There’s Great Value in Solo Flight

You probably remember your first solo—when it was, where it was, and what airplane you flew. 

After the first solo, there were additional solo flights where you practiced takeoffs and landings or went to the practice area to work on the maneuvers you learned with your CFI. Eventually, you flew solo cross-country flights.

What these flights likely had in common was butterflies in your stomach the first time you did them, and you, and you alone, were responsible for the safety of the flight as PIC. 

This Article First Appeared in FLYING Magazine

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The nerves disappeared when you realized you could fly the airplane by yourself and didn’t need a CFI sitting next to you as a human security blanket.

Flying by yourself is one of the major confidence builders in aviation. Yet, sadly, fewer pilots are getting more than the required five solo hours required for the private pilot certificate because they are training at a school that embraces Performing the Duties of Pilot in Command (PDPIC) in lieu of solo flight.

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Under PDPIC, if there is an instructor on board and the student is performing all of the duties of the PIC, such as radio calls, programming the avionics, and flying the airplane, this can be used to meet the experience requirements for the commercial certificate under FAR 61.129(a)(4).

“To me this ‘training crutch’ seems to simultaneously say ‘this pilot is safe for solo’ with an element of doubt that requires a safety pilot,” said David St. George, the executive director of the Society of Aviation and Flight Educators (SAFE) and a DPE. “This time is allowed to be logged as ‘solo’ even though it isn’t. What is lost with this legal sleight of hand is the acquisition of pilot-in-command confidence building and skill that comes from flying actual solo.”

Genesis of PDPIC

According to the FAA, the PDPIC rule dates back to 1995, when the agency issued a Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM). 

Two years and hundreds of comments later, CFR So 61.129(a)(4) in 1997 permits training to be performed solo or with an instructor on board for commercial pilot certification-airplane single engine rating.

According to the final rule as published, the “intent of the proposal was to make the regulations more compatible with the current operating environment and the evolving demands of the NAS. The proposals included measures to update training, certification, and recency of experience requirements, and a number of the proposals were intended to promote and encourage increased pilot training activities.”

St. George said PDPIC was originally permitted by the FAA for multiengine aircraft training where required “low time solo” was impossible due to insurance requirements. 

The PDPIC rule was then applied to single-engine aircraft and “permitted incompletely trained pilots to complete their solo requirements sooner with less preparation, and hence less time and expense.” During these PDPIC flights the CFI is relegated to the role of self-loading ballast, although they get to log the hours and collect a paycheck.

PDPIC Challenges

There are some flight schools that encourage PDPIC because most of their clients aspire to professional pilot careers where they will be part of a two-person crew. However, there are some pilots who feel not having much solo PIC time weakens their skills.

“Solo time is one of the most valuable experiences you can have when preparing to be a commercial pilot, even if you ultimately end up in a two-crew environment,” said Denise Stecconi, a Seattle-area airline captain who built her hours as a flight instructor.

“For the commercial certificate, for example, the timing might be such that a dual-crew job isn’t immediately available, so you’re training to be in command as a single pilot. The goal is for the student to be capable of making independent decisions and managing all the threats and errors that come with solo flying.”

Stecconi estimates that approximately 400 hours of her total 9,200 hours are solo flight, some of that ferrying airplanes. “Those ferry flights were few but memorable, because you second-guess yourself when there is no one else on the plane,” she said.

Even if the flight is done under PDPIC, the fact there is an instructor on board will make the pilot receiving instruction behave differently. If a challenge is encountered during the flight, it’s human nature to look over at the CFI for assurance, even when they should be using their own internal resources, such as their training, to make decisions resulting in a favorable outcome.

Jason Blair, a DPE and the author of FLYING’s Chart Wise column, suggests that PDPIC is often “done simply as a way for the CFI to ride along and get some extra hours, not necessarily for the benefit of the pilot in training who needs the experience item.”

It can backfire, according to Blair, when the PDPIC is incorrectly logged as “instruction given” by the CFI and “dual received” by the student.

“FAR 61.129 makes it such that 10 hours of cross-country and night experience with the 10 takeoffs and landings at the towered airport is an all-or-nothing when it comes to PDPIC or solo,” Blair said. “This regularly boxes students in 61 training paths out of having parts of the experience they conducted from counting. Many times it kills the student’s long cross-country, and they have to re-fly it.”

In the worst cases, Blair said neither the CFI nor DPE catches this discrepancy, and applicants that technically were not qualified for the commercial certificate are being tested and passed anyway.

“I have seen multiple CFI applicants who I found at that point were not actually fully qualified from experience requirements when they actually got their commercial certificate,” he said.

Some schools use PDPIC as a means of accelerating pilot training because it allows the rapid acquisition of experience (hours) and certificates, making the pilots marketable that much faster.

“This is resulting in some pilots having as few as five to 10 hours of solo time prior to instructing others or fulfilling the FAA requirements to be hired by an airline,” said Karen Kalishek, chair of the National Association of Flight Instructors. “While earlier generations of pilots typically had more solo time experience prior to career advancement, the bottom line is safety.

“Analysis of accident statistics and causal factors relating to pilots with little solo time will quickly determine whether changes in current practices are warranted.”

Single-Pilot Resource Management (SRM)

Single-Pilot Resource Management is defined as the “art and science of managing all the resources (both on board the aircraft and from outside sources) available to a single pilot (prior to and during flight) to ensure the successful outcome of the flight.” 

Some might argue it is difficult or impossible to develop these skills when you have another pilot aboard.

Jason Archer, chief instructor at Berkshire Aviation in Massachusetts and a Master CFI through SAFE, sees solo flight as “one of the most important transitions CFIs will ever guide a learner pilot through.”

“Many 250-hour newly minted instructors only have the [minimum] solo time of about 10 hours,” Archer said. “This provides little opportunity to act as a true pilot in command. Flying with an instructor means having a safety net—someone to guide, correct, and share the workload—while mistakes become teachable moments under close supervision. Flying solo shifts all of that responsibility to the learner: every decision, radio call, correction, and judgment is theirs alone.

“With no backup in the cockpit, the pilot must trust their training, manage the full workload, and self-correct as needed. It’s the moment when they transition from being taught to fly to truly becoming a pilot.”

Many aviation educators—Archer included—are cognizant of how our broader educational culture has conditioned many learners to focus on “teaching to the test”—memorizing the right answers to pass, rather than building adaptable problem-solving skills. 

That mindset can leave new pilots technically competent but emotionally unprepared for the autonomy of solo flight.

Instead of viewing solo as a natural progression, they may see it as stepping into an unscripted exam with no answer key—and that erodes confidence. Solo flight is where they should be exercising their decision-making skills, building confidence, and acting as a true PIC. It is their “out-of-the-nest” time. 

In fact, it is the best thing they can do to develop their skills as an aviator. The CFI’s goal should be to train their learner to the point where they kick them out of the cockpit and put them out of work.

This column first appeared in the November Issue 964 of the FLYING print edition.