![The FARs allow a learner to be endorsed for solo at airports within 25 nm of their home airport provided the CFI has given them training to and from these alternate airports as well as in the traffic pattern. [Credit: Adobe Stock]](https://flyingmag1.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/09/Hone-Your-Shortfield-Skills_AdobeStock_414748881_rs1.jpg?width=1200&height=800)
One of the most challenging parts of being a CFI is communicating with your learners.
Do they hear what you are saying? Do they understand what you are saying?
Aviation has a language all its own, with acronyms and jargon galore, and the semantics can be daunting. As such, a CFI needs to be very careful about how they phrase things.
How many times have you heard, “When you get your medical certificate, you can solo”? It is more accurate to say the learner is eligible for solo flight in an airplane after they get their medical certificate. That is so long as they meet the other criteria, such as being at least 16 years old and having completed the requirements of cFAR 61.87 and passed a knowledge test administered by their instructor, which measures their knowledge and understanding of airspace, aircraft performance, aircraft systems, and regulations, and rules for the airport where the solo will take place.
- READ MORE: First Flight Bag: What Fledgling Pilots Need to Succeed
- READ MORE: Student Pilots Learning From Mistakes Is Part of Process
I stress this because I have seen the fallout when a student pilot shows up at the flight school with a freshly acquired medical certificate, saying they were flying solo that day. The dispatch clerk was not a pilot and was new on the job, so they didn’t realize that solo privileges are granted after several hours of dual instruction and, in addition to the aforementioned test, require an endorsement from the CFI.
The dispatcher was supposed to check the renter’s folder to make sure the test and the copy of the endorsement were there before handing over the airplane. The dispatcher didn’t know this—they just handed over the aircraft dispatch binder, unaware the learner had a mere four hours of dual instruction logged.
Fortunately the learner’s CFI returned from a lesson with another client just in time to see the learner in the aircraft getting ready to start the engine. The CFI quickly approached the aircraft and asked the student what he was doing—did they have a lesson schedule for that day?
There was a quick discussion. The student pilot was surprised to learn he could not solo because he did not meet the requirements for solo flight. The CFI quickly explained there are 15 tasks listed under cFAR 61.87, and the student had only been taught about a third of them thus far.
Part of the problem was that they were not using a syllabus. The school was Part 61, and one was not required. The CFI was very experienced and taught as he had been taught, per the folklore method.
After a few years of instruction, you get used to what should be taught and when. That works until it doesn’t. The syllabus can be polarizing. Some learners and CFIs do better when following one. Other CFIs, and therefore their learners, resist its use very often because the CFI was not trained with one and thinks of it as a hindrance rather than a help.
To his credit, the instructor apologized profusely for not being more clear about the process and told the student this would be a story he would tell when he became a CFI. And the learner did, several years later.
Post-Solo Privileges
The need for clear communication does not end after the first solo. CFIs need to be sure the endorsement includes a caveat for checking the weather the day of the flight and computing aircraft performance.
The CFI also needs to make sure the learner is clear on where they can go solo. Practice area and back? Fine. Pattern? Perfect. After some training and another endorsement—to another airport within 25 nm for towered airport operations or nontowered operations? Wonderful.
You’d be amazed at how many student pilots are under the impression that getting the solo endorsement is like getting the keys to Dad’s car—go wherever you want.
One particular student pilot in the Seattle area made the rounds at several flight schools trying to get soloed so he could fly to Utah to visit family. He had no concept of aircraft performance because those tired—and I do mean tired—airplanes in the flight school fleet were lucky to get up to 6,000 feet. Getting over the mountains was not going to happen.
Several CFIs—myself included—tried to explain this to him. He had no concept of navigation other than GPS, but that didn’t stop him from making the rounds, trying to get a CFI to endorse him for a multiday, over-the-mountains flight. To my knowledge no one did.
Solo Means Solo as in Alone
Pretty much every CFI and/or flight school can tell a story about a freshly soloed student pilot who wants to share flight time with another student pilot.
Is it legal when they both have been soloed? Since neither one would technically be a passenger? That’s how the question is often framed. The two student pilots wanted to split time in a Cessna 172.
When I got a text message asking this, I replied, “NO” and went on to explain that one would be PIC, the other a passenger in this case, per cFAR 14 61.89. I sent a screen grab of the rest of the FAR, which reads:, “A student pilot may not act as pilot in command of an aircraft that is carrying a passenger…A student pilot may not act as a required pilot flight crewmember on any aircraft for which more than one pilot is required by the type certificate of the aircraft or regulations under which the flight is conducted, except when receiving flight training from an authorized instructor on board an airship, and no person other than a required flight crewmember is carried on the aircraft.”
When the learner pushed back on this, I told him: “Read the limitation on the back of the plastic certificate.”
For the unfamiliar, it reads “CARRIAGE OF PASSENGERS IS PROHIBITED.” For the record, I had not flown with this learner or, at that point, done any ground with them. I did want to know if they had completed private pilot ground school and if their CFI had discussed the limitations on their solo endorsement. I wondered if this was the aviation version of “Dad said no—go ask Mom.”
As the saying goes, “the FARs are written in blood,” and every time two student pilots want to fly together I am reminded of a fatal 2008 accident out of Atwater, California, in which two student pilots were illegally flying together in a Cessna 152. They knew they were breaking the rules. One paid with his life.
The student pilots were 26-year-old males enrolled in an academy-style training program. One had 63 hours of total time, including four of solo flight. The other had 68 hours, of which seven were solo. They both aspired to be airline pilots.
According to the final report from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the CFI of both students reported scheduling one of them —we will call him Alpha—for a solo cross-country flight the day of the accident.
In a written statement to the NTSB, the CFI noted before the flight that he met with Alpha to check weather and endorse his logbook for the flight. The CFI watched the student head to the ramp to preflight the airplane, then the instructor left the airport premises.
The second student pilot—we will call him Beta—wasn’t supposed to be on the airplane. He told the NTSB he waited on the first floor of the air traffic control tower until the flight instructor left, then joined Alpha on the flight from Castle Airport (KMER) in Atwater to Visalia Municipal Airport (KVIS), a distance of approximately 85.2 nm straight-line distance.
The student in the left seat (Alpha) was manipulating the flight controls on departure. The students switched seats after landing in Visalia then headed back to KMER.
It was dark when they returned to KMER. Alpha, who was sitting in the right seat, expressed concern about being seen by flight school personnel and instructed Beta, who was the pilot on the controls, to taxi the airplane to an area where he could exit unobserved. The engine was still running when the student pilot hurriedly got out of the airplane. He went toward the front of the aircraft and was struck by the spinning propeller. He died from his injuries a few days later.
That is a steep price to pay for breaking a rule.
For some people the temptation to break the rules is great. Taking an airplane without permission from the flight school to go for a joyride, flying without a pilot or medical certificate if required, or renting an aircraft and using it to provide dual instruction when you don’t work at the flight school or don’t have an instructor certificate is pretty much career suicide. Word gets around incredibly quickly.
It is not uncommon for flight schools in an area to warn each other about a pilot who does these types of things.
If you are ever tempted, think about how long it took you to earn your pilot certificate. You sat through 40-plus hours of ground school, you studied for tests, spent hours in that noisy, drafty classroom known as an airplane, and you shelled out thousands of dollars learning new skills.
There may have been a few times you were so frustrated you wanted to quit or had doubts about whether or not you could do it. But you did. You passed the check ride, and now you have a pilot certificate.
Are you sure you’re willing to risk losing it for a few seconds of adventure?
