I don't think there's anything wrong with teaching a student to make those turns at 500 feet. It gives him/her something to focus on, at the very early stage when they need some form of guidance. After the trainee becomes a pilot and is, perhaps, placed in a situation similar to the one that
stallie has been describing for the last few years (
), the pilot should have enough training and education to be able to arrive at an appropriate command decision.
After all, isn't it all about survival out there? What price "command judgement" and "command decisions" these days?
I'll complicate the issue even further now by saying that a newly minted CIR pilot can use a SID that requires a turn off RWY HDG at 400 feet AGL. How is this different to a VFR pilot, with similar flight hours turning at 500 feet?
