Looking to obtain my Sport Pilot in the Indianapolis area. Seems hard to find an instructor here, anybody out there?
Looking to obtain my Sport Pilot in the Indianapolis area. Seems hard to find an instructor here, anybody out there?
I'm out here, unfortunately, that would be Arkansas. Finished my Sport Pilot Instructor recently and would love to see someone wanting to learn to fly..
The lack of posting on this has a lot to say. Good luck on your quest for a SP certificate. Two weeks ago I had a conversation with a CFI over the SP certificate. He said no way he would ever give instructions for this certificate. He said he has a career to think about. I have no idea what that meant. What it gave me was some insight into what a CFI thinks about those going after the SP certificate.
Tony
I encountered no outright road blocks, but a lot of subtle ones. Most of those came from the CFI's and Flight School (not surprising since they stand to lose somewhere between 35 and 50 percent of their revenue). Surprisingly I can give 2 thumbs up to how the FAA has been during the process. The FAA along with my DPE seemed almost giddy to have someone pursue the rating. Also there is a ton of misconceptions, like that doing away with the 3rd class medical would mean the end of the Sport Pilot program.
I don't see sport pilot as a short cut to get out of studying, or doing work. Nor am I looking for the opportunity to help people that are severely deficient medically get in the air. There are certain things that should preclude you being allowed to pilot a plane with someone, who may or may not be privy to your medical shortcomings, on board. But I do see a benefit to studying what matters, we always hear 'fly the plane'. Well, here is a chance to concentrate on doing just that, learning HOW to FLY. What's wrong with doing that as a Sport Pilot for a couple of years, then when you are ready, adding more airplanes (or more seats) you can fly?
I know people aren't necessarily like me, but when I look back on 700 hours of flying mostly 4 seat airplanes, better than 96 percent of my flying has been 1 or 2 people in the DAYTIME, in short, I could have done almost all the flying I've done on a Sport License.
Last edited by 67jwbruce; 08-06-2015 at 10:23 AM.
Gee Tony, one CFI's opinion is not representative of ALL FAA certificated CFI's. Perhaps this particular CFI has no understanding of Sport Pilot nor any interest in providing SP instruction. He is free to do that you know.....Originally Posted by 1600vw
That is exactly what is going on, most CFI's that I have met, are ready to offer their opinion on something they have no direct (or indirect) knowledge of, and it's only if you choose to keep drilling, do you finally get them to admit that they don't know and have never really considered it.
You know you are correct. This is the only man in the country who feels this way. Every flight school in America offers this SP training and not one person in America is having any problems getting a SP certificate or the training needed to get this certificate. CFI's are falling over each other racing to each new student to offer this training.
I don't believe I said I was quoting every or ALL CFI in America. I stated what one CFI said. It's you who wants to make this about every CFI in the country. But this does show that we have those who feel a certain way about certain aviation Certificates. The guys flying the Heavy's look down on those who fly GA. Those flying GA look down on those who fly SP. It keeps going. If you don't believe this just look at what happened with the Airline pilots and the 3rd class medical. That letter that the airline pilots association sent off shows this lack of camaraderie between the different classes of aviation Certificates. Its a they are better then us type of thinking. IMHO.
People who think like this are called...Snobs.
snob
snäb/
noun
noun: snob; plural noun: snobs
- a person with an exaggerated respect for high social position or wealth who seeks to associate with social superiors and dislikes people or activities regarded as lower-class.
- a person who believes that their tastes in a particular area are superior to those of other people.
"a musical snob"
Tony
Last edited by 1600vw; 08-07-2015 at 07:21 AM.
It's encouraging to hear from a few people here that have pursued some form of sport pilot training. I hope more chime in. But I can make some recommendations that might help out as you begin your training.
a) get knowledgeable about the certificate you are after. Especially if it is light sport. Read over 61.301 thru 61.327 and the Sport Pilot PTS (available for free at faa.gov). If you don't know what your training should contain and your CFI isn't particularly up on it, at the worst you will see them pushing you toward the PPL, and at the best, they will be running up your bill and wasting your time by training you up on stuff that's in the PPL PTS instead of the Sport Pilot PTS.
b) don't be afraid to fly with different instructors. If your CFI realizes that's he is the only fish in your pond, you've handed him a blank check. A lot of the young CFIs are more concerned about how their record looks than if you are ready to take the check ride. I have experienced this in every rating that I trained for. It really burns me up, but I've had at least one CFI in each rating (2 in the sport CFI training) that was afraid that I would bust and make them look bad. Keep it about your training by flying with some other guys, because in the end, it's really about economy. They need the money and the time in their books, they just think that they need the 100% pass record from their students.
I am really close to retiring my first log book and starting my second one. So this thread has prompted me to go back and count up how many different instructors that I've flown with through the years. I guess I'm a numbers guy, but I found it pretty astounding. I've flow with 18 different instructors (I had a little training in the 80's, but seriously got after it in 1998). 5 different instructors preparing for my PPL. One guy that moved away just before I was ready to solo, one that was desperately afraid of either me or my plane, one that was super worried that I would tarnish his record, but was otherwise a great instructor, and one that desperately needed a student that stood a chance of passing the check ride. Care to guess which one signed me off? 5 different instructors preparing for the commercial checkride. One that I was looking forward to working more with, but he departed early, 3 guys that were worried about their bust ratio, 2 of them were infuriating little children who were so confounded by the fact that I already knew how to fly and it wasn't like all their other students from the 'local' school that they kept wasting my time trying to change all my basics, and one guy that I'm now great friends with who told me I was ready and to get on along to the check ride. Then 7 different instructors while working on my Sport CFI, 2 guys that provided insurance check outs and no training, a great fellow that helped me with spin training and tail wheel flying, another friend and CFI who finished up my tail wheel endorsement along with providing 7 of my BFRs through the years, 2 guys who didn't think I could pass and tried to get me to spend money on 10 more hours of ground training to pad their pockets because 'hey their last CFI candidate put in 35 hours of ground training, you can give us 10..', and my friend whom I have a lot of respect for and mentioned earlier who flew with me once and looked at some of my ground work and lesson plans and said 'those guys are nuts, I'll sign you off right now'.
So keep your eyes out for those guys who want to hang out in your pocket book, but also look until you find the guys that are making pilots. They are the ones that you really want on your side.
Last edited by 67jwbruce; 08-07-2015 at 09:29 AM.
Doesn't matter if it's 1 or 100. Or even 1000. There's plenty of other instructors out there. I can assure you the majority of sport pilot authorized instructors are not bashing LSA. That would be like a car salesman selling only luxury cars and turning up his nose at anything else. For sure, there are some people like that but if compact/economy cars are selling, there are plenty of other salesmen more than willing to sell them (The real problem here is we have this new category of plane and pilot but no steady stream of customers coming in the door).
I fly an airliner and I don't look down on anyone. I try to do my part to promote recreational/light sport/GA flying. One of my pet peeves is those that over generalize about the LSA industry and sport pilot certificates in a negative way. Yup, some people don't like it. Big deal. Call them a snob or whatever, if they are not on board we don't need them. They are not going to make or break the industry.
I would suggest contacting a Sport Pilot examiner from the list here: http://www.faa.gov/licenses_certific...n/sport_pilot/ and ask if they can provide the name/contact info for any sport pilot instructors.
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