Originally Posted by
TangoAlphad
At the risk of sounding harsh anyone flying a SEP on a PPL without supervision of an instructor should be capable of passing a PC or you shouldn't be flying it as you are not current enough or have allowed your skills to degrade to an unacceptable point and you should volunteer yourself up for some remedial training with an instructor. A PFL is not a one off exercise to test you on and forget, it is a save your life if the donkey quits skill set you should be capable of doing! PC is generally a lax affair etc and usually carried out with the intention to achieve some training value. I wouldn't be afraid of it and if you are your next few hours need to be with an instructor.
Thanks for the input, and no, I'm not scared that I won't pass, but there is always the "exam nerves", especially if it's with a stern examiner! There's a difference (at least for me), with being confident that if necessary, I could get a plane safely down into a field, and being confident that I can show a textbook PFL under exam conditions
Originally Posted by
scifi
I just wonder why you are doing all these check-flights, is it a currency requirement of the place you hire the aircraft?
It would have been far easier if you had done a few 1+ hour flights to a distant airfield then return after tea and cakes.
In many Gliding Clubs, they can ask for 2 week currency, just to give their Basic Instructors some free airtime. Whether this is ethical or not is open to discussion.
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Yep, that's it. The club I fly at has a 1-month currency check, if you've not flown a club plane within the last 30 days it's a compulsory check out with an instructor. This does mean however, that if for reasons of weather or planes being out of service, or whatever, its very easy to slip out of the 30-day period
Most annoyingly is if you have a week's holiday and want to borrow a plane, then there's ONE good weather day and you spent it flying with an instructor, then the plane is booked out for the rest of the day!
I've recently changed to a club closer to me which should make it easier.
Thanks to everyone else for the replies too, my main thing is I just don't see myself getting 5 hours solo in between now and the end of the summer (I'm currently checked out so I can take the plane out), with work and a wedding to plan* (mine!) I think it might be easier to just do the PC. Unless there's any overwhelmingly obvious reason not to, that I've not thought of?
*this is also financially-thinking, £PC + fee < £5 hours flying