Experience Question

Hello All....

This may sound silly, but I would like to hear some opinions on a matter
presented to me this evening.

I recently got my ticket. I started 5 years ago, and due to certain
circumstances, I had to take 4 1/2 years off, then I picked up and did 10
more hours of training to prep for the checkride. My total hours to date
are 63.8 with 26.7 of those being solo time.

Okay, that being said, my In-Laws made a comment to me tonight about flying
with my children. Actually, they put it in the context of "do you really
think it is a good idea to fly with your children until you get more
hours....." followed by "....Larry (one of the In-Laws) didn't fly with
family members until he had 300 hours....".

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.

Comments?

Fred

"Fred Choate" wrote in message

This may sound silly, but I would like to hear some opinions

Tell 'em your kids are your kids, and they're probably a damn sight safer
flying with you than they are driving with anyone who would start a question
with "do you really think its a good idea....", or flying with someone with
such obviously low self confidence as "Larry".

On Tue, 5 Jul 2005 23:31:33 -0400, "John Gaquin"
wrote in
::


Tell 'em your kids are your kids, and they're probably a damn sight safer
flying with you than they are driving with anyone who would start a question
with "do you really think its a good idea....", or flying with someone with
such obviously low self confidence as "Larry".

Were you referring to moi?

"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
...

Were you referring to moi?


Only if you're the in-law Larry refereed to in the original post :-)

"John Gaquin" wrote in message
...
Only if you're the in-law Larry refereed to in the original post :-)

Or Fred, even.

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.

Comments?

Fred


I took up my first passenger as soon as I got home from the checkride
(same day). If I had any family I would not hesitate to take them up
right away. No one ever knows it all. Even after thousands of hours
there is something new to learn. I found out that the license to fly
just tought me how to get the plane up and down safetly and not much
else. 4 years after I got my ticket, a friend taught me how to land.
Since then I haven't bounced a landing but theres always room for
improvement.....

"Fred Choate" wrote in message
...
Hello All....

This may sound silly, but I would like to hear some opinions on a matter
presented to me this evening.

I recently got my ticket. I started 5 years ago, and due to certain
circumstances, I had to take 4 1/2 years off, then I picked up and did 10
more hours of training to prep for the checkride. My total hours to date
are 63.8 with 26.7 of those being solo time.

Okay, that being said, my In-Laws made a comment to me tonight about
flying with my children. Actually, they put it in the context of "do you
really think it is a good idea to fly with your children until you get
more hours....." followed by "....Larry (one of the In-Laws) didn't fly
with family members until he had 300 hours....".

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.

Comments?

Fred

Flew my first on the way back to the field after taking the check ride.

Actually, you can make a fairly good argument for a pilot being very sharp
right after passing the check ride. After all, you DID just demonstrate to
competent authority that you were both qualified and ready to accept this
responsibility. Do they REALLY think you'll become less competent 24 hours
later? :-)

There are stats that will show a definite area during your tenure as a pilot
based on hours and experience that will show a higher and lower accident
rate during these periods, but these are national averages. Your competence
was fine passing the test, and you should be just fine taking the kids for a
ride.
As for the "family" being concerned about your lack of "experience", I don't
think you want to get into the old counter argument to this that tells them
about the 20,000 hr ATP who flew his airliner into the ground and killed 300
people in the process! THAT will REALLY worry them!! :-)
I would approach the issue with a genuine concern for their "uneducated"
feelings about this, and calmly bring them up to speed with the reality that
you have finished what can easily be said to be a highly concentrated and
advanced training curriculum that has culminated in you taking an extremely
difficult and demanding flight test given by a test examiner. You have been
cleared as competent to fly safely with passengers, or you couldn't have
survived this gauntlet.
They should be very proud of you. You have earned the respect of your peers
in aviation, and if you walk them through a process that allows them to
realize this for themselves, this is EXACTLY what will happen for you.
Best of luck,
Dudley Henriques

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

"Fred Choate" wrote in message
...
Hello All....

This may sound silly, but I would like to hear some opinions on a matter
presented to me this evening.

I recently got my ticket. I started 5 years ago, and due to certain
circumstances, I had to take 4 1/2 years off, then I picked up and did 10
more hours of training to prep for the checkride. My total hours to date
are 63.8 with 26.7 of those being solo time.

Okay, that being said, my In-Laws made a comment to me tonight about
flying
with my children. Actually, they put it in the context of "do you really
think it is a good idea to fly with your children until you get more
hours....." followed by "....Larry (one of the In-Laws) didn't fly with
family members until he had 300 hours....".

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.

Comments?

Fred

About 30 minutes after the DE signed my temporary certificate I was up with
family members. It would have been sooner but I took time to get a sandwich
and an iced tea.

"Fred Choate" wrote in message
...
Hello All....

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.

Comments?

Fred

My kids were my first passengers, right after my pvt. checkride.
Go for it! Have fun.

John Severyn
KLVK