If I had owned an F16 for the last 10 years and somehow got into it without any official training, I would probably be quite good at flying it now. Shock horror! Well, I do have SE papers
But if you had paid the $10-20M that it would cost to buy one, I’m pretty sure that you wouldn’t just jump in and ‘give it a go’. You’d get as much training as you thought necessary, irrespective of what the law demanded.
While I’m normally against any state intervention into my life, I have to disagree here. EFIS systems are hugely different from ‘steam gauges’ and I would not want to fly behind a glass cockpit in anything but the most benign VFR situations.
Again I think that just proves FBM’s point. You are intelligent enough to recognise the difference and get the appropriate training. So the law isn’t necessary and achieves nothing.
What about someone who does EFIS training a a relatively simple EFIS. Then they want to go onto a much more complicated system. As far as the law is concerned, they’ve done their EFIS training, so no need for more. (eg SR22 to a Biz Jet) But only a fool would attempt to make the transition without further training, irrespective of what the law says. An intelligent pilot will seek out the training necessary, but in this case the law might be a crutch or guidance for the fool.
Definitely EFIS is the most pointless of them all – not because I wouldn’t agree that when changing from Steam to Glass or even in between Glass Cockpit’s there is loads of things to learn but because the way that it is implemented is senseless for GA.
There are loads of problems with it – First of all finding an instructor that knows more about the system than you do – especially for retrofits. For example – I fly a Grumman Tiger with a G500, a GTN650, an S-Tec 60-2 and a Straubing Alt Preselect. It was simply impossible to find an instructor that would know anything more about this combination than I could teach myself beforehand. So what happened in the end was a tech-demo for the instructor and money wasted on my side to get a senseless entry into my logbook. In addition the difference training can be made on one Glass Cockpit and then never has to be done again when transitioning to a different one – but every one of them is very different, especially in combination with different avionics and it is up to the pilot to keep up with that. Same goes for new Software Versions of the existing Glass installed.
You would either have to make this a sort of typerating, restricting it to your kind of Glass Cockpit and possibly even your combination of glass and avionics and/or plane which is completely impractical or just get rid of it. The way it is implemented now, just makes some bureaucrats happy but is of no value for safety. So please don’t get me wrong I encourage every pilot to get acquainted with all the little tricks of their glass-cockpit but please stop this nonsense.
dublinpilot wrote:
You’d get as much training as you thought necessary, irrespective of what the law demanded.
And that is the problem. With a rating we get some form of a standardized approach to it. Minimum performance requirements, a curriculum and so on. We get a note on the paper, and everybody else know we have received “proper” training, and we are able to perform to some minimum standard (the basics). Without it, we could easily end up flying lots of hours for no purpose, training for things that are irrelevant. The idea of a rating is not to get all comfortable, but to know and handle the correct basics.
Jan_Olieslagers wrote:
Blissfully unexperienced, I question the need for differences training for retractable gear. I mean it cannot be that hard, can it?
Definitely not ‘hard’, but something you need to learn. Also, it depends on the airplane. On some types the flight characteristics change considerably once the gear goes down.
simonsorcerer wrote:
First of all finding an instructor that knows more about the system than you do
That is indeed a valid point! Here (KSMO) I can get pro training on a G1000, but not too sure about any other system.
On some types the flight characteristics change considerably once the gear goes down.
Yes, I am quite ready to believe that. But, again, that should make the point to be covered by differences training for the specific type of aircraft. Little sense to have a generic “retractable gear” rating.
It was rightly put forward that there are certain speed limits to be observed for retracting/lowering, but those too are obviously type dependent.
Jan, there is another – implicit – issue here. Typically retractables are considerably heavier, faster and more powerful than the average spam can used for training. The RG and variable pitch prop endorsement (or ‘complex aircraft’ as it is called in FAA-land) is typically done in one go and can be viewed as ‘transition training’ to the next step up in SEPs from, say, a C152 or a PA28/140. It is also about workload and managing that. I have hundreds of ‘complex’ hours and am still amazed how little there is to do when I – occasionally – fly a standard 172. There is a difference.
Yes yes, nothing unexpected there. But does there exist a generic “complex SEP” rating? I don’t think so. Either one flies a generic SEP, as you stated the typical flight school C152 or PA28 , or one flies a more complex type, a Mooney or a Bonanza or so; but in that case I understand one needs to be certified/rated for that specific type. So I still fail to see the use of a “banana” retractable rating.
Or, in other words: imagine I am a newly licensed PPL’er with the implicit SEP rating. So I can rent and fly the club/school C152 and other spamcans, but not the RG Bonanza or the CS Mooney. Were I to add a RG rating, what plane would I legally be allowed to pilot, which I couldn’t before?
Jan_Olieslagers wrote:
But does there exist a generic “complex SEP” rating?
In the US yes, in EU apparently split into two parts.
Jan_Olieslagers wrote:
flies a more complex type, a Mooney or a Bonanza or so; but in that case I understand one needs to be certified/rated for that specific type.
Nope, there is no type rating for any SEP that I’m aware of (AN2 perhaps?). That said, nobody will rent you a Mooney (or any other a/c) without a checkout, so in practice you will get some ‘type-specific’ training. If you buy one, that’s a different matter but obviously in your interest to become familiar with the type.
Jan_Olieslagers wrote:
Were I to add a RG rating, what plane would I legally be allowed to pilot, which I couldn’t before?
Well, any a/c with retractable gear, but (in EASA-land) not a variable-pitch prop. I am not aware of any such machine, although I’m sure they exist. What is more common is the reverse, i.e. fixed gear but variable prop. I’ve flown a C172 that had that.
Oh, and just to be pedantic, it’s not a ‘rating’ it’s an ‘endorsement’ or ‘differences training’. 
