VFE queried -
Quote:
PPL holders with circa 200hrs became eligable to take the FIC,
Was it about that figure Barry?
VFE.
Off the cuff and from memory I think it was even less.
Back in 1960 when I did my own FIC I think it was 150 hours in command and the FIC was of 20 hours including up to 3 hours mutual with an indeterminate time required to reach the standard for the ground elements. The AFI priviledges included night, I/F and aerobatics so there was no further course other than for multi-engine.
What a difference to todays JAR-FCL rigmarole.
I was then paying £1.75 an hour for our group owned Tiger Moth and half my course was with the late FltLt Z W Kaye, our group CFI, and the other half with the immortal Stan Ward at Ipswich. There was no charge from either FIC instructor since they were both PPL holders while having enormous experience back to WW2. The total cost was £35.00 plus the FIE's fee of £5.00 and a further £5.00 to GAPAN to issue my assistant instructors certificate after which the then govenment department issued my rating FOC. Total cost £45.00. As I was then a junior surveyor/estimator in the building industry earning around £10.00 per week this was equivalent to just over a months salary.
Today's costs to gain a FI(R) - I can only boggle at..............!!!!!!!! My sympathies to those who have bitten the bullet financially.
The PPL instructor, paid for the task in a flying club environment, continued up to the BCPL introduction in 1988.
Remember, virtually all the gliding instrucors in the UK do so on a voluntary basis without any remuneration. Why not the same for a PPL in a flying club?
Many microlight instructors are paid for their work yet they only have a PPL(D) or an NPPL(microlights) with a microlight instructor rating. Why not the same for a PPL in a flying club?
Lets have a level playing field here. Fair do's as my antipodean friends might say.
Cheers,
Trapper 69
