instrument. Providing real LOFT was to be part of the plan. I and another instructor were training them. We had a Seminole to get them their Commercial-Multi-Instrument. These owners had very little, if any, experience in student pilot training.

We had a great deal of contact with one of United pilot-owners. Although he owned a Mooney, he exhibited little knowlege (to me, anyway) about how normal student flight training worked and the environment in which student training operates. I remember talking to him about the airspace reclassification that went into effect. I tried to talk to him about Class A, B, etc. He said that because his world was IFR, he didn't care.

I realize that this was just one airline pilot and that one should not generalize, but I submit that this gentleman's attitude and level of knowledge of the student training environment was more the norm than the exception.

Airline pilots, if they can teach, are great at teaching real-world ATC and IFR flying. But, please, you have to learn how to walk before you can run. Real CFIs, who spend every day teaching in the small aircraft which many airline pilots may disdain, and whose world revolves around primary, instrument, commercial and multi students, are specialists in that field and are those from whom one should learn the rudiments of flying.