Saftey Pilot

: checkride. The FARs stipulate that you need a minimum of 15 hours of
: of instruction from a CFII (thought I suspect there are few who have managed
: to get away with only 15 hours from a CFII prior to taking their checkride).
: The rest can be flying around under the hood with a safety pilot (who doesn't
: even need to be instrument rated). I personally spent quite a few hours

IIRC, I believe I was one. Being the cheap ******* that I am, I flew a lot
with PP-VFR safety pilot friends to accrue the experience, and paid for only the
15 hours CFII time required. That was more than enough CFII time. So long as you
don't develop bad habits, safety-pilot time is good enough for you to learn yourself
how easily you can kill yourself if you're not good enough.

: shooting approaches with a safety pilot on board prior to my checkride. It
: was excellent practice because I didn't have a CFII on board to "bail me out"
: should I get all confused as to what the needles were trying to tell me.
: (The job of the safety pilot is, of course, to make sure you don't bonk
: into anything....).

Technically, usually bonk into any-*ONE*. If you're flying instrument
procedures by the book there should be plenty of wiggle room (by definition).

-Cory


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* Cory Papenfuss *
* Electrical Engineering candidate Ph.D. graduate student *
* Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University *
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