Dinner and Breakfast

ANOTHER PRIVATE PILOT GROUND SCHOOL IS STARTING!

Classes will begin on Tuesday November 18^th they will be held every Tuesday and Thursday evening from 6pm to 8pm at Hemet Flight Center. Cost of his 8-week class is $249.00. Please come into the flight department to sign up or just call us @ 951 658 2008 and we will be happy to put you on the list. Also, call if you have any questions or concerns and we will gladly assist you.

Gobosh N706GB POH

Hello Everyone,

Hemet Flight Center is extremely pleased to announce the arrival of the Gobosh.  As of today Bill Harris is the only instructor who has had to opportunity to fly her, So to allow our staff time and opportunity to become familiar with her, and also to remove the wheel pants, she will be available to schedule beginning Saturday June 21st. We will be calling everyone on our wait list in the next day or so to help with scheduling.

I have also attached a PDF file, which has a POH for the aircraft so please take a moment and review that before your scheduled time. Also please arrive early for your scheduled time to review the addendum to the standard rental agreement for the Gobosh.

She is a brand new bird (less than 80 hours on the Hobbs) and the owners, who have been kind enough to place her in our care would like to keep her that way as long as possible. We all appreciate your understanding and cooperation, in keeping her in the best condition possible.

 Download the POH for 706GB

June is almost upon us. But we have some great news for all of you who kept asking; we have brought the Arrow back on the flight line. 407TL is ready to go for your entire complex flying needs. Just call the office for details 951-658-2008.

Also we have negotiated a deal for a new light sport aircraft the GOBOSH 700S, which should be arriving next week, you can find more information on the aircraft here:

http://gobosh.aero .

A few other changes:

The Cessna 182s rental rate has been lowered to only $120.00 per hour block rate and the standard daily minimum has been lowered to 1.5 hours per day, Rentals for more than one night will be handled on a case by case basis from this point on, please discuss them with Bill Harris.

We are also implementing a new program for the month of June any non-instructional and non-overnight flights commencing after 2pm during the month of June will receive $10 dollars an hour off the standard aircraft rental rate.

One last reminder you can also receive a $10 credit to your account by completing any of the AOPA Air Safety Foundation Online Safety Course’s, you will earn this credit for each certificate you present to Hemet Flight Center, this means the more courses you complete the more you can save. Course can be found here: http://www.aopa.org/asf/

 We have also brought our Future Pilot Referral Program online if you refer any students to us and they open a flight training account with a minimum $500 deposit, you will receive a $50 credit to your account, If they complete their training and earn any certificate or rating with Hemet Flight Center you will then receive an additional $100 credit to your account. It pays to help our friends.

Being in a wheelchair has not kept Dale Barry from pursuing his dream of learning how to fly a plane.

Barry, a paraplegic, made his first solo flight Aug. 21 after two months of training. He has been taking lessons along with his brother-in-law, Mike Pope.

“Since I’m in a wheelchair, getting in the airplane and flying it up to the sky is the ultimate freedom for me,” said Barry, 50, of Murrieta. “The sky is a peaceful place.“It’s always been a deep desire of mine to learn how to fly a plane. Ever since I was a little kid, it has been a thrill each time I got up in a plane. So why shouldn’t I go for it?”Barry has been paralyzed from the chest down since he was 19, following a motorcycle accident in 1977, but he still has the use of his arms.

“I wasn’t the kind of guy who said, ‘Poor me,’” he said. “I just found ways to do what I needed to do in life and what I wanted to do. I was blessed to have a strong support group of family and friends.”

Besides his can-do attitude, Barry has something else going for him, instructor Ed Matthews said.

“He’s an above-average student. He’s a fast learner and his motivation to learn is way up there,” Matthews said. “Dale and his brother-in-law were at the airport just about every weekday leading up to their solo flights.”

Many students rent their planes. Barry is learning to fly in a plane he bought for $76,000. He spent an additional $1,500 to install the hand controls he needs to work the rudder and nose wheel steering — functions normally controlled with foot pedals.

One of the biggest milestones Barry faced because of his paralysis occurred even before he started his lessons. Like other aspiring pilots with disabilities, he had to receive medical clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration. He said it took him 18 months to get the clearance.

“It took a lot of medical reports and doctors’ letters until I got my FAA medical certificate in May of this year,” Barry added. “Within 30 days of getting that certificate, I found a plane to buy in French Valley. It all just came together and things are still going good. I’m going to stick to it.”

In addition to the many hours of ground school lessons, student pilots need to have somewhere between 15 and 30 hours of flying with an instructor in the plane, Matthews explained.

Finding the time to fly is easy for Barry because, as the owner of Safe and Secure Locksmith Service in Temecula, he is his own boss.

Matthews said that, other than instructing Barry on how to use to hand controls in lieu of foot pedals, he teaches Barry as he would any student pilot.

“It’s more complicated, though, because he has no help from his feet at all when he’s flying and there are other things your hands need to be doing,” Matthews added. “But Dale gets the job done.”

Barry and Pope have more ground lessons and practice, plus a test administered by the Federal Aviation Administration, ahead of them before getting their pilot licenses. The student pilots have to log many hours doing maneuvers such as flying at night and flying to airports that have air control towers. Some of those flights must be done with an instructor in the plane, Matthews said.

Barry’s wife, Terri, said she does not get consumed with worry when her husband is flying.

“He’s very cautious when he’s in the air,” she said. “Dale does what it takes to be safe.

“I’m excited for him. Dale has wanted to do this for a long time. He knows what he wants to do and he takes the steps necessary to achieve his goals.”

Contact staff writer Lorell Fleming at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2621, or at lfleming@californian.com.

Somewhere in the history of academia it was decided that if a student comprehended at least 65 or 70 percent of the course content, he or she would be considered to have “passed” the course.  It did not necessarily mean that he had command of the content or that he fully understood the subject matter.

Today, our nation’s Ivy League colleges and universities scoff at the notion of admitting into their institutions high school students who merely “passed” their courses.  Instead, you need to be in the top 10 percent of your high school graduating class to be considered competitive.  Heck, even state-sponsored universities and most smaller private colleges look for at least an 80 to 85 average, if not better, from their incoming freshmen. 

The aviation paradox!

Curiously, aviation works a bit differently.  There are no incentives for achieving anything other than a passing grade on FAA administered knowledge tests.  Designated Pilot Examiners (DPEs) do not issue special honors to pilot candidates who perform better than the minimum required by the Practical Test Standards (PTS).

Flight schools and the CFIs who work from them have no incentive other than to get their students through the check ride.  They passed!  That’s what counts.

Even pilots preparing for professional flying careers do not need to achieve anything other than a “passing” grade on their various ratings.  Airline and corporate pilot applications ask only for pilot ratings achieved and number of logbook hours.  Aside from personal information and some reference to formal education, airline and corporate flight departments care little how well you performed during your flight training. 

The bar was set low . . . and it hasn’t moved in 65 years!

We have to look back about 65 years to find when the standard for “passing” pilot performance was established.  It was shortly after America’s entry into WWII when pilot training became formalized.  FDR called for hundreds of thousands of war planes to be manufactured while the Army and its affiliated civilian contractors were tasked with the job of producing pilots to fly them.

Thus was born the notion of pilot training and proficiency standards.  Many of these very same standards are still with us today, despite faster and far more complex aircraft, all of which are operating in a far more sophisticated national airspace system.  That’s right, many of the pilot proficiency standards have not changed in 65 years.  Even today’s 40 hour rule for the private pilot certificate had its origins in the 1940s when we learned to fly in J-3 Cubs.    

Don’t move the bar!

Unlike our nation’s colleges and universities who continually strive for ever-increasing academic performance, we in the aviation community lobby hard for the perpetuation of mediocrity.  Our large membership organizations, backed up by hundreds of thousands of dues-paying members, steadfastly resist the notion of raising the bar.  Like the fight against user fees, they take the position that if ONE increased standard is allowed, then others will follow.  Where will it stop, they ask?

We individual pilots buy into this faulty logic.  Rather than promoting or even supporting tougher standards of pilot performance, we vote with our membership dues to keep the bar at a comfortable level.  Keep in mind that we’re talking about preserving a 65 year old standard!

The proof is in the pudding . . .

Opponents of raising the bar argue that voluntary compliance with an imaginary higher standard of pilot performance is a better way to go.  They insist that we pilots are self-motivated to achieve a level of proficiency that will keep us all safe aloft.  

There’s only one problem.  They’re wrong.  Dead wrong!

Of the slightly less than 600,000 U.S. licensed pilots, current estimates are that less than 15,000 ever attend an FAA or AOPA safety seminar.  What about the other one-half million pilots?  AOPA opines, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink!” 

Well, that little nugget of wisdom doesn’t cut it when it comes to addressing the fact that our dismal GA fatal accident rate has been flat-lined for the past seven years.

Just how bad is it?

Let’s look at the facts.  Over 65 years of conditioning have created an entire generation of pilots who, for the most part, believe that achieving a “passing” score in anything related to aviation is acceptable performance. 

The sad and very sobering truth is that many of these pilots were at the top of their airmanship game the day they squeaked through their last FAA knowledge test and check ride.  From that day forward, their airmanship knowledge and skills began to deteriorate!  Truth be told, could YOU pass today the FAA knowledge test and check ride for the highest pilot rating you hold?   Could I?  I wonder!

Thus, if 70 percent is a passing score and we lose a significant portion of what we knew on check ride day, what does that say about our current level of our knowledge and proficiency as pilots?  Pretty scary, huh!

Our fatal accident rate confirms this sad truth.  We manage to wreck about 1,500 GA airplanes a year or about 5 per day.  On average, we suffer 1 fatal wreck a day.  Our fatal accident rate is 100 times worse than the airlines.  The risk of flying a GA airplane is roughly the same as riding a motorcycle.  This is a very sad commentary on the relative safety of general aviation flight. 

Solution, you ask?  Raise the bar!

Is there a solution?  You bet, but it won’t be popular with AOPA and many of its dues paying members.  We need to raise the bar for passing the various rating knowledge and practical tests.  Here is what we should be requiring.

First, let’s stop publishing the answers to FAA knowledge tests.   While NAFI (National Association of Flight Instructors) lobbied hard to have the FAA publish the answers to their knowledge tests, such action encourages rating candidates to simply memorize the answers.

Second, we must make the Private and Instrument Pilot Knowledge tests relevant to 21st century flight.  Let’s include questions on realistic aeronautical decision making (ADM) and actual flight scenarios.  At last look, there were more questions pertaining to ADFs than GPS on the private pilot knowledge test.  You can fail all weather related questions on the instrument pilot knowledge test and still pass.  Who’s minding the store here?

Third, the Private Pilot Practical Test Standards (PTS) should be tightened to allow a tolerance of no more than +/- 100 feet in straight and level flight instead of the current +/- 200 feet.  If a pilot candidate cannot maintain this higher standard, something is desperately wrong with either his instruction or his skills.

Fourth, the Private Pilot Practical Test Standards (PTS) should require a minimum of 3 hours of flight in actual instrument conditions instead of simulated conditions as are now prescribed.   Similarly, at least 10 hours of actual instrument flight should be required for the instrument rating.  These changes address the fact that continued VFR flight into IFR conditions is the number one weather-related cause of all fatal accidents.  Students need to see first-hand the challenges of flying solely by reference to instruments.  Simulated instrument conditions are as phony as $3.00 bills.

Fifth, no person should be issued a CFI certificate until he or she has logged a minimum of 500 PIC hours.   The teaching principle known as primacy of learning suggests that what we learn first lasts longest.  Using inexperienced pilots to teach new pilots affords new meaning to this principle.

Sixth, no CFI-I certificate should be granted to any candidate who has not logged a minimum of 50 PIC hours in actual IFR conditions.  Primacy of learning principle applies here as well.

Seventh, an annual flight review should be required for all pilots logging less than 100 PIC hours in the previous 12 months.

Sure, these tightened standards will produce an increased burden on some pilots.   Such burden, however, is the price of improved flight safety.

Don’t worry . . . . raising the bar will never happen!

While logic might suggest that raising the bar will improve pilot proficiency, there are strong forces in the GA community that insist that the efficacy of any proposed change in the standard must first be proven.  Like union leadership, they argue against any rule change that places a burden on their membership.  And, like weak management, the FAA yields and the status quo is, again, protected.

So, we’ll continue on, business as usual.  We’ll memorize some answers, barely pass the tests, bumble through the check rides, and fly off, oblivious to fact that we really haven’t achieved any degree of proficiency or mastery of the subject. 

The majority of us will manage to get by without hurting ourselves or others.  But there will always be those at or near the bottom of the class who will pay the ultimate price for receiving a passing grade. 

Bob Miller, ATP, CFII