RA Instructor rating before CPL?
 

G'day,

I'm a prospective flight student currently sussing out training options. A flight school at a small uncontrolled airstrip near me put me onto a training pathway that I haven't encountered elsewhere and I want to see if anyone here has any thoughts about it.

They said I can do this progression: RPC -> RPL -> PPL -> RA Instructor. So I could start doing RA Instructing as soon as I hit the required PIC hours, which I believe is 100. The idea being to get working earlier and be able to claim all further training (CPL, MEIR, ATPL etc) as tax deductions. The RA Instructor rating could be converted to GA after finishing my CPL. They say they've only recently started doing things this way but have an instructor who did it to prove it works.

Anyone heard of this? Does it sound feasible? My main concern is that I wouldn't actually be able to find instructing work with such low hours, or that I would not be ready to be able to perform the job well when so inexperienced.

Cheers.

Have a read of this - https://www.ato.gov.au/Individuals/T...8/?=redirected
Then talk to a taxation specialist rather than believe what a flying school tells you.

I'd check with the tax office first if I were you. I don't think it can be done. And I know the rules have changed recently with flight instructing, but I don't think you can get paid employment as a pilot with only a PPL. You need to have a CPL.

Thanks for the link.

The guy I spoke to who trained this way said he went to the ATO and after a lengthy explanation of the difference between RA and GA got the approval to claim back his further training as tax deductions, and did so. Grain of salt, of course, but he seemed to have too much information on this topic to be making it up.

I don't want to give the impression that I'm only interested in this pathway because of the potential tax breaks, though. Genuinely curious if people think this would make me a safer and more knowledgeable pilot that doing a more conventional order of licenses and ratings.

NB, not a reflection on you the original poster but questions on the robustness of the current system.

You can get an RA instructor rating with 100hrs TT and work as an instructor?

And as a RAinstructor you can then train pilots for an RPC (basically equivalent to the GA RPL other than it is only for RA registered aircraft)?

I assume as an RPC holder with an instructor rating you can get nav privileges and control airspace privileges and then can endorse RA pilots for these?

If so basically you can train RA pilots to have similar rights as a PPL (obviously restricted to RA aircraft though) as an instructor with a little over 100hrs total time?

And those RPC students can turn up with their RPC at a GA school and get that converted to a RPL with a check out on a VH aircraft?

Meaning if they have nav and controlled airspace privileges on their RPL, they have a defacto PPL?

Meanwhile, a GA school must employ instructors who would have at least a minimum 200 hrs TT (if they do an integrated 150 hr CPL + FIR rating, otherwise 250hrs min). These instructors can train someone for a PPL (but cannot sent students solo and must be directly supervised by grade 1 instructors) and the school must be audited by CASA and have an AOC that specifies in detail the training standards, recording of students, operating procedures, safety systems, maintenance systems etc.

I dunno but this seems weird to me. How can GA schools can compete - should we pressuring CASA to allow 100hr instructors in GA? Aren't they effectively allowing this by letting RA do this?

NB Meaning no reflection on RAAus instructors - there are really good RAAus instructors who train students to a high standard but if they have instructors with 100hrs TT churning out new pilots that can then do a quick conversion to a PPL from this training - is that right or have I got the wrong end of the sav?

Can GA schools compete against this? What standard of pilots would we be producing? I just think 100hrs is a pretty green pilot, may have great potential and become be a fantastic one down the track but 100hrs is very green to start training other pilots.

A junior G3 GA instructor that requires at least double that TT is usually still a work in progress (again no reflection on G3s - you have to start somewhere and may potentially be fantastic instructors but there is a reason they must be supervised - they still need to build experience and require oversight).

I am sure someone can explain where the checks and balances are in this (eg with how many hours in a RAAus instructor course? What restrictions are there on RAAus junior instructors?)

Am I being overly worried? What do thers think?

Jonkster, a RPC holder cannot get a controlled airspace endorsement. The RPC holder must hold at least a current RPL with airspace endorsement to be able to fly into controlled airspace. Being a RAAus instructor with cross country endorsement also does not entitle you to go into controlled airspace. There are some limited exceptions to this for schools operating out of a class D aerodrome.

I don't have the knowledge to answer most of your questions accurately, but according to the RAA Ops Manual it's 100 PIC, not TT, so I suspect the total time wouldn't be that far off GA requirements anyway. Also several limitations, like no being able to approve a student for solo flight.

As for endorsements the only ones explicitly mentioned in the manual are Radio Operator, Cross Country, Passenger Carrying and Human Factors.

Slightly off topic: do RAAus abinitio hours count towards G2 abinitio hour requirements?

I'd never thought of it that way... intriguing!

The most junior-burger of RAAus Instructors will likely have no less than 150hrs TT (minimum 20hrs dual to get RPC + 100hrs PIC + 20hr dual instructor training +/- additional hours for PAX, Cross-country, BFRs, and other endorsements along the way). Not much, agreed - but on par with CASA G3 instructors given that the RAAus Syllabus is limited to Class G ops only.

You might be able to send in the paperwork to casa and get an RPL on paper, but it wont be endorsed so you cant use it until you get a flight school to sign you off to say you have met the RPL standards. This will take several hours of training with a GA school.

No endorsement needed. What you do need is a flight review in a GA aircraft to be able to use the RPL. Some schools have RAAus and GA registered versions of the same aircraft, eg SportStar or Foxbat which means the flight review should just be the one flight in the GA version.

In this case, to fly the same aircraft in the same airspace with a different registration, you need to jump through a lot of hoops, get a medical and an ASIC or AVID and another flight review. Not a lot of common sense there.

I think it varies a lot school to school. If you are going to be flying the same plane type in the same class G airspace, then sure a simple flight review will suffice. Not sure what the point of doing this would be apart from wanting to log hours in a VH reg plane. If you want to move up to say a 172 from a foxbat and fly in controlled airspace/controlled aerodromes then any reputable flight school would require a fair amount of training to sign you off on this.