1 hr Revalidation flight

[OriginalNick]

Hypothetical question:

you as an instructor fly the 1 hr reval flight with a SEP PPL. You asses his flying to be unsafe and below PPL and even solo standards, even thought he has done his 12 hrs within the last year.

What do you do if he does not realise his flying is not good enough and needs recurrent training? do you refuse to sign his logbook and demand that he does some more flying/training before you sign?

[hugh flung_dung]

Yes, but do it in a constructive way ("demand" is not an appropriate word, unless the person is a hirer).
I've only had to do this twice, in one case the bod had realised, in the other there was a little bit of upset.

HFD

[Speed Twelve]

Can be a delicate situation. It's easier if they are members of a flying club at which you work, as you'll have a direct say in whether or not they are competent to subsequently hire the company's aircraft.

I've been in the situation of having PPLs who own their own aircraft come to flying schools at which I have been an instructor to do revalidation trips with me in school aircraft. The standard can vary wildly, as some owner/PPLs don't do any standards or refresher flying with instructors at all until they are forced to.

One borderline case I had was with a tug pilot at a local gliding school. He didn't do any flying other than tugging at the same airfield. When I flew with him he couldn't really navigate or operate the radio to speak to a radar unit, but his aircraft handling was safe enough so I reluctantly signed him off on the basis that his ability was adequate to perform his usual glider tug task.

On the other hand, I have refused to sign the logbook of several pilots that I considered to be unsafe. Each time I've debriefed them on the dodgy points and offered some refresher training. Almost all have been receptive to this, and usually another sortie tailored to their requirements has brought them up to speed. One horror story involved a PPL who operated her own aircraft; on our one hour sortie she got lost in the circuit, then climbed into solid IMC, gave me control and announced that she didn't have an IMC rating and that I would have to sort it out! She got a bit upset when I told her that she'd be stuffed if I'd been her 10 year-old daughter in the other seat...

The bottom line is that I still use the maxim that my first CFI gave me: When checking out another pilot, if you wouldn't be happy having them take your wife/girlfriend flying then they need more training.

[homeguard]

The 1 hour revalidation flight has the benefit of providing ongoing training to all pilots at least every two years.
It is not a test and the flight should be undertaken in the training spirit by everyone. The requirement is only for revision training. There is no 'sign off' only a signature to say that the pilot has undertaken the training. There is no requirement for the instructor to pass judgement.
Should the pilot be so awful to be dangerous the instructor may as a free man decline to sign the log book, but it makes little difference if the pilot still has a good part of a year to continue flying before revalidation. If the pilot hires from your club you could report to the CFI for action or report to the CAA if not the case but the instructor has no power to ground the pilot.

[Speed Twelve]

Homeguard

Points taken, but from a moral and professional standpoint, if I do a revalidation flight with a PPL and consider their airmanship to be unsafe then I will not sign their logbook afterwards. We as instructors have a moral obligation to highlight deficiencies in flying standards in order to safeguard certain pilots, their passengers and those on the ground who may find themselves in the path of plummeting wreckage!

Incidentally, I don't conduct revalidation sorties as a 'test', I consider it to be an instructional flight, and will give instruction in any weak areas present. If the revalidation pilot learns something during the sortie it's a bonus. I usually ask them beforehand if there is anything specific they want to look at, PFLs, stalling, whatever, that they might not have done for a while in order to take advantage of an hour with an instructor to improve their confidence and proficiency in those areas. If after an hour of instruction I still don't consider them fit to act as P1 on a light aircraft then I ain't signing, sorry...

[Evilbob]

This is what is currently quoted in LASORS with regards to the training flight:

The FI should make the purpose of the training flight
clear at the outset. His function is to ascertain the
applicant’s knowledge and skills, and interject if
necessary to improve on these. If the primary purpose
of the flight was for some other training then the FI must
select suitable items of general handling to fulfil the
purpose of the JAR-FCL requirement and brief how
these will fit into the profile for the purpose of the
applicant’s revalidation request.

Where the aim is achieved the FI will sign the
applicants logbook, append his/her licence number and
identify the ‘Training Flight’ for the examiners purpose.

We know this is not a test situation, but the final paragraph would seem to suggest that the FI can refuse to sign if the pilot was not to a standard (s)he deems safe.