How many hours before you fly passengers?

[martymayes]

I'm not a pilot and while I have thought of getting my licenese I don't know if it will ever happen.

If I do the math on this I was told once it makes sense to own your own plane if you fly 100 hrs a year or more.

I guess the question is how do you know when you are ready to fly passengers with you when you go flying?

Brian, if you are interested in flying, go take a couple lessons. You don't have to commit to anything, just see if it's something you might like to continue doing.

Deciding to own or rent a plane is way down the road for most folks. When you get there you can look at all the options, renting, partial ownership, flying club, etc. See which one fits you and your situation best.

Unfortuantely, not many CFI's teach their students how to fly passengers. I know it sounds silly, why would a pilot need training on how to fly passengers but aviation could really improve it's image by doing this.

I found the best time for passenger training was during the checkride prep. It did a couple things, first sent a metamessage that the student was going to pass the checkride, second, it gave them the knowledge on how to fly passengers.

When you learn to fly there are a lot of bridges to cross. Don't get wrapped aound the axle looking too far ahead. Relax and enjoy the ride.

[Bill Greenwood]

Brian, flying a gen av airplane, especially a fun EAA type is not about numbers or dollars. Would anyone have a child if you said to yourself that it will add $200,000 over the next decade or so to my cost? Or go waste $100 for green fees to chase a silly little ball around, or spend $150 to go to an NFL game in the company of a bunch of drunks, or if you want to go ski for the day at Vail or Aspen the lift ticket is $120.

This kind of flying is for fun, satisfaction and enjoyment of where you can travel and what you can do around aviation. And for me, I can have a 45 min flight over to Denver, see beautiful scenery and it is stress free ( in good weather) or I can drive 4 or 5 hours, or more if it is max traffic times in congested freeway traffic with other cars a few feet away.
There are a number of ways to enjoy sport aviation, like airshows, at less expense than being a pilot. You don't have to be an artist to visit an art museum. But watching others fly is to me, a little like standing outside the donut shop and watching others eat em.

Flying does take some money and there are many people who can't afford it or at least they convince themselves they can't afford it. You can come up with many reasons on to be a pilot and money is one of them. There are folks driving around in $35,000 SUVs or new pick up trucks that can't afford to fly.

And as for your becoming a pilot, it is never just "ever happen". It is something you do if you want to, and it is not very hard if you really want to. But it is not a passive thing, it is not like catching the flu or a cold, it doesn't just come along and fall on you, any more than getting a college degree does, or learning to play the piano.

As Marty says, maybe you should go try an introductory lesson and see if you like it. And tell em you want a lesson , not just a ride.

[Bob Dingley]

I must admit that this reluctance to carry passengers is a new one on me. Its a question that should be put to an insurance underwriter. Get on the horn with Falcon or Avemco or whoever and tell the rep that you're thinking of getting a plane and ask for a quote. Then ask how much if you had 200 hours? Or an instrument rating? Or had a partner or part owner with 5,000 hours? Or how far along are you in the Wings program? It should give you an idea of how the universe regards your ability to carry passengers.

A club membership would have you rubbing elbows with fellow airmen. Something has to rub off. Also a good place to learn to fly. (I'm a former club president) Maybe even join join an EAA chapter.

What if you eventualy got a PPL and later picked up an add on glider rating? With less than 10 glider hours, when would you finaly carry your first glider passenger? This need to have a thick logbook could get out of control.

I worked for a 135 carrier and recall we hired some low time co-pilots. One only had 240 hours and after training, he was put in the cockpit of a twin turbine carrying 12 passengers. He did just fine as a co-pilot.

Go fly. Bob

[Tlim486]

Some where back at the begining of all this conversation someone said "ADM", currently front and center on the FAA's Wings page, went thru it yesterday and it was lengthy but a good cousre none the less. Understand the Risk's, Set Personal Minimums and stick to it, It is a truely sad that all four people parished, I have personally left a plane, rented a car and drove home. It was a good lesson I learned as a student.

As the saying go's their are old pilots and bold pilots but not many old bold pilots

[WLIU]

You actually only need a Student Pilot Certificate to learn to fly. Taking the written and flight test is optional. Once upon a time I knew a student pilot who had accumulated 400 hours solo time and owned and flew a Pitts S-1C. Flew very well actually. Just had no interest in the exams and/or flying his friends and family. I can only guess that the CFI he worked with was happy to watch this guy fly every 90 days and sign him off.

And since I am fortunate to know and have flown with some individuals in the flight test community, I never buy the "old-bold" old wives tale. "Bold" is a matter of perspective. To too many folks "Bold" is any pilot flying out closer to the edge of the envelope than they do. Bad paradigm. A more a more accurate rule to live by is "There are no old and DUMB pilots". If you spend your days pushing the edges of airplane envelopes, the line from the movie Bull Durham applies. "We play this game with arrogance and fear." You have to be arrogant and have a healthy enough ego to climb into the airplane and fly the plan. And you have to fear F*#% up in front of your peers enough to not do anything dumb like flying onward without a plan when the first plan falls apart.

Go fly. You can sit on the ground and talk about it forever. There is no substitute for time aloft. Go fly.

Merry Christmas,

Wes
N78PS

[Joe Delene]

One of the biggies is the ability(discipline) to deal with wx & know when not to go, or divert. That may come early for some & never for others.

[Frank Giger]

Hmmm, in my case I had about 36 hours total time (ten hours past my SPL) before I took up my first non-pilot passenger.

The problem I had was that my wife and son are absolutely disinterested in aviation. Not scared, just completely unenthused about it. It's a "Frank Thing" they just don't get.

This is unnatural and would not stand - EVERYONE I know has had their wife in their plane at least once.

So I explained carefully with an ernest and straight face that one of the last endorsements I needed for my logbook was an easy one that would require no extra money beyond what it would normally cost me to putt-putt around the sky in a Champ: the Passenger Endorsement. My CFI didn't count because he's, well, a CFI. I guess I could get some random person at the airport to fly with me, but since I fly on weekday mornings the place is usually deserted.

I needed her to fly with me.

Picking a nice day - winds at two, CAVU, etc. - we did the whole talk through the pre-flight, passenger instruction, gentle flight over nice terrain thing for half an hour. "Hey, this is kind of nice," she said.

Then the front that wasn't supposed to show up for four hours came in and the winds went to 14 gusting to 19 (crosswind, natch) and I cut it real short (being no more than ten minutes from the airport was part of my plan). Best. Crosswind. Landing. Ever. One of those you have put into hard memory and can not only see and hear in one's mind but actually smell.

I couldn't whoop at it, of course, since good landings are to be expected by the civilian population, right?

Anyhow, I'm paying for the rental and the wife is asked how she liked it by the usual airport fellows.

"Not bad at all except the last part where we went all around," she replied, referring to some turbulence and my very nice crab/slip to land, "I wasn't going to go up with him at all if he didn't need his passenger endorsement for his logbook."

Silence for a full ten seconds and then the chuckles started up.

Somehow we still remain married.

(on a couple of occasions since then she's actually asked to go up with me - and more than once I told her she couldn't because the weather looked good for me to fly in but would not be fun for someone in the back of a Champ to endure.)

[David Pavlich]

Hmmmmm....that's an interesting story, Frank. I hope that when the day comes that I have my license, my wife will be interested. My current hobby is astronomy and unless I have Saturn or Jupiter in the eyepiece, she has no interest. She does like the pictures that I take, but isn't very interested in the process. We shall see....

David

[David Pavlich]

One of the biggies is the ability(discipline) to deal with wx & know when not to go, or divert. That may come early for some & never for others.

I've thought about this a lot. It seems to me that when a pilot plans a flight, you have alternatives on the way on your tablet or Ipad or whatever is used to put on paper/computer to review your route. Other airports that can become a sort of safe haven instead of running head long into deteriorating conditions. Is this a typical thought pattern? It just seems common sensical to me.

David

[pacerpilot]

Brian, go flying. Get an instructor and do it. You will not regret it. You're already involved in aviation, you might as well make it permanent. After your sure you like it, buy an inexpensive airplane. You'll spend much less money that way and you can fly much more which makes you a better pilot. As for carrying passengers. A Designated Examiner will not pass you on your check ride unless you demonstrate you're ready to do just that. That's what your PPL or SPL is for-that's the only reason a pilots license. You can fly yourself around solo for the rest of your life with only a student pilots cert or your Sport Pilot solo sign off. But, if you want to carry a pax, you'll need to pass your checkride and get that magic ticket. Believe me, when you do pass your checkride you'll waste no time taking your first-very special-passenger up. I had 54 hours in my book when I came home from my check ride. My dad looked at me and said "lets go!"-and we did. We as pilots learn very soon to evaluate ourselves and be realistic about our ability. We're trained to make the right decisions. However, sometimes a pilot makes a tragic mistake. It happens to pilots, boat operators, drivers, everybody. Don't be deterred, life is dangerous, nobody lives through it so get out there and up there!