Fred Choate wrote:
I didn't even respond. My question to you folks is simply, how long did you
all wait before you decided it was safe to fly with your family?
Myself.....my kids were the first passengers I took up, and I felt
completely safe, prepared, and at ease with them in the aircraft with me.



I have mixed feelings. God grants a special dispensation to newbies and morons.
You are going to do some bone headed things in your next several hundred hours
of flying. With any luck, there'll be no consequence more serious than
embarassment.

So... what should you do? In my case, I flew my parents around sometime in my
first 100 hours or so but I didn't carry them any distance at all until I earned
an instrument rating. I had the added advantage of my dad being a command pilot
in the USAF, albeit retired.

You want to get your inlaws off your case? Get an instrument rating ASAP. I
got my private license in February of 1978 and finished my instrument rating
that November. The following May I took my commercial check ride. Why? It
wasn't so much that I wanted to fly for a living as I felt it added standing to
my flying ability in the eyes of my passengers. And it does.

Take your kids on passenger hops. Leave them for those cross country trips in
questionable weather.



--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN

VE