Just wondering if anyone has any views on this.
I am a PPL with a tad short of 90 hours training on the Tomahawk. I want to checkout on the PA28 as I want to carry more PAX. I have a friend who is at the same level as me and she also wants to checkout in the PA28. We have decided to do the checkout sort of jointly in parallel. The idea being she sits in the back as a 'silent passenger' during my checkout and I do the same when she has hers. The reasoning is that it 'loads up' the plane to a level that is likely to be used and also gives this 'silent passenger' additional experience.
The problem is the flying school have almost outright blasted this as a terrible idea. I will not go into detail but will list a few of their reasons for the bad idea.
In a nutshell, the checkride roughly equates to 4-5 hours of flying split roughly as follows (as explained to me by the school)
3-4 hours two up (me + instruction) doing all the handling, slow flight, steep turns, nav, PFL's etc.
1 circuit fully loaded MTOW to give me an idea of what the handling characteristics are like fully loaded.
My argument is that I am only likely to fly 4 up in the PA28 and would therefore prefer (brave PAX willing) to do 3-4 hours loaded up and they finish of maybe with a circuit or two with a lighter load and solo. As the majority of my PA28 flying will be 3+ up then I would assume it better to be trained this way. If I planned a 2 up trip I would probably take the cheaper and more readily availably Tommy.
I told the instructor that I would prefer my first dealing with a possible steep turn or near stall not be with me wife and children aboard but with a QFI and ballast. He told me that it was to dangerous to do all the other practice fully laden….!
Any view appreciated.