Carrying Passengers
 

Hello,

Could be a very silly question really, but its worth an ask, I'm undergoing my PPL at Leeds Bradford, got 25 hours so far, with 4 being PIC. With the clubs permission and from their CFE, am I able to fly a passenger at this stage in a solo training circuit? Or is this completely forbidden?

Sorry if I sound silly,
Alex

No, you don't have a licence.

Cheers

Whirls

Until you have a licence you may not fly other than

(a) with an instructor in the aircraft; or
(b) completely on your own; or of course
(c) as a passenger.

You may not fly "solo" with a passenger. If the school and instructor agree you may, legally, have a passenger in the back during a lesson with an instructor present.

If you've done four hours PIC most schools would have wanted you to pass the Air Law exam by now, in which case you would know this.

Thank you for the replies. Passed air law worryingly enough, I'll find the section on the carriage of pax.

On a purely practical basis, you'll probably find, when you do begin flying passengers that for a while you will feel that your workload has increased significantly.

It may be just be coming from the feeling of responsibility or the passengers may actually distract you by asking questions at the wrong time etc.

Do a few post-licence solos first, get really comfortable with flying and then start with passengers would be my advice. Don't rush it.

One of the Safety Sense leaflets from the CAA is about carrying passengers. Good advice to read before your first passenger-carrying flight.

Personally I've got a little "pax briefing" checklist on the back of my kneeboard which I use to brief them, usually once we're in the aircraft just before engine start.

I recall a student asking if he could take his wife in the back on a training exercise. I told him that would probably make us overweight, but by doing a weight and balance he could find out for himself. As it happened we were overweight so she had to wait until we had burnt off an hours fuel. On the second sortie with his wife in the back, the students performance went from mediocre to poor!

BTW Alex, you don't happen to be married to Katie Price AKA Jordan, do you?

If he is, he will have serious W&B issues, although not as bad as they would have been before she had the reduction done :)

I generally do my briefing AFTER the engine start, as I find 'less' of them jump out and run away! Also, on an unrelated note, when bringing passengers up who have never flown in light aircraft before I grab the checklist and advise them I'm just reading the instructions.

Starting to run out of people to go flying with though....

I did carry family in the back on occasions during training (Instructor onboard!). To be honest, I forgot they were there. Don't if you think that you may be distracted.

Also, they can get air-sick if your training that day is Advanced Autorotations! Your fixed-wing course no doubt has an equivalent vomit-maker

That is indeed me, sorry for the late reply, Peter (andre) has just been trying to take the kids again :ugh:

It's called Unusual Attitudes, or even Aerobatics. But it's not part of the PPL syllabus anymore.

I guess the best vomit-producing exercises in the PPL syllabus today are stalls and low flying/low level navigation.

So what should the passengers do in the event of engine fire on start if you havent briefed them about emergency evacuation and how to unlatch doors etc etc.

??

I honestly don't think that an engine fire on start is going to require an exit so fast that fumbling a door catch is going to matter.
Pax evac briefing is more to do with catastrophic "if i'm not there to help you" scenarios, surely?
If an aeroplane is on fire people don't need to be told to move away from it quickly, that happens naturally. You're far more likely to need to stop them from leaping out into a running prop while you're blowing through an exhaust fire and some twerp outside is screaming "Fire, fire". In that scenario, and no amount of pre-briefing will have any affect on their attempt to run - a blocking arm across the exit and a cry of "STOP!" will be required. If they do need to leave, "THAT WAY! GO!" is the formula.

But surely best time to demo belts, doors and brief is in the quiet before all the interesting and distracting things start to happen? That is, when you shouldn't be distracted either.

Probably tongue in cheek. However in my experience it really might not be the best time. You find someone has not worked out how to do up their belt, or has pulled out the head phone plugs or some such thing. Turning around to sort them out is the perfect opportunity to not notice the aircraft creeping forward when you least expect it!

Exactly, in this country, which is the posters concern.

Am I right that things are / were different in France - did the Brevet de Base allow students to fly with passengers?