Check flights

[Pronto]

I’ve recently changed flying club and find that my new club requires every pilot to have an annual check flight. On the second year, this doubles-up with the bi-annual revalidation training flight of course. There’s no requirement for the check-ride to be with an instructor – the club has a few experienced pilots who are authorised to conduct them.

I don’t know why we’ve got such a regime - it may be an insurance requirement. However, my question is does anyone know of any other club in the UK which requires annual check flights, or are we unique?

[gcolyer]

It is pretty much a standard thing. In fact most clubs have currency rule as well wich is usualy between 30 and 45 days in which if you have not flown you need to do a club check again.

As for who does the check it doesn't matter if it is an instructor or a member, it is down to the club to decide.

Most clubs also require you to do an oversea check flight if you plan to fly to france or anywhere which is a fair decent over open waters.

[BackPacker]

Our club is really decent in this respect. To rent an aircraft as PIC, you have to have done either a club check with a club instructor, or a proficiency check with a club instructor, not longer than 13 months ago; your last flight should not be longer than six months ago and you need to have been checked out on the specific aircraft type (our club has a lot of different types).

This is all in addition to the usual legal rules of course.

[Comanche250]

I fly at a number of different clubs/schools and most of them apart from one have a 28 day rule for each type of a/c. The one that dosent has a yearly check regime.

Its good and its bad the 28 day rule. If I fly one a/c at one school and stay current there, then become uncurrent at another school with identical a/c you still have to have a check flight there. That's a pain!

However there's the increased safety aspect with having regular currency checks, the only downside being that in my case, its not really a currency check as such as im usually already current!

C250

[englishal]

The flying club I was a member of required an annual check which is fair enough. If you hadn't flown for 28 days they also required 3 circuits with an instructor, but they were very good and provided the instructor for free for this. Landings were included in the rental cost as well....

[Pronto]

Thanks for the replies so far. We also have a currency rule. At my last club (the one with no annual check requirement), it was IIRC, 28 days, and no set down format for the handling check which was ordinarily carried out by an instructor and was charged for.

My current club (the one that requires an annual check) have aligned currency with the 90-day rule for the carriage of passengers . . ..

Both clubs required a check before going foreign, which does appear standard.

Any further contributions on the subject are welcome!

[Life's a Beech]

Best I heard of was annual check on the most difficult type you want to fly, and must have flown somewhere (not necessarily that club) in the last 28 days. Had stricter requirements for less experienced pilots though.

[jamestkirk]

An anuual and bi-annual check may be a good thing for some but not others. Not sure on that.

How do you log the time if you are not with an instructor apart from supernumary/any other flying or P1.

[Gertrude the Wombat]

My club has a 21 day rule. But flying elsewhere counts, provided that you get a signature (the club just wants to know that you've flown recently, it's not interested in making money off you for check rides).

But this can be a bit dodgy ... on one occasion my signature-from-elsewhere was for floatplane training, and I hadn't actually flown a landplane for a while, and the crosswind landing was a bit not-very-good. (Hint: there aren't any crosswind landings in floatplanes on sufficiently large lakes, you just land straight into wind.)

[18greens]

One club runs 6 month checks and a check if you haven't flown for 28 days (with no instructor charge)

[Fuji Abound]

I don’t understand this at all:

The CAA, as regulator, says one thing, flying schools variously say different things, and so do groups, each presumably believing they or their insurance firms know better than the regulator (and I appreciate it is their prerogative to make up their own rules as they go along) - bizarre.

[BackPacker]

Fuji, It might just be the other way around. The regulator, appreciation the safety consciousness of many organisations in aviation (both clubs and insurance underwriters), may have decided not to burden these organisations with a lot of rules but instead set a bare minimum, and leaving it up to the organisations to augment these rules to suit their specific circumstances?

[Fuji Abound]

BP - it might

The insurance company doesnt place any such restrictions on me with my own aircraft.

It maybe that either the insurance firms or the "schools" are unable to vet their clients properly, or their clients are more "risky" pilots. It could also be the regulator is wrong.

[Slopey]

Their planes, their rules.... :)

[BackPacker]

Fuji, if the insurance company doesn't place any restrictions on you now, but you would place restrictions on yourselves and on the other pilots that use your plane, including students and low-hours renters, would your premiums go down?

I think with insurance you get what you pay for. No restrictions insurance might be more expensive than insurance with restrictions. Particularly for planes that are used in flying training and low-hour renters. Possibly even to the point where the difference is so much that it pays for a lot of check flights.

[tiggermoth]

It's six weeks at our club. My last checkride, when I was just out of the six weeks was just a quick couple of circuits.

[jamestkirk]

The other question is the recency and ability of an individual if the conditions are not CAVOK/wind calm.

Some of our PPL hirers are better than others and we can make a judgment on their ability based on how far back thee last flight was and our experience with them.

A FTO has to look at the possibility of an aircraft coming off the side of the runway and being U/S for a while is a loss of income due to the lack of currency of a hirer.

Of course that runs hand-in-hand with the legal requirements/dual checks etc.