Balancing experience vs. risk in flight schools

[jrh]

I might be helping my flight school develop a written policy for flight operations, establishing things like weather minimums, minimum experience levels to fly at night, etc.

My question is, how would you establish reasonable criteria that balances the need to gain experience and learn versus the need to prevent accidents and protect flight school assets?

I think flight schools that don't allow things like flying in actual instrument conditions are ridiculously over-protective. It was mentioned in another thread how this is the trend with many flight schools nowadays, and I think it's a shame.

However, I also think flight schools that have no policy beyond "don't do anything stupid" are asking for trouble, although I wish that weren't the case. That's actually how I learned and appreciate that background very much, but I've seen too many people do too many stupid things to realistically expect that much freedom to be a good idea at a flight school.

So if you could write any policy from scratch, how would you go about designing it? What do *you* think is reasonable, from both a safety and economic viewpoint?


To give you a little background on the school:

We have a written rental policy, but it isn't very detailed and isn't very strictly enforced. I'd consider this plan we're writing to be starting from the ground up.
We have two aircraft, both are late model Cessna 172s.
Both aircraft are fully IFR capable, including GPS and autopilots.
One aircraft has a G1000 panel.
We're based in the upper midwest, so the most significant weather risks are icing, high winds, and thunderstorms.
Most of our training (about 80-90%) focuses on primary students, with an occasional instrument student. We do not offer higher ratings.
Most of our flying (probably 90%) is under very supervised conditions. Either a CFI is in the plane or is directly responsible for a student flying solo. Only about 10% of our flying is unsupervised, licensed pilots renting the planes.

[Seggy]

In order to rent and fly without a CFI in instrument conditions, one must get checked out with a CFI before hand.

That CFI is to go over decision making, with the potential renter, weather, and other factors that are important in making go/no-go choices.

Then the student is limited to flying ONLY when the visibility is greater than 3 miles and 1000 foot overcast skies primarily along the route of flight and at the destination airport.

With an instrument student and CFII in the airplane, I would bring it down to greater than 2 miles visibility and 500 foot overcast skies.

You must have three airports with instrument approaches, two of which must have an ILS, that you can use as alternates within an hours flight time from you at all times.

Winds greater than 20 knots are prohibited and flight into known icing conditions are prohibited as well.

That is what I would start with and go from there.

[JEP]

....I might be helping my flight school develop a written policy for flight operations, establishing things like weather minimums, minimum experience levels to fly at night, etc.

My question is, how would you establish reasonable criteria that balances the need to gain experience and learn versus the need to prevent accidents and protect flight school assets?

In all honesty, I am surprised that the insurance company has not already set those limits.

I know the flight school where I trained, they had limits that varied from student, to ppl, to with/without CFI. Weather was of course the issue. How much wind, how cold, wx at destination, etc.....

Short of wind, the wx mins were VFR for VFR pilots and IFR was just that. If you had the ratings and were checked out in the plane they would allow you to fly. I would hatea to have trained for my IFR ticket and then have the school not rent to me in IFR conditions.....

The only night restrictions that I can recall were "No student pilot solo flight at night".

I don't know how else you can do it short of basic wind requirements and relative to the certificate held......

I am sure that doesn't help much, but I would be interested to see what you come up with.

[jrh]

Thanks, Seggy, for your thoughts.

I used to work for a place that had fairly restrictive rental requirements. When it came to weather, they required at least 8 miles visibility and 2000 foot ceilings I think, with about 15 or 20 knots of wind I think...it's been a while since I worked there.

However, if a CFI was on board, they left almost everything up to the CFI's discretion. Of course they expected the CFI to fly in accordance with regs and aircraft limitations (no flight into icing for instance), but otherwise if the CFI wanted to shoot approaches to minimums, or fly in 30 knot winds, that was their choice.

What do you think of that type of arrangement?

[v1valarob]

Originally Posted by jrh

Thanks, Seggy, for your thoughts.

I used to work for a place that had fairly restrictive rental requirements. When it came to weather, they required at least 8 miles visibility and 2000 foot ceilings I think, with about 15 or 20 knots of wind I think...it's been a while since I worked there.

However, if a CFI was on board, they left almost everything up to the CFI's discretion. Of course they expected the CFI to fly in accordance with regs and aircraft limitations (no flight into icing for instance), but otherwise if the CFI wanted to shoot approaches to minimums, or fly in 30 knot winds, that was their choice.

What do you think of that type of arrangement?

Thats pretty much how my school works.

For student solo:
Pattern - 2500' AGL ceilings 5sm vis.
Cross Country - 3500' AGL ceiling 7sm vis.
No greater than 5knot x-wind. Allowed in up to 15 knots including 5 knots gust. (which I assume if its 10G15, we can let a student go. But I would still be hesitant)

When it comes to rental for PPL, Im not sure since I barely deal with that. But its all insurance regulated really.

When it comes to us CFIs and our students, we can go up in whatever we like. Just gotta use common sense.

-Rob

[MikeOH58]

If you use an online schedling program, DONT make it so schedules cant be changed within 24 hours...One of the places I rent from does this and it pisses me off to no end. I understand why they do it, but some people try and ammend or cancel their schedule, find out they cant, and just forget to call and cancel. Now you have a perfectly good airplane that I could be flying sitting on the ramp, because some bozo wasn't able to cancel or change his time over the internet because of a scheduling policy....One which I might add is never enforced in regards to charging for not flying but on the schedule.

[Proud Pilot]

When I was a student pilot, my CFI, who as the head CFI at our flight school, signed me off for solo aerobatic flights (Robin R-2160), solo night flying, repeat unsupervised solo cross countries both day and NIGHT. Even though I was still a student pilot, I would go up with him whenever the weather was bad to get as much actual IFR as possible in all seasons (ice, fog, thunderstorms). I wanted to see it for real before getting on at a regional.

It was so cool going out on a solo flight in the R-2160, walking out to the flightline carrying my parachute! My private pilot checkride was taken in a CE-152 due to the Robin being down for mx. I didn't know that the Robin was down until showing up at the airport in the morning. My CFI informed me that I could reschedule in the Robin or if I wanted to still do the checkride the same day, I could get a quick checkout in a CE-152. I had never flown the CE-152 prior to my checkride, so we went up to do a couple of touch and goes in order for me to get comfortable with it. The examiner had a strange look on his face when he read on my certificate application that the total flight time in aircraft that I was taking the checkride in was 0.3 hrs.

[jrh]

Originally Posted by MikeOH58

If you use an online schedling program, DONT make it so schedules cant be changed within 24 hours

We do use an online scheduling system, and we do have it set to lock the schedule within 24 hours unless a CFI or the flight school owner makes the scheduling change. So far it's worked quite well for us.

Originally Posted by MikeOH58

One which I might add is never enforced in regards to charging for not flying but on the schedule.

I can't speak for your place, but where I'm at, we most definitely charge a late cancellation/no-show fee. It's $40...that's one hour of instruction. $20 goes to the school, $20 goes to me. I don't know why a school wouldn't charge a cancellation fee...I've played this game too long to let customers jerk me around without any consequences.

Honestly, I have fantastic students though. In the two months I've been working for the school, I haven't had to charge anyone the fee yet, although I'm not afraid to. I just lay it all out for them after their first lesson and they've been great about following our policy.

[jrh]

Originally Posted by Proud Pilot

When I was a student pilot, my CFI, who as the head CFI at our flight school, signed me off for solo aerobatic flights (Robin R-2160), solo night flying, repeat unsupervised solo cross countries both day and NIGHT. Even though I was still a student pilot, I would go up with him whenever the weather was bad to get as much actual IFR as possible in all seasons (ice, fog, thunderstorms). I wanted to see it for real before getting on at a regional.

That's fantastic. I'm glad to hear there are still places out there that encourage pilots to get a variety of experiences.

Just curious though, what limitations did your CFI put on your endorsements?

He did put a limitation on, right? If not, that's a bit scary. Student pilots need to gain experience, but they shouldn't be free to bite off more than they can chew.

My standard limitation reads, "Must have my approval prior to each solo flight."

That way it's open-ended enough to be flexible, yet doesn't let the student go off and fly whenever they want without letting me know.

My "approval" can come in the form of a face to face meeting, a phone call, a written note on the dispatch book, etc. Also, when they first start soloing I'm fairly conservative with the conditions I approve them to fly in, yet as they get closer to getting their license, I allow them to fly in more challenging conditions because I know they can handle it.

[ElyJs]

Student Pilots = CFI limitations

W/ CFI = Whatever the CFI chooses with in regs

Private, Inst, Comm = Guided by insurance but as a flight school owner I would want the weather to be as good as possible, as a pilot I would want as little regulation as possible. Honestly as a business owner running a flight school with probably tight margins I would say a pilot can't go, lose an hour of revenue rather than send someone on a flight that has 5x the risk. A risk vs reward scenario I guess.

McAir Aviation in Denver does exactly this and prohibits mountain flying. Are their students and instructors missing out on valuable experience? Yes. Would I rent their very nice airplanes for anything other than a training flight? No. I do however understand their reasoning and respect that longterm it is probably better for their business.

[ElyJs]

BTW would I let a student pilot do acro on my ticket? Hell no, not unless he paid me the appropriate amount to take on that risk. 20-30 hours of dual given for a private ain't enough to let you do that on my ticket. I am not necessarily saying you aren't competent to do this, I just am not going to take on the risk for what in the long run is very little reward.

[Proud Pilot]

Originally Posted by ElyJs

BTW would I let a student pilot do acro on my ticket? Hell no, not unless he paid me the appropriate amount to take on that risk. 20-30 hours of dual given for a private ain't enough to let you do that on my ticket. I am not necessarily saying you aren't competent to do this, I just am not going to take on the risk for what in the long run is very little reward.

Not to toot my own horn too much but, I have great natural piloting instincts and aerobatics come naturally to me. I had no restrictions from my CFI in my logbook in regards to the repeat cross countries, just maintain VFR.

I'm amazed at how restrictive most flight schools and most CFIs are regarding the conditions that they will let a student fly in. How are you going to learn and gain experience in marginal conditions unless you go out and experience it first hand?

[minitour]

Originally Posted by Proud Pilot

How are you going to learn and gain experience in marginal conditions unless you go out and experience it first hand?

You start by listening to and learning from those with more experience than you have. Then after you have your certificate, you make your own decisions based on that knowledge that has been passed on to you.

From there, you go and scare the living s-blank-eye-tee out of yourself for 250 hours and have those "I'll never do that again" moments, so that when you become a commercial pilot, you don't scare the s-blank-it out of your passengers.

It's a pretty good system.

-mini

[Proud Pilot]

Originally Posted by minitour

You start by listening to and learning from those with more experience than you have. Then after you have your certificate, you make your own decisions based on that knowledge that has been passed on to you.

From there, you go and scare the living s-blank-eye-tee out of yourself for 250 hours and have those "I'll never do that again" moments, so that when you become a commercial pilot, you don't scare the s-blank-it out of your passengers.

It's a pretty good system.

-mini

I agree. That's what my CFI and I do. And that's what I do to build my proficiency. I go up in conditions that most private pilots wouldn't dare.
I'm not going to be one of those timid regional newhires that are afraid of a storm or a nasty crosswind.

[jrh]

Originally Posted by Proud Pilot

I agree. That's what my CFI and I do. And that's what I do to build my proficiency. I go up in conditions that most private pilots wouldn't dare.
I'm not going to be one of those timid regional newhires that are afraid of a storm or a nasty crosswind.

At the risk of sounding like a mom....be careful out there.

The longer I do this stuff, the more I realize just how nasty flying can be. Scary things happen. It sounds really cool to talk about all the badass things I've done, but it's very un-cool when metal gets bent or people get hurt.

That's a concept I don't think many pilots have a full appreciation of when they're first starting out. Everybody wants to swap the hangar stories, but nobody thinks about the truly ugly things that can pop up as a result of pushing limits.

Flying is a lot like growing up. 16 year olds think they know their limits, and a few of them might, but most don't really have a clue how harsh life can be. Then when they get to be about 20-25, they think, "Oh....*that's* what my parents were talking about," and they get a clue.

Same with flying. Brand new private pilots think they have it all figured out, then once they hit a few hundred, or maybe a few thousand hours, they look back and think, "Holy crap, I'm lucky to be here. I didn't know what I was doing back then. I could've killed myself numerous times out of shear ignorance."



With regard to your comment about how restrictive CFIs are with what they allow students to fly in, I think you'll understand better once you start teaching. There are a million things that can go wrong during a solo flight that will goof up even the best of students. It's hard to see all those factors unless you've flown for a while. Also, even the best of students make mistakes. CFIs are putting a lot on the line every time they write an endorsement. If anything goes wrong, it can come back to bite the CFI and damage his or her's career. Once the student becomes licensed, most of the CFI's liability goes away.

[minitour]

Originally Posted by jrh

At the risk of sounding like a mom....be careful out there.

The longer I do this stuff, the more I realize just how nasty flying can be. Scary things happen. It sounds really cool to talk about all the badass things I've done, but it's very un-cool when metal gets bent or people get hurt.

That's a concept I don't think many pilots have a full appreciation of when they're first starting out. Everybody wants to swap the hangar stories, but nobody thinks about the truly ugly things that can pop up as a result of pushing limits.

Flying is a lot like growing up. 16 year olds think they know their limits, and a few of them might, but most don't really have a clue how harsh life can be. Then when they get to be about 20-25, they think, "Oh....*that's* what my parents were talking about," and they get a clue.

Same with flying. Brand new private pilots think they have it all figured out, then once they hit a few hundred, or maybe a few thousand hours, they look back and think, "Holy crap, I'm lucky to be here. I didn't know what I was doing back then. I could've killed myself numerous times out of shear ignorance."

Well put.

I don't think the idea is to go out with a fresh instrument rating and scare the poo out of yourself getting iced up in IMC in a single piston at night with everything for 500 miles at minimums. The idea is to (hopefully) get that experience little by little...

I've had plenty of "I shouldn't be alive" moments. They aren't fun. The funny thing is, the more experience I get, the more I look back and say "yeah...shouldn't have survived that one either". It's true about the luck and experience "buckets" that everyone starts off with...I'm a believer.

-mini

PS
Be VERY careful with a written policy on when renters can fly (I'm not talking about students...I just mean Joe pilot that's renting an airplane). All it takes is one violation, incident or accident by that pilot and their attorney is going to claim they never would have been in that situation had it not been for the written policy. Keep in mind, they don't have to prove it "beyond a reasonable doubt" either. Just be careful is all...

[Proud Pilot]

Originally Posted by jrh

At the risk of sounding like a mom....be careful out there.

The longer I do this stuff, the more I realize just how nasty flying can be. Scary things happen. It sounds really cool to talk about all the badass things I've done, but it's very un-cool when metal gets bent or people get hurt.

That's a concept I don't think many pilots have a full appreciation of when they're first starting out. Everybody wants to swap the hangar stories, but nobody thinks about the truly ugly things that can pop up as a result of pushing limits.

Flying is a lot like growing up. 16 year olds think they know their limits, and a few of them might, but most don't really have a clue how harsh life can be. Then when they get to be about 20-25, they think, "Oh....*that's* what my parents were talking about," and they get a clue.

Same with flying. Brand new private pilots think they have it all figured out, then once they hit a few hundred, or maybe a few thousand hours, they look back and think, "Holy crap, I'm lucky to be here. I didn't know what I was doing back then. I could've killed myself numerous times out of shear ignorance."



With regard to your comment about how restrictive CFIs are with what they allow students to fly in, I think you'll understand better once you start teaching. There are a million things that can go wrong during a solo flight that will goof up even the best of students. It's hard to see all those factors unless you've flown for a while. Also, even the best of students make mistakes. CFIs are putting a lot on the line every time they write an endorsement. If anything goes wrong, it can come back to bite the CFI and damage his or her's career. Once the student becomes licensed, most of the CFI's liability goes away.

I understand your point. I know lots of private pilots that whose logbook I wouldn't want my name in. My CFI knew my ability was well above average and I proved to him that I could handle those situations of solo aerobatics, solo nightime and solo night cross countries.

[ElyJs]

I have taught students that picked it up way faster than I ever did. I am all for you pushing the limits as much as you would like, just not on my ticket. My students don't generally get signed off for these type of flights. All of my oh #### moments were because of bad judgments, not because of poor piloting abilities. Thank god I had the skills to get myself out of my f ups. You may have superior flying abilities, but judgment only comes with one thing, time. It took me a few hundred hours after I had my commercial before I realized how little I know.

I will also spin and have the student spin before I sign them off for their ppl. By the time most get signed off for their PPL we have flown in 30 knots winds. All dual.

Superior piloting skills are great but there a little more to the game. At the same time Charles Lindbergh took a huge risk and hes a hero

[minitour]

Originally Posted by ElyJs

All of my oh #### moments were because of bad judgments, not because of poor piloting abilities.

Exactly

At the same time Charles Lindbergh took a huge risk and hes a hero

I agree...but not because of his non-stop flight.

-mini