AIC 127/1999 SEP CR Dual flight Reqs

[orionsbelt]

March issue of GA feedback raises yet again the dislike by PPLs of the 1 hour dual ride with an instructor. PPLs don’t like it as its seen as a retest if the FI follows the recommendations in the AIC.
From an FI point of view, seems we have to do these flights and according to para 2.3.1 ''if the standard is satisfactory then the FI should sign the log book''. If the FI is not satisfied he should not sign the log book.
So what is the FIs personal liability if the PPL has an accident at some future time. A court of Law will say that you signed to say he was satisfactory, guilty pay £ 50 grand damages and trash your career.
In the Chirps the boss of the SRG is sitting on the fence (as usual ) and does not have the courage to say that the 1 hour dual ride is a capability check. If its anything other then the FI should not be required to sign the log book.
As a final point from 35 years of flying and several years instructing my observation are that most PPLs do not do enough hours a year to maintain skill levels and about 50%+ of then need additional instruction to maintain the rating. Further about 20% have serious skill deficiencies that could cause accidents and need a lot of additional training to bring them back up to standard.

Any other FIs have a view.

[BEagle]

The pilot displayed adequate skill during the flight you observed only. What happened thereafter was entirely the pilot's responsibility.

If you don't like the standard of the flight, tell the pilot that you won't sign his logbook. If there are any doubts, then say you will sign 'UNSATISFACTORY' in his logbook - or not sign it at all. His choice.....

But who are these bleeding heart barrack room lawyers who are doing all this whingeing? I haven't heard of any cases of pilots not performing satisfactorily during the continuation training flight, have you?



NB: Any reference to the male gender in the above post should be taken to apply equally to those of the female, ambiguous or uncertain genders.

[tacpot]

The Instructional Flight could be regarded as an MOT for Pilots.

If your car is given an MOT and it crashes the next day, it might raise a few eyebrows, but the Testing Station is unlikely to find itself in court just because it crashed - but if the test was not carried out correctly, then they may well do so.

(For non-UK readers, the 'MOT' is a yearly safety check all road vehicles in the UK must pass).

But pilot skill, and more importantly pilot judgement, are not physical dimensions that can be measured precisely like the remaining tread on a tyre. A pilot may make the correct decision during one flight but not on the next flight even though the circumstances are similar. The Crown Prosecution Service would have to weigh up this fact when considering the wisdom of prosecuting any such case. Given the number of experienced, competent, and fully current pilots who have flown into mountains, landed without the undercarriage down, and misunderstood ATC instructions, I doubt any such prosecution would ever be mounted. Worst I can see happening is being asked to give evidence to the accident investigation.

I think the place to put your energy, rather than worrying about spurious prosecutions, is to sell the benefit to the pilot of an hour of refresher training every two years.

You will fly with pilots that are going to have to have more than one hours training before you will be perfectly happy to sign their revalidation, but it is upto you to decide whether you will sign it after one hour. If not, you have to say to them, "I will not sign it, because I believe you are a liability to yourself and others".

My concerns with the current situation are that it unclear to all concerned where the standard lies (the AIC says the final standard reached must be "satisfactory", what is a satisfactory standard for a licensed pilot), and whether it is being applied in a consistent fashion. The second concern will hopefully be fixed by the passage of time, as pilot fly with various instructors and find that it is. The first part is the tricky one - To my mind somebody has to be absolutely and obviously lethal, for you to refuse to sign after one hour. They have to have shown NO judgement whatsoever, they have to have failed REPEATEDLY to learn what you have taught them, they have to have lost it completely. So, if on the approach they stall and lose 200 feet because they froze on the controls and it took you that long to force the nose down, and then after you have 'taught' them, and they full stall AGAIN but recover quickly & correctly, I would say that was satisfactory. They have demonstrated the correct actions - they know what a pilot should do if they stall on the approach. I realise that this is a lose interpretation of 'satisfactory' and it will be very hard for some instructors to stomach. Effectively you are allowing someone to continue flying when they have demonstrated a skill level at which you would not be happy putting them in for their Skill Test.

I also realise that may people will disagree with my view. I would say to them "Think how bad does someone have to be before an instructor can take away their license to fly?" And how does the instructor judge this reliably? Personally I think the only reasonable way is to set a low standard - if someone can't meet a low standard, then they probably should be grounded.

[eyeinthesky]

Tacpot:

Generally I agree with your sentiments, but take issue with your example. If you are flying with someone who stalls on the approach, I would suggest that your priority is teaching him how to avoid the stall in the first place, rather than how to get out of it!! It's no good teaching him perfect stall recovery if he does it at 50 ft and powers into the ground on the recovery!

I am also uneasy about the legalities of the fact we have to sign the logbook, but I wonder whether, a couple of years into JAR, anybody has had reason to refuse to sign and what the repercussions have been?

[bluskis]

IniSky

You had to sign logbooks to verify you had observed the logbook contained evidence of sufficient hours, 5 in 13 months.

You now have to sign saying you have flown one hour with the pilot.

Both signatures are recording a statement of fact, and under the rules is there really a legal problem.

Your question about refusal to sign should perhaps be amended to has anyone had any serious arguement with a pilot after suggesting they carry out more refresher instruction.

A supplementary question would be how many times has it been necessary to recommend refresher instruction.

[StrateandLevel]

The JAA requirement is for a training flight with an instructor of at least 1 hours duration. Its origin is in FAR-AIM the biennial check.

The reason for a signature is to enable examiners to identify that the person named is an instructor. The signature is not there to indicate that the candidate achieved any particular standard. Its purpose is to acknowledge that the flight met the requirements of a Dual Instructional Flight.

[eyeinthesky]

You should read the latest edition of 'GA Feedback' which arrived on my doormat a few days ago. There is a report on just this subject. The Head of FCL writes:

"The AIC emphasised that the flight did not represent any form of proficiency check although the instructor was able to use his discretion and refuse to provide the required signature in the log book if he felt the pilot had not demonstrated a safe level of competence."

So we're only signing to say we were there, unless we weren't happy with the standard, in which case, technically, we weren't there!! Without the signature the licence cannot be renewed for another 24 months unless he passes a separate profieciency check or finds someone who is prepared to sign him off.

Sorry, but in my book instructors are being set up as pseudo-examiners upon whom someone's licence renewal can hinge, and that's not right.

[Mister Geezer]

I would agree that it would be a rather unpleasant experience to sign off a logbook only to find that Bloggs pranged an aircraft and your name is the last FI that he flew with. Sadly the 1 hour flight is a brief snapshot of that person's flying and during that hour the standard could well be different than his/her usual flying standard. From a personal point of view I would deem a flight satisfactory if I would be happy to let a family member of mine, fly with that PPL holder. If I had any doubt whatsoever then a quiet word in a briefing room might be in order or even referring the matter to the CFI or a more experienced instructor. You have to allow for a certain margin for a drop in flying standard since a PPL will probably fly differently if they are on their own as opposed to having a FI or especially a FE sitting beside them. I would be looking for a slightly higher standard than normal, which would take into account any decay in standard before their next flight with a FI or FE.

I have recently joined the FI world and I have a PPL ‘refresher trip’ in the next few weeks and I am personally quite looking forward to see what the general standard is. I recently flew with a person who flew in the US and recently passed her PPL Skill Test and decided to fly at my local flying club. A few trips were needed until she was up to the required standard and that was just after PPL Skill Test. Don’t be afraid to not sign a logbook, if required!

[StrateandLevel]

As the DUAL flight is not a test! the instructor has no authority to impose any particular standard. He can give advice if the standard is lower than he would like, he can refuse to rent an aeroplane to the candidate, he can refuse to sign if he so wishes but, if the candidate has received 1 hour of instruction from an FI then he can legally claim to have met this JAA requirement for revalidation. If his rating is not revalidated purely on the lack of a signature when the requirement has been met, he has the right of appeal under CAA Regulation 6.

[BEagle]

Keep bleating about how the poor sap who didn't fly safely enough on the 1 hr training flight can go and moan to the CAA under Reg 6 and you'll probably end up with all revalidations having to be done by Proficiency Check.

The CAA SRG regulates safety. If a FI has refused to sign a logbook because of safety concerns about the pilot, then the matter should go to arbitration - preferably a Proficiency Check flown with a CAA Examiner at the pilot's expense - with no need for expensive lawyers! Of course, if the pilot should then fail the Proficiency Check.....

So why is there all this whining and gnashing of teeth about this very minor requirement? Just do the trip and enjoy the benefits of some brush-up training. It might just make you safer.........

[Ludwig]

BEagle and others, I am not an instructor, merely a humble PPL who will soon need the one hour. What is the objection, or indeed is there an objection, within the instructor fraternity to changing this nebulous flight doing just about anything you like with an instructor, into a proper test with pass/fail and get more instruction options?

It would seem to me that if the pont of the trip is to make sure that PPL's are reaching some minimum ongoing ability, then a proper test is the best way of doing it. There always going to be some whingers about this, but if they are up to skill then for a seasoned ppl it should be a breeze; if it isn't then they need more training. Seems straight forward enough to me.

I suppose the single seat a/c owner might belly ache that they need to spend money on hiring an unfamiliar a/c, but it will do there piloting skills no harm to fly something unfamiliar. (I write as the owner of a single seater).

[eyeinthesky]

I think the objection is that to turn it into a proper test will either turn instructors into examiners with none of the training that that involves but all the legal responsibility, or it will mean that examiners will be snowed under with these tests, needing more of them to become qualified at more cost. Examiners are given guidance from the CAA about how much to charge for their services (figures of £150 per test are bandied about), and this is to be added on top of the cost of the aircraft, whether that is a club or personal one. :eek:

[Ludwig]

So it's a fudge then, giving some sort of illusion of a safety benefit without actually achieving anything. We fly with an instructor who cannot examine just to get the chit signed and allow some official to say what a clever increase in safety benefit he has achieved. What a waste of time. :yuk:

[Speedjeans]

Not so long ago I failed a PPL because of a number of reasons, and when we got on the ground and he asked me to sign his logbook and I said no then taking him into a class room and telling him where he went wrong the bloke then went and blew his top at the CFI about me...
All I wanted to do was stop the bloke killing someone else...
The crap we all have to put up with off PPL holders is unbelivable sometimes, they think they can act like heavy metal pilots and shout when it does not go right!

Cheers
SJ's

[Ludwig]

SJ's, quite, so a proper test with defined objectives and pass or fail will get rid of the problem you encountered, surely.:)

[BEagle]

'A proper test with defined objectives and pass or fail' - that sounds to me rather like a revalidation proficiency check.

FIs give instruction, FEs test. Personally all I want an FI to do is to make sure that Mr-Whoever won't damage himself/others/my aeroplanes. He doesn't have to prove he's Chuck Yeager, just that he's safe enough. If he needs a bit of refresher work, then he should be grateful for that.

Mr-Whoever would have to be very dodgy indeed to make the FI consider him to be a safety hazard; if he didn't accept that judgement then he would merely prove himself to be an overconfident sonofabitch who shouldn't be entrusted with command of a bicycle, let alone an aeroplane!

[Mister Geezer]

The CAA have laid down a format for the flight and it looks very like the CAA has designed this flight to be a test but it is being conducted by an FI. It is divided into Sections (Pre Flight, Departure etc etc) and even wanting things like Mass and Balance to be assessed! The format of the flight is probably very similar to an LPC that you would do if your SEP rating did lapse and that is done with an FE and not an FI. Can't the CAA just advise us that the content of the flight is at the instructors discretion? In my case I will fly with some PPLs that I know well and a long drawn formal flight is not required when I know they are up to a high standard before I even jump into the aircraft. What are your views on this?