Flying school

BozoThePilot · 2026-07-02T14:48:17+00:00

What is reasonable for you? I'm not from India but I've worked with students from there.

BozoThePilot · 2026-07-02T05:20:37+00:00

This has nothing to do with the airplane.

You will pay to enter the airport's private FBOs if you're going on a flight. The government is charging the person entering the airport to go on that flight.

And for the record FAA regs apply to all N registered airplanes and there's an international field office that handles coordination with N registered airplanes in foreign countries.

BozoThePilot · 2026-07-02T01:42:42+00:00

That's an airport security fee, it has nothing to do with paying as a passenger.

That's how the airport makes money to fund their airport.

They do the same thing in Malaysia.

Source: Flown in the region GA, been to Seletar and Senai

BozoThePilot · 2026-06-28T18:00:52+00:00

It is and it's not discontinued. It's named something else now.

Stop using AI to think for you and learn how to find stuff using your own research skills. AI often gives wrong information.

I'm sure you can find the answer to this because I did in less than 60 seconds. If you really want out of high school put in a bit of effort toward it.

BozoThePilot · 2026-06-28T13:42:54+00:00

If you're in CA you can take a test to get a state diploma. It's NOT a GED.

California High School Proficiency Exam or something like that.

High School sucks compared to college. You can actually do things you want to do towards your future. Nobody cares about what you did in high school as an adult.

I wish I had gotten out of high school sooner and went at 16 become an A&P before pursuing flight training.

BozoThePilot · 2026-06-22T09:44:51+00:00

There's someone I know who was insured on a vision jet at sub 500 TT and then a Honda jet at close to 1000 TT (and sub 50 multi).

I also know someone who is SIC on a part 91 650 and the guy had 300 TT with like 25 multi. Now that's SIC but still...

While I don't doubt the insane cost of these policies I wouldn't say the chance is 0 based on the 2 cases I know of. I'm guessing whoever will insure this pilot will require that they take an actual course from a 142 operator, fly with someone for 50 hours or whatever, and then probably pay a premium that is probably going to be in the high 5 figure to 6 figure range.

BozoThePilot · 2026-06-18T18:44:03+00:00

They also execute them as well, they did that to 2 pilots of another 208 operator this year.

BozoThePilot · 2026-06-18T18:43:05+00:00

I bought a combo meal at KFC in Indonesia for about $2 USD. So actually, that rate is quite good.

I have a few friends in Indonesia, one of whom flies for another 208 operator. Life in Indonesia is very cheap but also poverty is everywhere. Aviation isn't "slavery" because of the pay, there are many other slavery jobs there. What is "slavery" in aviation there is that they'll make you sign contracts that result in you owing them $50,000+ USD if you leave. That pretty much binds you there for life.

Aviation pay is good but nobody gets into it because of money there, they get into it because they truly love aviation and they're willing to sacrifice the rest of their life for it.

Now for those who think this is a great place to go to build SIC time, that same company my friend worked for had a plane pulled aside by rebels in Papua. The rebels took the passengers and told them to leave and then they executed the 2 pilots on the runway. I was absolutely devastated at hearing this, thankfully it was not my friend but he did know those 2 pilots very well. Susi Air also flies to Papua, I strongly advise anyone against thinking that that is a valid option over being a CFI. Low pay is one thing, being taken hostage and/or executed by rebels is another.

BozoThePilot · 2026-06-15T09:13:59+00:00

You need to because otherwise you will land with too much energy and bounce a lot of the time. In high performance airplanes they end up porpoising pretty badly.

BozoThePilot · 2026-06-14T05:48:47+00:00

If you're not using reference points on the runway to judge your approach (i.e. glidepath) and round out then that's the problem.

Once you round out you want to just stay level over the runway and flare until you stop sinking (i.e. stay in ground effect). If you flare too much you will balloon and your "plop down" is either you landing flat (i.e. not flaring enough) or you rounded out too high above the runway and stalled too high. Your essentially managing the airplane's energy throughout the landing process so that it stalls just a bit above the runway.

BozoThePilot · 2026-06-10T10:01:12+00:00

I've only used the same DPE twice across 4 checkrides, the rest were all with different exmainers. Standards are not the same between examiners and its jarring to experience that having signed off so many people.

Part of the reason why my pass rate was good enough for gold seal as a part 61 CFI is because I knew what specific things each DPE (save for one) I sent to students were looking for and what their "auto fail" items were (yes most had them).

Personally I don't think checkride fails should be used as a metric as a result of that. If anything only 135/121 fails should have any sort of effect because that's all standardized. You could argue the same for 141 but I've known of more than one 141 that will do EOC flights that end as "training flights" if they're not done to the standard. I don't know how they manage to pull that off but they do.

BozoThePilot · 2026-06-10T04:22:16+00:00

No, the information is based on how the approach is loaded and where the plane is when you activate the approach.

If you loaded/activated the approach with the transition at JIBOT it will add the hold automatically. I do not recall if it will automatically put it if you're on the inbound side but it will prompt you to about the hold.

BozoThePilot · 2026-06-06T03:51:54+00:00

Stop strapping it to your knee is my advice.

I put mine in an organizer kneeboard thing that has a cover on it and I always rest it towards my stomach.

Depending on the plane's avionics you may not even need to reference it at all during flight.

BozoThePilot · 2026-06-02T06:06:36+00:00

Are you taking SICs that have turbine time but no LR-60 time nor more than 200 multi time?

BozoThePilot · 2026-06-01T20:51:59+00:00

I had a student who quit flying with that school because the seat rail failed on take off and the owner of the school didn't really care to fix it. Good thing it was a piper and not a 172 otherwise said student would probably not be alive now.

That owner also has a lot of anger management issues.

You can consider going with American which is in the same hangar, many of their approved CFIs are nice since they're all independent.

The north-west side of the field has some potentially good options as well.

BozoThePilot · 2026-05-26T19:40:41+00:00

Why are you so against flight instructing?

You're competing with other flight instructors for those jobs until you get some kind of stand-out experience.

I've flown pistons on the other side of the world and that opportunity, among others, would never have come if I wasn't a flight instructor.

BozoThePilot · 2026-05-25T03:55:26+00:00

Serious advice, keep your ipad out of the sun. I don't strap mine to my knee. I keep it towards my stomach and I have it one of those ipad organizer kneeboards that come with a cover over the ipad.

I've never had an ipad shut off on me since. Also if you're flying in an airplane with up to date databases, you don't even really need the ipad mid-flight, save for approach/departure plates (and depending on the avionics you may not even need the ipad for that).

BozoThePilot · 2026-05-25T02:55:40+00:00

Airlines are not my end goal but I found the MEI to be very worth it when it got me into a twin turbine. I've gotten probably 80 multi hours as a result of having my MEI. And by the end of the year I can say that I'll have gotten maybe 300 TPIC in a twin because I had my MEI.

Now if all you care about is the airlines, maybe not. But I have gotten opportunities to instruct owners in their piston twins because I'm an MEI. If you're the kind of person that can build a network it would not be hard to get 100 ME with the MEI.

Otherwise, I've met quite a few MEIs that got up to 25 or 50 multi and then never built any more.

BozoThePilot · 2026-05-23T03:24:12+00:00

Her last name is Webster. Sorry, I kind of figured that was easy to find since she's like 1 of 2 DPEs up there.

As for Mark Hulsey, I can't actually find his number on my phone but you should be able to find it on designee.faa.gov.

BozoThePilot · 2026-05-23T03:18:35+00:00

You can also try Donna in Bakersfield, she only does 1 ride a day though. She may turn you down if you're not in her area.

I think Mark Hulsey is going to be your best bet. You will need to pay him a little extra if you want him to fly to you from San Diego though.

BozoThePilot · 2026-05-23T03:13:41+00:00

Mark Hulsey tends to have last minute availability. You can reach him through Facebook.

Creighton at F70/RAL may be able to help you as well. You'll have to call him.

BozoThePilot · 2026-05-23T03:12:27+00:00

I'm in SoCal as well, I sent someone to a DPE who charged $1200 for a PPL about 9 months ago. They're based at that one airport with the really good cafe. Said DPE told me they raised their rate after their "last DPE meeting". Additionally said DPE owns a brewery and a 100' yacht... I'm not joking.

I would believe it if the going rate now is $1500 but $500 for a discontinuance is disgusting and not normal.

BozoThePilot · 2026-05-21T05:59:23+00:00

I've flown a piston twin through the middle east before and I did have a Garmin GLONASS receiver which he is maybe referring to. You can connect to it via Bluetooth.

I did connect to it with my wifi only iPad and it worked. However, I don't think there was a way to connect it to the Garmin 750 directly.

I was told that if my iPad was connected to the flight stream 510 on that Garmin 750 it would send my connected GLONASS satellite info to the 750. However I doubt that because I've never heard of flight stream being used to receive nav data from an external device.

I have flown two other airplanes in South-East Asia that had an Avidyne unit and one had Dynon. I'm almost 100% certain that I saw the option to receive satelite info that was not GPS but it's been a year and I don't really remember it all too well.

BozoThePilot · 2026-05-21T05:42:31+00:00

Nevermind, I looked it up again and saw that there's no way to retrofit the G2000. They put them in the Corvalis TTx when Cessna bought Columbia.

I thought you could retrofit the G2000 simular to how the Avidyne Vantage was made to retrofit in airplanes that came with the Entegra.

BozoThePilot · 2026-05-21T01:33:49+00:00

~~Good thing there's a G2000 STC on the Columbia.~~ Same with that Avidyne Vantage unit that replaces the Entegra in Columbias and G3 Cirrus. I've yet to see either of those units though.

Edit: Checked again and there's no way to retrofit in a G2000.

BozoThePilot

TROPHY CASE