Just How Useful is VFR Flight?

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As an instructor and pilot examiner, many times when I train or test private pilots, they ask me if they need to get an instrument rating to really be able to fly for travel.  I started thinking about the question some the other day and got curious.  So I looked at my own flight time.  I was surprised at what I saw.  With over 4300 hours, I found that only 12% of my time was “instrument” (including simulated time).  If I looked at actual instrument time, it was about 9%.  Let’s put this in perspective, 46% of my total flight time was cross-country flight, time when you would think most pilots might encounter actual instrument conditions, on flights when a pilot needs to travel and get somewhere for meetings, vacations, etc.  When I looked even deeper, I found that only 16% of that cross-country flight time has been logged under actual IFR conditions. Continue reading →

Flight Training Capacity in the Context of Recent Legislation

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An Examination of the Impacts of Reduced Training Capacity,
and the Declining Rates of Airmen Certification
by:  Jason Blair & Jonathon Freye
To download a pdf of this paper click here.

Executive Summary

Industry forecasts predict that the North American aviation industry will need nearly 82,800 pilots over the next twenty years. The ability of the flight training industry, given the current training model and curricula, to meet that demand  is the subject of much speculation considering new rulemaking and regulations. The predicted shortages in the population of qualified pilots combined with new, and potentially more restrictive requirements to serve as a pilot in the Part 121 environment cause the flight training industry to be seriously concerned about its protracted ability to supply pilots to meet the growing need. Continue reading →

I Drove to Work Last Week

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I drove to work last week.

It’s a new thing for me. It’s only the third time I’ve really done it in the last two-and-a-half years. The trip takes me from roughly Grand Rapids, Michigan to Oshkosh, Wisconsin. It’s a five-and-a-half-hour drive, one way. By air, it’s only an hour and a half.

I usually fly my airplane, a 1967 Piper Cherokee—a four-seat, general-aviation airplane. Think late-model Ford Taurus with wings. It’s not glamorous, but it is effective—and efficient. Continue reading →