I’ve had a rather typical, but unfortunately quite unpleasant experience recently. The once in a year time came when my two-seater isn’t enough, because I want to bring three Swedish friends of mine up to the air this weekend when they visit Budapest. I have a regular 4-seater rental (an Arrow) secured near home, but it would be an almost 200% overhead to fly it to Budapest for this occasion, so I tried to find a suitable rental. There are loads of training C172s at the GA airports around there so I tried contacting those schools. All of them insisted on a Cessna 172 “type rating” and wanted at least 4.5 hours of dual instruction before allowing me to rent solo. Obviously, I declined all those “offers”, but I’m wondering what others here think about this: how many hours are necessary to transition to a new non-complex SEP type for day VFR operations?
p.s.: I did my complete PPL and NVFR training in C152s, so I have more than 50 hours in a very similar type. Obviously, I wouldn’t not want to jump in the plane with zero training, but I’d find about an hour dual enough, unless some serious shortcomings show up. But mandating a minimum 4.5 “type rating” course? Hell not… (And why on earth nobody gets in Hungary that there are no type ratings for SEPs? It’s a class rating after all…)
To go from a 152 to a 172, VFR? Anything between 10 minutes and 2 hours, depending on the “ability” of the pilot I would say.
It’s an unfortunate trend that the flying schools / rental outfits ask for those ridiculous checkout / “conversion training” hours. Yes, in many cases, they want to extract money from the pilots, because hours with an instructor on board are 1. very lucrative and 2. low risk for the airplane getting pranged or abused.
Some schools also do it because they have had a lot of bad experiences with rentals, and some try to reduce the risks by doing very thorough checkouts. Some pilots are indeed terribly incapable, but in those cases, even 4.5 hours will not really change that.
Anyway, such training shouldn’t be “fixed” in terms of hours. As long as the legislator does not mandate any specific amount of hours (actually, EASA does not even require one minute with an instructor to change from a 152 to a 172), why put ourselves into a corset of minimum hours? They should just do their job, i.e. closely monitor the pilot’s progress during the checkout and let him loose as soon as he’s got the hang of it.
It’s a market though, Tell them you won’t consider their offer due to the excessive minumum they put on you. They might either reduce the hours in your case, or review their policy entirely. Or do nothing at all. If they can find enough people who accept this, then there is little you can do exept to try to find more reasonable people.
To answer your question, an hour should be enough for you to get familiar with the plane and them to check you out. I would imagine new/different avionics would be a bigger deal than the plane itself. However, I understand the position rental outfits take given how truly bad many pilots are. Perhaps you could suggest a “competence based” checkout and reduce the hours if you can prove you know what you’re doing? If I were offering a plane for rental, I would almost certainly insist on a minimum block time (say in the area of 10 hours over 6 months) before allowing someone to swoop in then “fly (f***) and leave.” When I rented I never questioned such minimum requirements because I thought it was such a privilege to be able to rent in the first place (however, no one demanded 4.5 hours).
A typical rental checkout is about 1 – 1.5 hours and that should really cover it easily, unless this is a ‘glass’ aircraft and you are used to steam gauges – then it gets more complicated.
To answer your question as someone who rents a C172 out is its as many hours as required.
I’ve checked some people out in 15 mins and to be honest I could have jumped out by the time we got to the holding point.
I’ve also had a person who qualified for his CPL 4 weeks earlier from a word famous ATO and after about 10 hours he thought I was taking the piss. I wasn’t he was a liability.
Hey, it’s not just at the entry level either, this is rampant throughout. The training industry treats us like shit.
Talked to FlightSafety because I wanted to see what the P180 Avanti initial would cost (I have a sweet spot for them – don’t ask). They immediately came back with; you need 1500hrs, CPL and a class 2 FAA medical. WTF? The $25K I’d spend isn’t good enough with a PPL and a class 3? Are they kidding me? Is everyone who trains in a P180 only allowed to be a contract charter pilot? Never mind I know of several who are PPL’s… If the MPL cadets in Europe can be allowed to fly 737’s with 150 paying passengers after 300hrs right seat, then surely I should be able to fly a reasonably simple twin.
But that’s how they roll. And it alienates people. I’d rather spend my money somewhere else than go to FlightSafety after this. In fact, I’ll go out of my way to spend it somewhere else, now. Thankfully SimCom hasn’t asked for anything outrageous yet.
I asked my instructor about transition training to the C172 from the Aquila A211 on which I did my PPL and he reckoned one hour. The main differences for me are the mixture lever, which the A211 doesn’t have, and the lack of a constant speed prop on the Cessna. Of course high wing Vs low wing is also a difference. Still I think one hour sounds reasonable.
With the fact that you’ve flown the 152 before I’d say a normal checkout should not be excessive, 1-2 hrs maybe if you are well prepared. Probably those schools all want to both make some money from you and also assess you as a renter rather than teach you to fly the airplane.
From an Aquilla I’d think the transition of a new PPL to a 172 might take a tad longer to get comfortable with it. I’d also do a flight with MTOW if possible as well as a good landing training. But 1-2 hours should work out there as well.
I’ve not rented anything in nearly 15 years, but for simple types it’s never been more than an hour whenever I’ve done it (in the USA and in the UK). Usually it’s been a bit of airwork to get a feel for the particular plane, perhaps a local area checkout to look at the usual VRPs, and to convince the instructor you’re not going to wreck it, and off you go.
how many hours are necessary to transition to a new non-complex SEP type for day VFR operations?
It depends entirely on the aircraft. Non-complex doesn’t necessarily mean easy or non-weird. It also depends on you. IMO 99% is reading the manuals thoroughly, which few bother doing, and then you use time in the air just to be familiar with the technicalities.
