Good training seems to be hard to get!!!!

[Aussie_Paul]

Because training is what I do for a living, I tend to look at our gyroplanes in a slightly different light to the experienced gyro pilots.

I think this is why I some times end up in some heavy debate re gyro design. :(

I only ever look at a gyro through the eyes of a student!!! When I train that student, is the machine that I am going to solo them in going to "help or hinder" their success!!!!

Aussie Paul. :)

[Chuck Irby]

Aussie Paul. I agree with you! Good training is hard to get. To put it another way, it was quite difficult to find the best instructor for me. I am unique, in that I trained with five different instructors. I trained with some good gyro pilots, but some of them were not good instructors. One in particular, I am convinced, would have kept me there as long as my money held out. After nine hours with him, I was no better when I fired him than I was when I hired him. But finally, I got my final training with a great pilot and a great instructor. After six hours with him, I soloed.

[pwendell]

I have been very fortunate. I have quality instruction very close to my house. My Gyro training has been very much like that described by most FW students. I should get my cerificate in the next few weeks. I just have my night flying requirement left to fulfill, but I think I will want a couple of more solo hours before I take my check ride -- I want to fine tune my landings, especially in x-wind conditions. By the time I'm done I will have had about 45 hours of dual time and 15 of solo. I have only flown solo in one of my flight school's machines. I know this probably sounds like a lot of time to many of you, but it is almost exactly the average for a new FW private pilots certificate.

I have never looked on my training as a race or a competition. At 42 years old, I am well aquainted with my own learning style and my strengths and weaknesses. I know that I will continue to have a tremendous amount to learn, but I really feel that I have developed the mental habits and awareness, as well as the physical skills, that will allow me to expand my flying envelope SAFELY once I have my certificate. Will I make mistakes? absolutely. But I hope I have learned to recognize what I've done wrong, and to not make it worse. I think that this is the most important thing that I have gained during my training and that it has been worth every penny. Good, informed and self-aware judgment is much more difficult to teach than simply handling the aircraft. Mostly it is poor judgment, and not poor skills, that kill pilots, and if both skills and judgment are poor.... :eek:

[scottessex]

I was very fortunate to be able to train about 1 1/2 hours from my house, with Steve McGowan. I have had to rely on my training when I had a clutch out, and then my latest engine failure at takeoff. Yes I totalled the gyro, but I got it back on the ground without getting hurt, or hiting anything. I bent the axle and then rolled over.
I didn't have time to think of what to do, I just did what I had been taught. Good training is worth 10 times the price! I wish there were more instructors, I too would like to complete my hours for my certification. Now that Steve moved, it makes it difficult with the cost and time of travel and lodging. Keep teaching 'em Paul!

[Dean_Dolph]

Peter, I imagine there are many that are shocked by the amount of training time you have acquired. But, you are right, the time you have quoted is pretty much in line with hat the fixed wing schools in the Houston are are saying it takes.

I said it in another thread and I'll say it again, I think the required minimum hours for a certificate gives people the wrong idea on the training hours needed to reach a safe competency level. And in turn I think it puts pressue on the instructors to have the student complete their training within that time.

[KenSandyEggo]

I took about 27 hours of dual and had about 850 F-W prior to that. I wouldn't have minded taking more, but I had to hop a commercial jet to get to my instructor. This was all RAF pre-stab time.

[automan1223]

I believe the gyro community suffered under its own leadership for too long and this is the result.

Low cfi's, low population of gyro pilots.

Gyros are fun, they are straightforward to build, take up low footprint for storage and hangar space, fly the pants off of any fw.

Yet the stability and safety issues were not addressed in a timely or considerable manner over too many years. These are the results. A critical mass, or implosion or lack of avaliable instruction, safe instruction that is. I live in NC. Home to what was BENSEN Aircraft. We should have hundreds of these gyros in the air. yet there is none.

I have heard all the horror stories. From all the old timers. You do not find any gyros anywhere east of raleigh and just a few west of there. The cradle of aviation is empty and I do not believe it will change or will any productions on my parts enhance the numbers in any way.

Flying is serious business. I do predict that in 5 years things might turn around numbers wise but I do not think the pra will take off like it could have because of the problems in the past. If the facts get out and are accepted by the new blood then there will be growth, if not its just us.

Jonathan

[Dean_Dolph]

I believe the gyro community suffered under its own leadership for too long and this is the result.

Low cfi's, low population of gyro pilots.
Jonathan, I'm going to make the assumption that when you talk about 'its own leadership' you are talking about the PRA leaders because in the community we have the PRA and then the rest. And if the 'rest' have leaders then it would be interesting to have them identify themselves. If in fact you are talking about the PRA then I'd like to point out that if it weren't for the PRA you wouldn't have 'low Cfi's', you would have nearly none! I would also like to point out, like Ralph Taggart did at Mentone, that the majority of PRA members are not pilots or builders and never will be! And there is nothing wrong with that. An organization whether it is the military, a sports team or the PRA always needs a support group that does the grunt work and supplies the enthusiasm and knowledge to make it successful. Invariably this support group is larger than the featured players.

It took Don Farrington representing the PRA (and his training business!) to get the FAA to grant the 5209 exemption under which the CFIs can use their experimental machines to train. Otherwise the training had to be conducted in a certified machine like the Air & Space 18A or the McCulloch J2. Guess how many of those are operational!

The fact that there isn't nearly enough CFIs can't be blamed on the PRA. The PRA had a CFI scholarship at one time and I don't know why it disappeared. I suspect it was the cost or more likely the lack of suitable candidates. The lack of instructors apparently is because experienced pilots don't have the desire to become an instructor and has nothing to do with the PRA. Ron Menzie did mention something at, I believe, the Mentone life members meeting, that my poor ears failed to completely pickup. But I believe he was saying that the FAA was throwing up roadblocks that were slowing up his ability to certify more instructors. That isn't a PRA problem. Well actually it is, but I suspect that there is only so much the organization can do. But it is a good example of exactly why the rotorcraft community needs the PRA and its leaders.

Yet the stability and safety issues were not addressed in a timely or considerable manner over too many years.………….

I respectfully disagree! People like Chuck Beaty have hammered on the stability and safety issues since closer to day one than today; in other words for a long, long time. But it has only been since the Internet was available that the communication was such that this info could be widely disseminated. I don't know how long you have been involved with rotorcraft but if you have access to the old, old issues of Popular Rotorcraft Flying, which is what the PRA mag was once named, then you will find that these issues were constantly being discussed. But it was a one-way street and if a person didn't grasp what was being presented then the means to acquire an understanding were far and few between. Now we have the means to discuss an issue until it is understood. The effort was always there but now it is more efficient.

Flying is serious business. I do predict that in 5 years things might turn around numbers wise but I do not think the pra will take off like it could have because of the problems in the past. If the facts get out and are accepted by the new blood then there will be growth, if not its just us.

Jonathan

Well, Jonathan, one thing for sure, negative thinking certainly won't do anything to help the situation. I prefer to think, because of the communication now available to us, that we will turn the corner and that the PRA membership numbers will not only reach an all time high but that the rate of growth will exceed any we have seen in the past. I can see several activities and relatively new people getting involved that will make this happen. The enthusiasm, and the ideas presented on Todd's forum, since Mentone are the reason I believe.

[Heron]

Gyros will bounce back!
Look at the retro designs all around . . .
Maybe the PRA just let it slide a bit, but we can work it out!
Education is the key!
Heron

[Rotornut]

I remember looking thru some old PRA Magazines at the club house last month while I was waiting on the rain to stop. I did see an articile not sure what year or month on a young man who was awarded the pleasure of training from a CFI, paid for or worked out between PRA and the CFI. In fact I am pretty sure it was Jim Delgado (air command) that gave the instructions and Steve Graves did the sign off at BD Days in Okeecohobee lets see 97 or 96?? But I did read an articile on it, and I thought now that would be a good Door Prize at BD DAYS! What an awesome door prize. Thanks for that suggestion I Like. MJ :)

[PW_Plack]

I still scratch my head when I see statements such as, "We need more CFIs" or "if we had more CFIs the price wouldn't be so prohibitive."

If this is a case of too much demand and too little supply, then why can't the current group of CFIs keep their training calendars full? Most of these guys always have openings if you plan ahead, and most of them work day jobs for lack of business.

Gyro training doesn't appear to me to be much more expensive than quality fixed-wing training. Sure, there are some retired guys who instruct in FW as a hobby, and that holds rates down, but the local flight schools in my area are all about $39/hr for insructors. Wet rentals range from $42/hr for a 1942 Aeronca Champ, to $110/hr for a really nice 1997 Cessna Skyhawk equipped for IFR. This means a combined range of $81 to $149. Dual instruction at Sport Copter, conducted in a solid, well-maintained tandem machine with only a few hundred hours on it, and $17K worth of NSI Soob & CAP out back, is $120/hr if I recall correctly. This is about the same as a FW instructor and a newer Cessna 152 in my area. Considering the much higher level of personal risk incurred by a gyro CFI due to lack of insurance, this seems reasonable to me.

We'll get more CFIs, convenient to more areas of the US, when we have more students committing to instruction. Maybe Sport Pilot will help that happen in time. That may save some money on airline fares and motel bills, but I wouldn't expect the hourly price of good instruction to come down much, if at all.

I recently looked at some other kinds of training required for a career change. Compared to most of them, flight instruction is a relative bargain.

[Dean_Dolph]

Paul, I agree with you that training expense is probably not out of line. I think a number of people probably see it as expensive because after building their machine the money pot is close to empty. I see very few people include training in their project budget so they get sticker shock, so to speak, when the time comes. I do think that travel cost and the inconvenience are detrimental to the training process. And it will only be improved when there are sufficiently large numbers of local instructors. I believe the lack of local instructors, CFI, AFI and BFI contribute to slow PRA growth.

As far as the instructor situation goes I think what you have described is the chicken or the egg scenario. Which comes first, the students that need instructors or the instructors that will attract more students.

I know that one of the first question asked by newbees is where can I get training? And when told what they have to do to get it they lose interest. This usually happens with people that already have a PPL or fly FW ultralights, people that already have a place to get their flying 'fix'.

My feeling, which I've stated before, is that there is a critical number for potential students (read PRA members) that when reached will drive the whole process. More members, more students which require more instructors resulting in more pilots. More Pilots mean a larger pool of potential instructors. More instructors means local availability and this means cheaper, easier and convenient which attracts more students.

So the circle goes, more PRA members, more students needing more instructors to provide local training to create more pilots who may become instructors which attracts more PRA members and etc.

If we had a 100,000 PRA members we wouldn't be having this discussion.

[Heron]

I am all for it . . .lets do it!!
Heron

[quadrirotor]

Are gyros efficient and sexy enough?
can we rent a gyro after the instruction?

[Brent_Brown]

Ron Menzie did mention something at, I believe, the Mentone life members meeting, that my poor ears failed to completely pickup. But I believe he was saying that the FAA was throwing up roadblocks that were slowing up his ability to certify more instructors.

Can we find out what he is saying about roadblocks?

Can anyone tell me what the last month was they got a PRA mag? My last one was the Members list and I can't find that.

[PW_Plack]

Dean, I agree with part of what you say...many gyroplane newbies have unrealistic expectations.

Andre, you make an excellent point. The unavailability of single-place machines for solo work after you're signed off is a real roadblock for some. A couple of guys here are trying to start a gyroplane flying club, allowing students to purchase part ownership in a single place for solo hours. They want to limit flying to hours needed for the FAA Private certificate, at which time the theory is graduating members would be bought out of their shares by incoming new students. Besides the obvious problems you can imagine, the legal issues are reportedly very challenging.

I decided early on to get my Private ASEL (fixed-wing) first, so that if no other option became available, I could at least legally fly a newly-built experimental gyroplane solo without first satisfying the 40-hour test period requirement. Many students, though, don't have the resources to do that.

[KenSandyEggo]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding Paul, but the 40 hour fly-off applies to any newly registered homebuilt, no matter who is flying it. Maybe I didn't get what you were saying........IT COULD HAPPEN!

[PW_Plack]

Ken, I misspoke (mistyped?) what I meant to say, and have edited. OK, OK...I misthunk it, too...

If you build your own two-place, you can't take instruction in it as a student pilot until the 40 hours are flown off.

If you already have another powered certificate, you can legally fly during the 40 hours for solo work, but still can't take dual training in it, because you can't yet carry a passenger legally.

If, on the other hand, you have another powered certificate, you're already qualified to act as Pilot in Command of an experimental, so you could fly it solo during the 40 hours. It wouldn't be a good idea unless you'd had it checked out first by a qualified test pilot, and it was similar to whatever machine you got your dual in.

[KenSandyEggo]

Gotcha Paul.

[Hardy]

Brent June/July issue Bensen Days 2004 on the cover, got it last week Tues. I belive.