pa42
1st Feb 2008, 09:13
Student shows up with his older two-place aircraft equipped only with needle, ball, airspeed, altimeter. No other gyros. No VOR or GPS, and just a magnetic compass and DR for navigation. Desires to receive the 10 hours of initial instrument training for the commercial certificate in this aircraft (it can, after all, be flown solely by reference to instruments--we call it "partial panel" when preparing for the Instrument Rating).
Question is, will the FAA (notably the DPE) honor that 10 hours of instrument training, in partial panel only, in computing the total instrument time when it comes to the Practical Test for the Instrument Rating or for the Commercial Certificate? Clearly the 10-hour requirement was originally intended to enable the pilot to recover safely from inadvertent excursions into IMC, and partial panel does just that--is there any basis for rejecting the candidate as not having "real" instrument time?
Question is, will the FAA (notably the DPE) honor that 10 hours of instrument training, in partial panel only, in computing the total instrument time when it comes to the Practical Test for the Instrument Rating or for the Commercial Certificate? Clearly the 10-hour requirement was originally intended to enable the pilot to recover safely from inadvertent excursions into IMC, and partial panel does just that--is there any basis for rejecting the candidate as not having "real" instrument time?