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Differences training

Regardless of the regulations, I worry about people who need regulations to know when they need differences training.

Yes, but the problem is a bit more subtle. If you're a C421 owner and need a proficiency check, you need to find an examiner who is qualified to be PiC in a C421. If there are differences between MEPs, it means that they need to have flown an MEP with turbocharging and pressurisation within the last two years. That reduces the pool of available examiners by quite a factor.

you need to find an examiner who is qualified to be PiC

Here in lies the challenge sometimes. It can be very difficult to find an instructor/examiner who is familiar with not so common types. I did all of my multi training on a C310R. I realized that taking my ride with a Seminole/Seneca examiner was going to frustrate everyone. I did find an examiner who was qualified on 310's, and it was very well worth the effort. It was awkward getting to him though, as I had to arrange solo insurance on the plane for myself without the rating, so I could fly it to him. It all worked out.

I'm very much in favour of qualified mentoring pilot to pilot for improving type familiarity. I am uneasy with the pilot doing the mentoring having to have special qualifications, other than appropriate experience. It can have the effect of excluding very worthy mentor pilots, just because they don't have a whole bunch of ratings. I do not accept the notion that an instructor rating confers upon a pilot unusually rapid awareness of the nuances of some types. It's too big an assumption.....

This came up when a friend of mine lost his medical for a period, and could not fly his 182RG. I was already named insured in this plane, so I rode right seat with him once a week, while he kept his skills up. The regulator took exception to this, saying that if I was the PIC, and not an instructor, I had to fly, and from the left seat. I pointed out that the Flight Manual did not state which seat PIC was to occupy, and if they wanted to know whose hands were on the controls, they better fly formation with binoculars! The issue ended at that.

Home runway, in central Ontario, Canada, Canada

Isn't this difference training argument for MEP a very academic one? If my MEP experience is on a P2006T and I decide I want to fly a Cessna 421 without any additional training, where do I get one from? Rent it? Forget that. Buy one? No problem, there are plenty for sale. Now I need insurance and where will I get that from?

For such a pilot the only way to fly such an aircraft without proper training is go down the "Leonardo" route, that Mexican-Iranian criminal who bought a Lear from a museum and flew it all across Europe without CofA, without pilot license, without maintenance, without paying for fuel at airport etc. until he crashed it in Denmark.

Again where this line is drawn is always going to be so arbitrary...

The world of diff training and type ratings seems to go back several decades, to where planes were much simpler in equipment terms and the main "tricky" features were things like retractable gear or a VP prop or pressurisation.

Nowadays these things are trivial on the scale of pilot workload. People I know who fly turboprops and jets tell me these are far easier to fly (in terms of engine management, benign handling, almost no SE assymetric thrust in bizjets compared to the extreme and - at low speeds - immediately life threatening situation you get in a piston twin, etc) so the old "special training" criteria have fallen away, to be replaced by stuff like avionics whose non-trivial functionality is comparable to a current B737 yet which require no diff training and anybody with a "complex signoff" can just buy the plane and fly off in it.

About the only thing that really remains valid IMHO is the twin rating itself, because it's so easy to get killed by screwing that up. Everything else is just a progressive scale of systems knowledge which, as you climb up it, needs progressively smarter people to learn and needs progressively more currency. There are no clear lines.

I bet there are people in the regulatory machinery, both sides of the Atlantic, wondering what to do about this. But they cannot do anything unless the ICAO rules are comprehensively revised, and you have to ask yourself whether you really want that, because it can be very hard to find an instructor who is familiar with advanced systems in GA. They do exist but tend to work in places which you have to fly to, and are neither cheap nor available. And they tend to exist only for popular types e.g. an SR22. And when you fly with one of them you realise that, actually, they often know less than "you" (the owner of some years who has read the manuals and played with the knobs).

The character who bought the Lear from the museum and made it so far, until he made a fairly subtle mistake with his fuel system, was a superb confirmation of what I am saying. If the rules really meant anything, he should have killed himself at his first takeoff. In reality he must have been a pretty good pilot, knowing the whole IFR protocol better than any new Euro IR graduate.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

... so the old "special training" criteria have fallen away, to be replaced by stuff like avionics whose non-trivial functionality...

I wouldn't say so. Avionics can easily be self taught by computer based training or connecting the aeroplane to a ground power unit and just playing with it. The proper use of a variable pitch prop (no idea why it seems to be so difficult to master for some, but it really is) or the loving care that you need to develop for a tubocharged engine if it is supposed to reach TBO can only be taught in the air.

The character who bought the Lear from the museum and made it so far, until he made a fairly subtle mistake with his fuel system, was a superb confirmation of what I am saying. If the rules really meant anything, he should have killed himself at his first takeoff.

He once had a valid license and a Learjet rating and experience on type (otherwise he wouldn't have been able to fly this thing - really a two crew aircraft - alone!), but they had lapsed at the time of the accident.

In reality he must have been a pretty good pilot...

No certainly not, a good pilot (even most bad pilots) takes at least enough of fuel on board to reach his destination.

EDDS - Stuttgart

He once had a valid license and a Learjet rating and experience on type

Where did you get this information? The final report of the Danish investigator said the license status was unclear.

No certainly not, a good pilot (even most bad pilots) takes at least enough of fuel on board to reach his destination.

He did have enough fuel, he "just" forgot to pump it from the wing tips to the right tank.

Where did you get this information? The final report of the Danish investigator said the license status was unclear.

I remembered that in the wreckage they found his pilots license(s), but obviously they were fake: "In the broken plane on the island was found two similar fake U.S. pilot certificates with different names, but in court today claimed Ruiz Camberi Leonardo that he was trained pilot in Mexico." So he might or might have not once held a type rating. But I still believe that an old LearJet can not be flown (not even once) without training.

He did have enough fuel, he "just" forgot to pump it from the wing tips to the right tank.

He would have had about 150l left which is hardly enough for taxiing in. For me, this is not "enough fuel" ... (http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20120915-0).

EDDS - Stuttgart

Hang on ein minuten bitte.

Did you all come to the conclusion that once you're qualified on any MEP you may fly all other types except for the DA42?

That is hardly the objective of the list. For SEP they've listed the in-betweens, VP, Retracts etc. because you can train on a basic C172 and go fly a basic PA28 the next day with only familiarization. If that PA28 happens to be a PA28R however you need differences training on the VP and RG, but you could also fly a Mooney the day after.

For twins you may not fly a BE76 one day and PA34 the next (or any other brand/flavor) without differences training. The DA42 is a single power lever and EFIS aircraft that somehow brought the wrath of EASA upon it to create its own list. Perhaps that is because it is unlike every other MEP on the planet and should be handled with extra care, I don't know.

Get your differences training. If you think you already know everything (and you do) it'll be a short session no doubt, and if it turns out you didn't know everything perhaps you'll learn something useful and won't end up like the poor bloke who lost his life in a GA7 just yesterday...

ESSB, Stockholm Bromma

I bet there are people in the regulatory machinery, both sides of the Atlantic, wondering what to do about this. But they cannot do anything unless the ICAO rules are comprehensively revised, and you have to ask yourself whether you really want that, because it can be very hard to find an instructor who is familiar with advanced systems in GA.

I think the people in the regulatory machinery should understand that the issues being raised here are not a problem that is readily solvable through regulation. The EASA approach is just nuts, Pythonesque silliness.

In years past, the FAA very subtly added the complex and high performance logbook endorsement requirement for private certificate holders, supplementing the traditional SEL and MEL ratings, but with no FAA paperwork, no mandatory 'differences training' for some aircraft, and no mandatory 'familiarization' training for others. I think that approach recognizes that with aviation regulation, as with many other things aeronautical, just barely enough is the most effective solution, and more tends to be less when played out in the real world.

My guess would be that if FAA were ever to do anything to reflect the evolving changes in avionics, it will be a Glass Panel Endorsement with the same lack of formality. It won't reflect the nuances of every aircraft or avionics system and it won't protect fools from hurting themselves. It will be just barely enough, with the hope of making a slight positive impact on a problem that really should be the pilot's problem, not the regulators.

ICAO will have zero to do with it.

Pilot DAR - your points on mentoring are very well taken by me, especially since you met a couple of mine :-) I had an interesting conversation with the one that shares your name the other day: he decided to start flying instruments in his new Lancair IV, having given up aerobatic competition for now. I asked him if he had an instrument rating, knowing that he hates to talk on the radio and has crossed the entire US a number of times since I've known him without doing so... The answer (predictably enough) was "yeah, I've got an ATP but I really don't like that stuff" :-)))

Silvaire,

Please give him my regards, I was relating my excellent impression of his products, and the startling G meter reading I'm aware of, just the other day at our social event.

I think about the training I had received in anything like a formal environment for differences. I compare that to words of wisdom I have informally received over the years, which were every bit, if not more effective in keeping my pilot mind flexible.

I've had a look at my log summary - 214 different aircraft of 78 types. Of those, I'd say that I onlt received type specific training on a dozen or so, and equally that many I have actively sought out training, and could not get it.

My most vivid recollection of being airborne, and instantly wishing I had received differences training was in Piper Tomahawk - though that is not at all a criticism that type, just my being too casual flying it the first time - I came to really like it.

For the most part, it has been avionics which have caught me off guard. I used to ferry fancy singles, and ofter stumbled into a plane with really fancy radio set ups, which I had to learn on the fly ;).

Aircraft which are type certified, are certified to a standard which includes all kinds of phraseology like "must not require unusual pilot skill and attention". That means that if you are competent, and you read the flight manual, and actually fly the plane the way the book suggests, you're going to do okay. Sure, anyone's first few hours on a different type can be coarse, but that's okay.

Ironically, some things I think should be "difference" trained are not. That's not to same that I'm suggesting more regulation - the insurers have caught on well, so the industry self regulates. Floatplane and flying boat pilots should not assume that they can jump in the other type and just fly it - differences training is vital - even more so if it an amphibian. Skiplane pilots should have differences training before they venture into unbroken snow. Not because the plane is different to fly, but because of the trouble you can get yourself into, in differing landing areas. Similarly for landing on sand, or mystery soil. Flying over no surface lit areas at night (barren land or oceans), or mountain flying. Running a turbine should be trained. Tailwheel. Flying parachutists and towing gliders or banners should have differences training for obvious reasons.

The planes themselves? The regulator should take a breath. If a pilot is competent in any certified tricycle, and they take it easy in the "other type" and READ THE MANUAL, they should not be unsafe. Even the Tomahawk is fine - if you fly the way the book says (not to self - read then fly). Bear in mind, as I write this, that presumes recency, currency and competence on some type in the same realm. If you're very low time, or out of currency, you owe it to everyone to take some refresher training.

The best training you could give a competent pilot would be to train them to seek out mentoring at a minimum, if they are stepping out of their normal range of aircraft type, or into fancy avionics. Mentoring is never bad, and it might be all that it really needed.

Many times, I have asked another pilot: "I'm about to fly this, there, then etc. Do you have any advice for me?" You'd be amazed the great advice I've received, even from very new pilots, who are still far more knowledgeable than I in the conditions of the local area.

Don't be too proud to ask, but don't tolerate it being rammed down your throat either!

Home runway, in central Ontario, Canada, Canada
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