Unpopular opinion but technically correct answer: you can fly any plane without a pilots license.
In fact I just saw a Quora question with this exact question and the answer came from a 60 year old pilot that has been flying without a license for 30 years.
If you never fly out of a major airport where an FAA inspector can ramp check you, who will ever find out?
This is basically correct. If your airport is small and you never get in trouble with ATC or have an emergency situation, you will probably not get caught.
However, if you do get caught, it is a criminal charge with (IIRC) up to $250,000 fine and 6 years prison time.
Or worse, you overestimate your ability and die/kill people.
I wouldn't take that risk.
If you want to fly a lot, get a license. If you want to fly a little, make friends with a pilot.
You can even get a student license with relatively few requirements, and fly solo (no passengers) during the day.
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That said, I do sympathize with people wanting to opt out of the FAA's draconian rules. (E.g. If you have been professionally diagnosed with ADHD, the FAA bans you from any pilot's license ever, even a student license. :/ Lovely)
> E.g. If you have been professionally diagnosed with ADHD, the FAA bans you from any pilot's license ever, even a student license
Not quite true. They just need you to be evaluated where you've been off medication for at least 90 days. But if you're on Adderall, you're shit out of luck. Which is pretty dumb since the medication resolves issues.
Other dumb things that will/can prevent you from getting your license: AIDS, diabetes, obesity (BMI >35), anemia, depression, gender dysphoria (they more recently updated for trans, but hormones or surgery can make it difficult), color blindness (not that impactful these days, and there are many types of color blindnesses), and many more.
Side note: I was working on my pilot's license before I went to grad school. No problems, despite a history of depression too. In grad school I got diagnosed and Adderall really made a big difference (even helping with my depression). So gotta make the choice of being able to fly or being able to do productive work which I'm passionate about. Private pilots are a dying breed, and the FAA is only doing things to accelerate this.
The FAA's Office of Aerospace Medicine is actively researching can improve or rethink the aeromedical certification process. We need to do a substantial amount of research with very limited resources, especially when we have limited data to conduct safety risk management and safety assurance. It's a tough nut to crack, but there's a lot of smart people working tirelessly to make this better.
BasicMed is a step in the right direction but still a bit of a joke in itself. And you have to go through the regular medical first to even be eligible for it.
1000% agreed that they should relax third class and how absurd it is that private pilots flying a little 2 seater are held to pretty much the same standard as someone commercially flying a passenger jet.
I had two loss of consciousness episodes very close together a number of years ago due to some very extenuating circumstances (and never had an issue before that or since) and was told I will never pass a medical to get a private pilot cert. Want to barrel down a busy highway at 70 MPH in a 6500 lb SUV where you are pretty much guaranteed to hurt multiple people in an accident? No problem! Fly an 800 lb Kitfox over fields in a rural area? No way, you could hurt someone!
Funny enough, practically everyone in aviation I talked to more-or-less told me to just lie about it and pass my medical. It seems like quite a common trend for pilots - the FAA almost certainly is doing far more harm than good with these oppressive restrictions by forcing pilots away from treatment they need for fear they may be permanently grounded. I'm certain I'd pass with flying colors if I just "forgot" that one detail but I'd rather be honest about everything.
We know the system is far too conservative and encourages pilots to conceal their medical conditions, and I'm thankful you're choosing to be honest. For loss of consciousness, you can be granted a Special Issuance since you have not had one since (see Unexplained Loss of Consciousness (ULOC) [0] in the AME Guide).
My personal viewpoint: If we cannot show a condition or treatment is unsafe, why is it disqualifying? If we cannot analyze risk or determine whether a risk control is effective [1] due to inadequate data or pilot concealment, we need to re-think the way we do things.
Surface transportation (e.g., vehicles) has a ridiculous accident rate, but the public views car accidents very differently from aviation accidents. When there is a car accident, we blame the driver. When there is a plane crash due to a medical, we blame the FAA for certifying them.
It was determined to be vasovagal syncope. One AME said 1 event is the limit 2 events means I'm out of luck. Later, I paid a senior AME to review my case and they first said the vasovagal period was too long but then changed their mind and said I could try getting a loop recorder implanted. I haven't gotten a straight answer as to how long I'd have to do that but it must be quite a while if they don't want to do a patch / Holter monitor.
Everyone seems to have different opinions, no local AMEs are apparently qualified for this and I'd need to drive hours / fly to one that is. I'm apparently just destined for deferral limbo as the FAA can just defer and let you spend more money and time trying to fight it. I'm out thousands already and there is no clear path forward. It's really remarkable considering the things pilots I've known have been through (e.g. heart surgery) and then me, perfectly healthy and never any serious medical conditions or on any medications, gets the end around. Truly disappointing and frustrating.
Unfortunately, many AMEs are not quite correct in the guidance they offer (hence the AME Guide), especially as the guidance updates and improves regularly. Vasovagal syncope is not necessarily disqualifying unless a cause cannot be determined (and therefore, risk of recurrence cannot be determined). There are plenty of commercial and private pilots flying who've experienced vasovagal syncope.
I absolutely empathize with the significant cost associated with getting endless tests and deferral limbo (in part due to a shortage of AMEs). Pilots who have the benefit of really good aeromedical teams (e.g., through their labor representation) are better informed and more successful. We really have to weigh the cost and effort associated with the tests against the information gained around safety. Too many pilots are deciding they don't want to deal with the hassle, and ultimately that results in _less_ data about the true safety risk!
I help lead this work because I agree with you! And we have been working hard on this for the last couple of years (and most of the research is publicly available). Historically, aircraft are certified for a generic pilot, pilots are certified for a generic aircraft, and procedures are built with these generic assumptions in mind. Tailoring aeromedical certification to the type of operation, the actual aircraft, the procedures flown, and the number of hours in the air would be great. We want as many people to be able to fly as possible. But relaxing requirements isn't necessarily straightforward because it requires data to show we aren't negatively impacting safety and fundamentally rethinking the we analyze and control for risk. Commercial aviation hasn't had a hull loss in more than a decade, but private pilots are crashing every few days.
But even if we were able to make the changes we'd like to make, we still need to ensure compliance with ICAO. For example, we could not conduct aeromedical exams during the pandemic due to lack of telemedicine. However, ICAO does not even allow telemedicine to be used.
It's not for lack of trying. There are very real barriers that take significant time, resources, and willpower to solve.
> Commercial aviation hasn't had a hull loss in more than a decade, but private pilots are crashing every few days.
Oh boy wait until you hear about automobiles. Gonna blow your mind.
The goal is not (should not be) maximum safety at all costs. It's a balance of safety, cost, and convenience.
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Come on, man.
Of course a 400 million dollar jet at 35,000 feet with top-of-the-line avionics, redundant systems, IFR flight plans, and professional co-pilots with thousands of hours of flight time is going to be safer than Grandpa Bob in his Glastar.
The question is whether a private pilot with an Aderol prescription presents a public safety risk significant enough to revoke his license. What's the FAA's data to prove that it does? Non-existant?
At the end of the day it matters what effect it has, and especially on GA pilots here. Which we know that this are is on the brink of extinction, and this has real downstream effects, especially in commercial. I'm not trying to say the people at the FAA aren't working hard. I'm sure that the person given a spoon to dig a ditch is working harder than the person given a backhoe, but either way, that ditch needs to be dug.
Why discriminate against diabetes. Of the things listed, this is probably the most common one & a lifestyle disease. This can have a onset in mid-40s to 50s for some genetically predisposed people. Are they not allowed to fly then?
Yeah, in undergrad I worked with a guy who was very bad at managing his blood sugar levels. One weekend he was alone in the lab and up on a ladder adjusting a ceiling-mounted camera; he passed out, fell, ripped the $30k camera out of the ceiling, caught the PC it was connected to on fire, and woke up on the floor a while later with no recollection of any of it. Another time he was biking home in the winter and passed out, luckily to be discovered in the snow by another colleague who happened to be walking home.
This is the reason. Nuance is also common for some things on the list (e.g. HIV/ADHD but not all things, e.g. AIDS/Color blindness). But all these things are still lacking of a lot of nuance and things like diabetes has only recently been partially resolved due to large lobbying efforts of the ADA: https://diabetes.org/tools-support/know-your-rights/discrimi...
Difficult to see what the “nuance” would be for HIV. If someone knows they have HIV, is receiving treatment, and passes other general health checks, then there’s really no risk. It smells of 80s prejudice.
Wait until you want to get a driver's license in Europe. You'd be surprised how much bs you'd have to go though to get one in some countries as a diabetic.
Also funny sidenote where I live: if you got type 1 diabetes before getting your license you are legally bound to report it, if you got if after getting your license you have to make your own assesment if you should report it (my not legal advice: never do that, it shortened the license from 10 to 5 or 3 years and puts you though whatever the approving person wants to put you though which can be extensive)
Because diabetes events (both hypo and hyperglycemia) due to human error can and regularly do lead to accidents. It's bad enough in cars, but a plane? Hell no.
I think they focus on type-1 not the type-2 that is likely common even in professionals. Type-1 can cause many immediate issues. And thus likely they don't want pilots with it.
I'm guessing because a Google search of "Adderall side effects" immediately returned this:
"Rare but severe side effects of Adderall can include emotional instability, psychiatric disorders and cardiovascular events. Adderall misuse can lead to seizures and death."
It's worth mentioning that people who take Adderall medicinally are taking substantially lower dosages than those who take it recreationally. Medicinal users take on average 20mg and can have dosages down to 5mg where a recreational user is taking 40mg and maybe up to 100mg. Sure, Adderall can cause the things you mentioned, but the same is actually true about sugar (a highly addictive substance, high potential for abuse, and limited medical usage).
These bins are arbitrary and dosage matters. It would be perfectly acceptable for the FAA to require 3 months of usage, at a specific dose, wherein a pilot is stable on their meds and an FAA doctor (which they must visit anyways) approves them. You can get a good idea of risk factors and stability by doing this.
That you don't want people with suicidal ideations flying planes.
There are plenty of medicines that warn against operating motor vehicles or heavy machinery, off the top of my head some blood pressure meds like Losartan and HCTZ because they can make you dizzy/prone to blacking out. I imagine there's similar logic here for pilots.
I definitely know someone who is a licensed private pilot and instructor who was diagnosed with ADHD when young and has taken medication for it. (I don't know whether he had to stop medication and be reevaluated to be licensed, presumably he did per the above link.)
It’s a massive uphill battle. Don’t get me wrong you can get a license it’s just a lot of work/money. If you have ADD don’t get diagnosed and get your license first.
> "E.g. If you have been professionally diagnosed with ADHD, the FAA bans you from any pilot's license ever, even a student license. :/"
What?!
That's incredible. If more people were trying to get their licenses I bet the ACLU would fix that nonsensical bigotry and embarrass the FAA in court.
Same is true for a lot of government jobs, especially things
that require a security clearance. Ironically this makes people vulnerable to exactly what these institutions are most afraid of: blackmail.
Incredible is right because it's not true [0]. That said, the current system isn't perfect and doesn't incentivise pilots to disclose or appropriately manage their conditions.
The investigation into Lubitz found he had been treated for suicidal tendencies prior to his training as a commercial pilot and had been temporarily denied a US pilot's licence because of these treatments for psychotic depression.
This is the debatable part. I don't think people on their medications, properly dosed, would be impaired. It also depends how severe the issue is. The same is true for driving. All diseases are on some spectrum and having a binary classification doesn't account for the nuances of the situations. Just leave it up to the medical examiners, their licenses are already on the line.
There are multiple levels of licensing with multiple levels of medical clearances.
Someone on controlled ADHD medication, diabetes, or high BMI is perfectly capable of managing risk of flying as a private pilot same as boating or driving.
They probably shouldn't be airline transport pilots, but that's not really under discussion.
It seems like your goal here is to start some sort of political fight. Please go elsewhere. Grown ups are talking.
FAA's regulations are draconian, but they are that way because they are written in blood.
When shit goes south, it doesn't matter whether you're a private or commercial pilot. Your plane is coming down regardless, and worst case you might take some other people with you to the other side.
More than anything, flying is a luxury compared to something like driving which is a practical necessity or sailing which carries far lower risks of destructive danger. Nobody needs to fly, so more stringent regulations are warranted for what is a very dangerous activity that must be handled with respect.
"Diversity" has no place in aviation, either you can fly safely or you can't. People with conditions are presumed they can't, for very good reasons.
> FAA's regulations are draconian, but they are that way because they are written in blood.
Could you give an example of a case where there was an incident because of a pilot’s diabetes or some other similar condition?
Should folks with a family history of heart attacks also be then stopped from flying? Where do you draw the line of “this health condition is significant enough”?
I’m not sure if you are familiar with medical conditions but things like diabetes can be managed quite well to the point of being nearly trivial (in terms of its negative effects.)
> "Diversity" has no place in aviation, either you can fly safely or you can't. People with conditions are presumed they can't, for very good reasons.
This has nothing to do with diversity (and why the quotes)? Medical conditions could be classified as a disability but I don’t understand what that has to do with diversity.
The leading cause of aviation accidents and incidents is pilot error[1]. So to try and prevent as many of them as possible, there is a very good reason to be exceedingly stringent and draconian about pilot certification.
I literally have no idea what you're saying, did you ask ChatGPT for an insulting line? At least the other guy[1] was slightly thoughtful about the insult, relatively speaking.
No, I meant your comment is the type of meaningless word salad I expect from ChatGPT-3.5, not a thinking human being. Broad statements made with total authoritative confidence, yet completely untrue. You also don't get to complain about diversity and then turn around and whine when someone isn't as "thoughtful" towards you as you wish they were.
Skipping over the dumb flamebait - reflect on the idea that you’re probably safer having a pilot who has a known, risk-assessed, and well-managed medical condition than you are creating an environment in which pilots are heavily disincentivised from looking after their mental and physical health.
When and where did you get your information? Because this is completely wrong. LSA's and gliders rely on self-certification for the very medical reasons you mentioned. In smaller aircraft where you don't carry passengers and don't fly in demanding circumstances (high speeds, altitudes, IFR, etc), the margin of safety for the general public is much wider. The FAA puts more trust in your own assessment of your medical condition's impact on your safety, since the main person affected by your ADM in such an aircraft is yourself. editing to add that this isn't speculation, I fly gliders.
A drivers license-only sport license requires that you not have failed an aviation medical exam. [1] ADHD will cause you to fail a medical exam, and thereby prevent you from a sport license. But, yes, if you play your cards carefully (i.e. stay away from the doctor!), you can fly LSA/gliders.
> In smaller aircraft where you don't carry passengers and don't fly in demanding circumstances (high speeds, altitudes, IFR, etc), the margin of safety for the general public is much wider.
FWIW, these aren't really differences between what you can fly with sport vs private pilot license.
* high-speed (200 horsepower) requires a separate high-performance endorsement, beyond private
* high altitude (18,000 MSL) requires a separate instrument rating, beyond private
* IFR requires a separate instrument rating, beyond private
* sport license and private license both permit carrying a passenger
There's remarkably little difference between, say, a Flight Design CTLSi and a Cessna 150, even though the FAA classifies the former as a LSA but not the latter.
In fact, the CTLSi is significantly faster :shrug:
I think the difference here is that you can get those ratings with a PPL with no extra medical requirements. IIRC some countries actually require you to get a higher class medical if you want to get an IFR endorsement for your PPL. I think what we're seeing with BasicMed is a step in the right direction to further relax the medical rules for the vast majority of PPL operations (i.e. not flying a cirrus jet at FL300, or a caravan with 10 friends). My main point though was that it is absolutely not the case that FAA bans you from flying if you have a condition they don't like or take meds they don't like. If you don't need a medical certificate (glider with or without a DL, LSA with a DL and no denial on the most recent medical application, among others) and can in good faith attest that your specific medical circumstances (the impact of which you are presumably deeply familiar with) are not a hazard, then you are allowed to hold a license and exercise its privileges. Disclaimer: This interpretation is based on reliable sources but I'm not a lawyer. Don't take my word for it, read the FARs and relevant legal publications or ask a lawyer if you think any of this applies to you.
Think about people in the Midwest who flew with their parents and inherited a Cessna. They may have never gotten a pilots license but racked up thousands of hours. They take off and land on a grass strip or their own private paved runway. Why (in their eyes) would they need a license?
How about a kid who loved planes but parents did not or could not afford lessons. They found simulators and cut their teeth on 20 years of Microsoft flight simulator and x-plane. Then they fly with some friends who comment on their remarkable flying skills. This emboldened pilot continues to fly without a license without an incident. Why (in their eyes) would they need a license?
How about a drug runner in Columbia or Mexico who learned to fly on his or her own to make $10k per flight. Mastering extreme short field takeoffs/landings and abandoning the plane afterwards. Why (in their eyes) would they need a license?
> How about a kid who loved planes but parents did not or could not afford lessons. They found simulators and cut their teeth on 20 years of Microsoft flight simulator and x-plane.
> How about a drug runner in Columbia who learned to fly on his or her own to make $10k per flight. Mastering extreme short field landings and abandoning the plane afterwards. Why (in their eyes) would they need a license?
> Please do not do this.
Seriously, you should never do this. Narco subs are much more effective than planes nowadays.
FWIW, I’ve personally met someone who this exact scenario applied too. His father flew planes in WW2 then came back and flew crop dusters. As a kid his father would let him fly and taught him how. He never went and got his FAA License. He just flew small planes like Cessnas to/from private areas. No one ever bothered him or asked him for his license.
Of course, if one has learned to fly, one can. And a license is just paperwork. But there is more to flying, like getting an aircraft, and getting insurance. Want to rent an aircraft? you'll not only need a license but also a check out. You don't always have to show your license, but sometimes they do ask. Also no license, means no insurance.
I was a pilot and have personally known about situations such as these, in detail. It happens.
They don’t rent airplanes, they buy them. Sellers usually don’t check licenses. They don’t get insurance. If you don’t get ramp checked (random FAA check of pilot) or crash, there’s no reason it will get checked.
In the same vein, the only reason you need a license is because you use publicly owned space.
For a mundane example, consider your driver's license. You only need it because you drive on public roads and highways; a driver's license is a license stating you are competent enough to not ruin the shared public roads and highways.
Likewise, a pilot's license is a license stating you are competent enough to not ruin the skies shared by all.
Commercial equivalents for those licenses also detail how you are competent enough to be entrusted with other peoples' lives or things, but I digress.
So if you take your car on a drive on your own, private land, you don't need a driver's license. Hell, you probably don't even need to register that car. Likewise, if you own a chunk of airspace and fly strictly within it, you don't need a license and you probably don't need to register the plane either.
Of course, nobody's going to be owning chunks of airspace like that so this is all theoretical.
Also IANAL, please don't do shit based off what some random hooligan spews on the intertubez.
> In California at least, you are required to file for “planned non-operation”, which is inexpensive but not free.
Nothing requires you to do that. In theory (sometimes in practice) a NOOP registration makes it easier to re-register it back to street use later.
If you have no interest in driving it on the street, no need for any kind of registration or payment. I've had race cars where I've left registration lapse, since I'm not driving them on the street it doesn't matter. I own (in CA) two cars right now for which I haven't paid registration in a very long time, as they are not street cars.
Is that the same as de-registering the car? In Australia if you have a car that you don't intend to drive on the road, you can just hand the number plates back. They refund the remainder of your licensing fees and you're done. The car can still be driven (even without a driver's license) on private land, just not public roads. If you want to drive it on the road again, you have to re-register it and get it inspected.
> it's not the same. un-registering and re-registering a car in california is a giant bureaucratic pain in the ass.
Have you done this? I have, multiple times. Not a big deal.
There is no process for "un-registering" a car in California that I know of. Just stop paying annual registration.
To re-register it, if you did not pay NO-OP fees, in theory you need to pay for the years you didn't pay to get up to date but aside from the cost, it's easy.
I say in theory because having done this three times, I've never been asked to pay the back fees. One time the agent waived all the fees, the other two times they waived all the past years except one. But if you get an angry agent having a bad day, you might have to pay more.
The California DMV hates people who own cars with a passion. I moved out of California and forgot to inform them, so 2 years later they levied my bank account for $500 of unpaid vehicle registration fees. Oh yeah, registering a car costs several hundred dollars per year.
As I mentioned in a peer comment, I've owned many cars (and still own two) where I simply stopped paying registration (California). As long as I don't drive them on the street in CA, the CA DMV doesn't care.
> So if you take your car on a drive on your own, private land, you don't need a driver's license
This is actually one of the reasons that Phantom Auto [phantom.auto] started with remote controlling cars - and while they still do, they pivoted a lot of their work towards industry driving forklifts and terminal tractors that live on private property and don't need regulation on remote operation.
You also need to consider what ground you're over. If you do this (and you definitely shouldn't) stick to airspace above uninhabited areas like national parks, BLM areas, etc.
You can fly a plane without a licence just like you can drive a car without a licence. No problem at all. Until you're caught or in a crash.
You can't however, unlike a car, fly a plane without having been taught. If you try, you may be able to get in the air, but the difficult part is getting back on the ground alive.
We can't drive a car without having been taught either.
Granted, the amount of training required to drive a car pales in comparison to flying an aircraft, but it's not like humans can just drive a car straight out of the womb.
If it's an automatic, you only really need a vague cultural awareness of what a car is and how it works I think. (Ignoring driving well, fuel efficiently, understanding road markings, etc. - just enough to get around and improve as you go.) Push this to go, steer direction with this. Quite like a boat (motor) - certainly don't need lessons to get going with a wheel and a lever, or directing an outboard motor or rudder.
> You don’t need a license to operate these aircraft because they’re easy enough to fly that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) doesn’t see the need to regulate them.
I don't think that's the reason. The reason is that they are unlikely to hurt anyone besides the pilot in a crash.
They can have an engine failure, stall-spin, or fly into a cloud just as readily as any other plane. Those are the biggest risks for GA, and they're no easier to handle in an ultralight.
You are absolutely correct. The fact that this statement is made by a website holding itself out as an educational source is very disappointing.
Ultralight vehicles meeting these requirements (weight, single seater, etc.) are subject to NO airworthiness regulation by the FAA at all. So the FAA is making no statement on whether they are safe or easy to fly.
What these regulations mean is it is not a crime to fly something meeting these requirements (even if it was assembled by your crazy neighbor in their shed). That doesn't mean anyone would think it is a good idea, let alone the FAA.
Here in Germany, if you don't have an IFR (instrument flight rules) rating, you're not allowed to fly through clouds, because if you're not trained in using avionics or the plane doesn't have them in the first place, you are very very likely to kill yourself, your passengers and people on the ground. If you encounter unexpected clouds, you are supposed to GTFO... if you try to fly "under" the clouds, you may end up forced into the clouds anyway by natural elevation, minimum ground clearances or obstacles and hitting a mountain or whatever, and if you try to fly above the clouds you may end up being forced to a higher altitude than your plane can maintain, or you can't push down to a landing site and run out of fuel.
In fact, unexpected clouds are among the top killers in general aviation with a fatality (!) rate of 86% - if you lose visual, you got 180 seconds to live on average [1].
Stay the fuck away from clouds, fog and other visual obstacles with anything that moves, no matter if it's a drone, a plane, a ship or a road vehicle, unless you are trained and certified in instrumental operation. You will either hit something you didn't intend to yourself, or you will get hit by something that could have avoided you, had your vehicle had collision avoidance systems (in aircraft, TCAS, in watercraft ordinary radar plus AIS - neither of which are a requirement in small vehicles).
1. The study was done in 1954, not 1991.
2. The AI, DG and VSI were covered.
3. The subjects had received NO prior instrument training whatsoever, typical for private pilots of that time period.
4. The study was performed in a real airplane, a Bonanza. None of the students had ever flown a complex high-performance aircraft prior to the study.
Yes, flying IMC as a non IFR pilot is dangerous, but the video/study is misleading. I can't find the original source for 86% but I'd bet anything that a PPLs today would not die 86% of the time if they flew into IMC, I suspect they mean it was fatal in 86% of the cases where there was an incident.
No one is saying a brief smidgen of inadvertent IFR is dangerous. Flying through puffies while cloud-surfing is not going to get you killed, and no one actually follows the FAA recommended cloud clearances anyway.
What IS going to kill a VFR-only pilot is things like scud-running under a marginal ceiling trying to press an airport because "I swear it can't be that bad based on the last PIREP and I have to meet Mom/Dad/spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend/buddies because X." Then they find out the ceiling IS that bad, they go inadvertent IMC, they freak out, and now we're off to the races. Maybe they wrap it up too tight trying to do a 180. Maybe they CFIT. Maybe they pop out again mid-turn and now they're lost AND freaked out.
One of the #1 rules of aviation is to KNOW YOUR LIMITS.
For sure, I just felt like the specific numbers needed to be called out as very misleading. You don't fly safer by having unrealistic fears, you fly safer by having realistic fears. Being deeply and wrongly convinced you will insta-die if you _have_ to fly instrument for a minute will not help you if you get stuck and have to do that minute.
That said, as a lowly PPL, I think we PPLs should do foggle practice somewhat regularly especially if you intend to fly at night in a rural/coastal area. There've been a few CFITs into the ocean at a nearby airport because of non-instrument PPLs taking off out into the ocean with no references.
Here in Romania the instructors usually teach you a bit about flying only with instruments, exactly because it is so dangerous if you don't know how to do it. All the pilots that I know personally (statistically irelevant, I agree) with more than 75-100 hours have at least a few hours of flying with training blinders that allow them to see the instruments, but not outside the cockpit.
That means most pilots around here live a lot longer than 180 seconds if they meet a cloud, the 2 big problems are mountains and landings (if the cloud base is very low), there is no good training for that except things like AirNav Pro on a tablet with the right maps and 3D view but that is a measure of last resort, not a training.
But in the end I fully agree that if you are not trained, stay away from clouds and fog. I am just pointing the difference between being trained and being licensed, in Romania you cannot get licensed for IFR on planes up to 600 kg, nor are you allowed to fly at night (other EU countries allows it).
> if you lose visual, you got 180 seconds to live on average
Holy shit, why!? Are these planes crashing into the ground? It seems to me (an ignorant layman) that you would exit the clouds and have some time to regain control.
I have no doubt that the planes are crashing, given the fatality rate, but why is it so unavoidable that they crash after entering clouds?
Edit: found a little on the link referenced: " often ends in an unrecoverable graveyard spiral or spin"...I guess I just didn't realize that there are unrecoverable situations (given enough altitude). I'm going to blame Hollywood.
People's instinct and intuition are EXTREMELY incorrect in situation of your sight obscured while flying an airplane (and untrained and even trained personnel are extremely ill-equipped to judge their spatial awareness and capabilities in blind situations).
People end up trusting their body reflexes that have evolved for very different situation and absolutely lie to you. When an airplane turns, the actual G forces upon your body are very different than, for example, in a car. So the body feeling we have that we are turning or going straight in a car, misleads us when we are flying.
When you learn to fly, typically instructor will have a lesson where they obscure your sight (usually something called a "hood"), and let you fly by the seat of your pants for a minute or two. Typically, after a little while, when asked, student will be certain they are flying straight and level. Instructor will then remove the hood and demonstrate they are e.g. in a steep turning dive - something that would result in collision if allowed to continue.
Airplanes themselves do not crash after 180s (in fact, most small GA airplanes are designed to level themselves if left unattended). People crash them after a couple of minutes with sight obstructed :<.
(the Instrument Flight Rating is similar in USA & Canada as well, FWIW - you need to obtain that additional certification on top of your private license, to fly in clouds. Otherwise you are formally and legally constrained to VFR - Visual Flight Rules. There are extremely specific details on how close you are allowed to get to a cloud in every dimension, when you are and aren't allowed to fly, and what you must do if you cannot obey. These are drilled, tested, examined, and taken seriously)
Probably a stupid question, but why can't these lost pilots just maintain their attitude indicator in the middle, fly straight, grit their teeth, and wait to get out of the cloud?
Not at all stupid! Very real question that's been asked by aviation safety agencies around the world for decades!
Sometimes there are genuine issues with instruments. As well, note that most GA airplanes operate their crucial instruments and gyros via vacuum pump and they need to be re-calibrated after a while even in regular flight.
But I believe much more frequently, inexperienced humans distrust their instruments and trust their instincts/guts/feelings/body more. It's very very unnerving for inexperienced pilot to lost their sense of sight, ALL of their body is telling them they're turning and need to correct it, and some 1972 vacuum gyro is telling them they're going straight and don't touch anything.
Other times, things just accumulate, little drifts and changes and influences. Let's say that you're in cloud and trust your instruments, but after a while for whatever reason your VSI (Vertical Speed Indicator) is showing that you're descending 500ft/minute. What control inputs do you provide to correct that, without any visual references? There are right and wrong answers and integrating the basic six instruments, building correct mental picture of your position and angle and direction from these very limited and separate instruments, without visual reference, for long periods of time, is more tricky for untrained personnel than may be immediately obvious :-/
Not a real pilot, have never piloted a real plane, but I love my sims and have put considerable resources into building my aluminium profile simrig.
I was practicing increasingly denser fog/low visibility ILS landings of the F-16 in DCS, on my TrackIR'd 32"x3 triple screen sim rig (with transducers for buffeting sensations etc).
With triples (and much more so with VR, I'll transition to a Crystal "soon") you do develop a semi/meta(?)-"physical" connection with the sim after a while.
At a point visibility got so reduced I would completely experience vertigo. Even though I told myself it's only a sim, just look at the instruments (and the F-16 has so many, including HUD with the ILS glidescope), my head would spin out and I'd completely bork the landing.
Only after several more hours was I able to do it (with visibility so bad that the runway would only pop out when right on top of it metres from the ground). It would take a lot more to get comfortable with it, but by that point I had enough and - I still have nightmares about it. :)
Can completely understand how cloud based vertigo in a real plane with your life on the line has killed and will continue to kill so many. Mad respect to the real pilots here who have mastered this.
The thing that a sim never can simulate (not even a full-motion sim) are the various ways the vestibular system can get confused by e.g. the coriolis force when you move your head while in a turn that makes your feel like you're turning around another axis.
Most sim pilots can fly on instruments without a problem, because it's precisely the conflicting information between the instruments and your vestibular system that makes it easy to get disoriented. Flying a sim, you'll never have your ear telling you that you're leaning on your side even though you're flying straight and level, or vice versa, so you'll never be tempted to side with your vestibular system.
In a real plane, just turning a tight turn and suddenly looking down on the floor because you dropped something can induce conflicting vestibular information that's quite disconcerting even in day VFR.
It's not really a stupid question. In theory, you could do that, but it's not that easy in practice. First of all, the attitude indicator alone is not sufficient -- you need to pay attention to the entire instrument panel, including airspeed, vertical speed and turn coordinator, and mentally synthesize a complete picture of how the aircraft is moving.
Moreover, anybody who can fly a plane should intellectually know how to read an attitude indicator. But it takes a lot of training to be able to trust that indicator, when you have powerful sensory evidence that makes you instinctively feel the aircraft is doing something that it's not.
[Coriolis illusion] can produce an overpowering sensation that the aircraft is rolling, pitching, and yawing all at the same time, which can be compared with the sensation of rolling down a hillside.
Oh, wow, ok, that sounds strong indeed... I'm starting to understand it would be super hard, while vividly feeling like I'm rolling down a hillside, to try and tell myself: "oh, I just need to focus on the instruments, and trust them..."
It's hard to imagine just how strong the feelings are from our current position of at home and typing on phone or computer, but it really genuinely is your entire body completely convinced one thing is happening, while in fact something else is happening.
(Note this is part of the reason why even with full visibility so many people get nauseous - subconsciously what your body thinks is happening and what your eyes tell you is aftually happening, disagree - sometimes strongly)
As a glider pilot, artificial horizont is very rare. All you got is speed, vertical speed, altimeter.
Once blind, your first prio is to keep the speed and vertical speed indicator constant. The problem is, without artificial horizont you cant really tell your bank angle, and your feelings just straight up lie to you. So you think you going straight, but suddenly your speed starts increasing. So you think "I am prolly nose diving a bit", and pull to compensate, only for speed to not decrease as much as youd like (or not at all), and suddenly you feel you are pulling 3g, and then you notice your altitude is dropping like crazy.
Thats how you get into diving spiral, and worst thing is you still have no idea if you are spiraling left or right. Keep it up for few more seconds and you can easily exceed safe speed, which given the g-forces is much lower than actual maximum speed in clean air. And a second or two later your first wing decides to go different direction than the rest of the plane.
I tested this with my instructor once, where we flew into a cloud just slightly above its bottom edge, with the goal of "try to fly trough it", only to find myself spinning out of the bottom with exactly this situation. We were prepared with brakes, lots of space beneath us and cleared general area of other planes, and checked beforehand theres no themral beneath to suck us higher, but that memory clearly showed how unintuitive and dangerous flying trough clouds often is.
You can do that. It takes a ton of discipline and practice to actually fly off the instruments and not feelings. It's really disorienting to fly instruments only.
Mind you that level flight through clouds only works if there are no buildings or mountains ahead, and keeping a straight flight path is even harder.
Not all airplanes are required to have attitude indicators. If so, the pilot is expected to just look outside . . . and also to be responsible enough not to fly into instrument conditions.
Sometimes they can be. A lot of times people without IFR enter clouds because situation is worsening - so after a few minutes, cloud/fog might reach ground, or you might fly to a place where clouds are lower.
Other times, you get your airplane in a situation / position where, when you do exit a cloud, you don't have enough altitude to correct it. Some airplanes have various types of spins you can enter that you cannot exit or cannot exit quickly. As well, people can remain very disoriented when they exit the cloud if they are in a spin, or they can panic and provide incorrect control input.
Think about cars - people can accidentally induce understeer or oversteer when they encounter unexpected lose surface, and unless they've had training and practice, they frequently will do the wrong thing even when they're aware of situation and problem. Similarly, people can exit the clouds in a stall or spin, and due to panic or incorrect thinking or inexperience or even lack of oxygen, they can continue producing incorrect input. For example, if you're in a simple stall and losing altitude - the absolutely correct thing to do is to point your stick/airplane DOWN, gain speed, and then regain control. But it takes practice and conviction to do that when you're close to ground and falling. Spin recovery can be more intricate (depending on the airplane), with stick, rudder, and throttle inputs that your primitive brain may not register are conducive to immediate goal of "don't hit ground". It's one thing to practice things 4,000ft in the air on a clear day with instructor with you; and another when you're 600 ft from the ground, your airplane is spinning, you can barely ascertain which direction it's spinning, the sound is overwhelming, passengers are screaming, and you're panicking :<
Even extremely qualified airline pilots have numerous times provided textbook incorrect control input in critical situations :(
Even with all these explanations I'm still totally unclear on how flying in a cloud gets you an 86% fatality rate. It's difficult and counterintuitive, things can go wrong with instruments etc.., but what exactly makes a crash a near-certainty in this situation?
Hmm, if you've already read the previous and especially parallel posts in this thread, I'm not sure what other examples or analogies to use, so somebody else would need to try another tack. Basically - people's sense of direction actively lies to them, extremely strongly, so they do the wrong thing, and they crash the airplane, virtually without fail.
As per my previous analogy - people without explicit driving instructions and practice (you must build actual reflexes, not just theoretical knowledge!), will overwhelmingly do the wrong thing when they understeer or oversteer a car - a machine they may operate daily otherwise and still have full sensory inputs. Flying in clouds / entering a spin is exponentially more complex and counterintuitive and punishing :<
If that still feels incredibly unlikely, and please take this in the kindest possible way as an illustration and not personal :), that's exactly what kills people! The profound and pervasive unawareness of how dangerous the situation is, and just how much your body senses will lie to you and how much following them will kill you.
(fwiw, note it's not "sum total of all people entering the clouds results in 86% fatality rate", of course - airlines go through clouds hundreds if not thousands of times around the world daily! But for untrained people to enter a cloud, especially inadvertently / unplanned, IS deadly)
Not all aircraft have the full suite of instruments necessary to fly in instrument flight rules. When these aircraft go into the goo, the pilot doesn't have anything other than his/her senses to guide them. But senses are unreliable. What feels like "standing still" is actually just a 1G acceleration in any inertial frame of reference. Which means you could end up in the proverbial "graveyard spiral."
And if the cloud ceiling underneath you is low enough, by the time you realize this, you may not have enough time or maneuverability to recover. Also, in some areas of the country, clouds have been known to conceal large mountains and cliff faces, which are uniformly fatal to airplanes.
Additionally, in an Ultralight you wouldn't be allowed to fly through a cloud even if you were IFR rated because they lack most of the required instruments for that.
Of course there's also Special VFR but I doubt you'd get authorization for that in an Ultralight.
Here in the USA, flying is rather expensive. I am told it is largely due to insurance costs. I am curious, what are common rates to fly a Cessna 172 wet/dry around the world?
I have a PPL in the US, and live in Germany. Essentially, the problem here is that there aren’t really any small airports or flight schools here in the same way, because their largely isn’t any recreational flying. There are gliders, and that’s about it. Even if I could rent here (I looked and it basically didn’t exist), my license is only good for US registered aircraft, so it would need to be converted into a EASA license. That process isn’t so worth pursuing unless I could afford my own aircraft, since recreational flying doesn’t exist.
Thank you, this is important information that anyone planning to fly an ultralight without a license (or with one, but presumably in that case you would know already) should know.
There are studies about non-instrument pilots entering clouds (instrument meteorological conditions or IMC in aviation lingo):
- in 60 secs the plane control is lost (though still recoverable);
- in 90 secs the plane is in an unrecoverable attitude;
- in 180-270 secs the plane breaks up or hits the ground.
It is certainly possible (and easy) to become disoriented in IMC.
But every private pilot has at least a couple of hours of simulated instrument time and should be capable of navigating their aircraft back out of a cloud.
You are taught, if you have a competent instructor, to ignore your senses and rely on the instruments in such situations, as well as recovery from unusual attitudes by instruments alone.
I don’t doubt that people forget their training or don’t keep current however.
Also, there is no such thing (for light aircraft) as an unrecoverable attitude that results in impacting the ground a minute and a half later.
Any properly loaded certificated light aircraft can be recovered from any attitude if you have that much time.
It takes a max of about 10 seconds to recover an aircraft from any unusual attitude and reestablish straight and level flight.
A spiral dive (the typical situation with loss of visual reference) it might take 15 seconds since you have to bleed off the speed you picked up.
There might be some extremely low drag aircraft that might be a bit more problematic in that regard, but they are typically also capable of much higher VNE limits.
The link I posted above is from an instrument rated pilot of an instrument flight plan who nearly got himself and passengers killed in IMC. A couple or few hours under the hood is not nearly enough to handle actual IMC a few years later.
And yes, in theory properly loaded certified plane can be recovered in most of the cases. But it is not going to help you to know that recovery takes 10k feet if you are at 8k AGL.
The pilot in question was obviously not actually qualified to operate in IMC, which he intentionally entered.
If you are a pilot and do not take recurrent training or actively practice -in the aircraft you fly- on unusual conditions, you are actively in abdication of your responsibility as a pilot and should not be flying anything heavier than a part103 aircraft. There is a reason why even landing at night requires a 90day currency before you can land at night with a passenger. Being a pilot is not like riding a bicycle. It requires constant skill maintenance.
There is no situation you can get into where the aircraft is still intact where a recovery in a light aircraft will take more than about 1000 feet if properly executed. Perhaps in some aircraft as much as 2000 feet.
The only way I can imagine anything so extreme is that you are already at VNE pointed straight down and you have to slip the plane a little to slow down before you can pull significant Gs on the airframe. That might take a few seconds. But it also assumes you already have been in an unusual attitude for quite some time and chose not to recover until now.
Sorry I didn't realize you are a pilot and answer was very generic. But here is "unrecoverable" scenarios:
- Accelerate beyond Va: need gentle control inputs will be required and it will take more time to recover;
- Invert the plane: unless it's aerobatic your oil will stop flowing and engine will die very fast;
- T-tails have problems with controls effectiveness that delay recovery.
> There is a reason why even landing at night requires a 90day currency...
With passengers. I don't like to fly at night in a single engine plane and I go months if not years between night (solo) landings. Granted I don't fly to unlighted runways, but in my experience landing at night on a lighted runway is not that harder than landing during the day.
> ... in a light aircraft will take more than about 1000 feet if properly executed. Perhaps in some aircraft as much as 2000 feet.
Many planes have been modified after the spin certification had been done. E.g. on my A36 I have tip tanks, radar, TN engine, anti-ice, ... I have no idea if it will recover from spin as expected or not. And I have no interest in testing it. I can tell you that I lose 500-600 feet in a stall. This gives me a hint that recovery from a spin might be more than 1000 feet.
An aircraft that cannot be recovered from a spin under regular loading must be equipped with a spin recovery drouge or granted a special exception in order to be certificated.
Aircraft that are deemed incapable of entering a spin inside their operational envelope may be granted an exception. (Some stall resistant aircraft like the ercoupe or some canards, for example )
In practice, although many light aircraft are not certified for intentional spins, almost all of them are recoverable from a fully developed spin inside 1000 feet. YMMV with a large transport category aircraft however lol.
A fully developed spin is like a seed helicoptering to the ground. It is a stable condition, with a low and constant rate of descent. It used to be taught as standard practice for c150 pilots to use a flat (fully developed, stable) spin to descend through clouds into a known safe ceiling if a non instrument pilot found themselves trapped above a cloud layer with sufficient clear space below the layer to descend into.
Spins are not, generally, a boogie-man… but accidentally entering one during a steep turn near the ground is a really bad idea. I have more than one friend who has tried it , 0/10 would not recommend.
One possible exception is when you have floats attached. I’m not sure of the spin recoverability of a light plane with floats, never tried it, but I do know mounting floats on many aircraft effectively voids their intentional spin endorsement and sometimes requires the installation of additional vertical stabilisers on the empennage.
I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to spin my old t-cart on floats with a kayak tucked under one wing and a pair of rifles strapped to the other. Don’t have to worry about VNE with that outfit though lol.
You might be thinking of a spiral dive. A spiral dive is what disoriented pilots in IMC often get into, and if you don’t have your wits about you it can really ruin your day.
The problem is that in a spiral dive your butt feel is like you are going straight and level, but your airspeed and feel of the airplane is telling you to pull up.
It will appear that the artificial horizon has failed (it will usually be indicating the truth, but it will feel wrong and you will think it’s broken, or it may be past it’s gimbal lock limits. )
If you follow your instincts, you will try to pull up. That will have the effect of tightening the spiral component of the dive but will not cause the aircraft to regain level flight. It will also have the effect of drastically increasing the stress on the airframe, which may already be beyond its maximum structural speed.
Recovery from a spiral dive is very easy… but you have to know you are in a spiral dive, and without visual reference to the ground that requires awareness and correct interpretation of the flight instruments.
You are in a spiral dive if:
A: you are going at an inexplicably high speed for your engine and airframe configuration (you are in a dive). Most pilots recognise this easily.
And
B: your rate of turn indicator is off center or especially, pegged to one side. You have to be looking for this.
Aside from that, a rapid descent showing on the VSI and altimeter.
Other gyroscopic instruments such as the heading indicator and the artificial horizon may be showing erratic or incorrect information.
Recovery is easy:
1: immediately pull the throttle to idle.
2: neutralise the turn that is indicated on the turn indicator using normal control inputs. Do not attempt to pull up until the turn has stopped completely.
3: gently pull out of the dive. Avoid abrupt control movements until the aircraft is below manoeuvring speed.
4: continue to fly the aircraft. If you are in clouds consider carb heat to avoid icing.
When you aren't instrument-qualified, get disoriented, and fly yourself into the ground, then yes, they are a big risk for the weekend warrior lawyers and doctors who never get an instrument rating.
In plains states like Texas you end up with these super tall (500+ ft tall) 200'+ diameter convective clouds that have massive downdrafts and rain in the middle. Like a floating, wandering storm cell. On the outside they just look like tall white fluffy clouds on a sunny dry day. All sorts of atmospheric hazards.
Flying into meaning literally inside. You can fly among them in VFR assuming you meet minimums for the airspace (3SM visibility, 1000 above, 500 below, 2000 to the side in most areas of the USA).
I have only been in actual instrument conditions once with an instructor who was certified to do so under and instrument flight plan. It's disorienting. It's turbulent. Its impossible to avoid other planes (IFR the tower keeps you separated).
Crosswinds and rain and landing are basically boring after a few tens of hours. But fuck clouds.
For skydiving as well. However...there are plenty of stories of intentionally falling through a cloud on your back so you can see a person shaped hole in the cloud as you fall through. So it does happen. But people drive >55mph too
One of the biggest risks of flying into a cloud while vfr is that you do not know what is on the other side when you come out. Could very well experience a mid-air collision, even though the odds seem low it’s a lot more probable than you think
When I was in elementary school (waaaay back in the 80s) I lived way out in BFE where there was a lot of undeveloped land around the school. One weekend, one of the students discovered a crashed ultralight in the fields surrounding the school, and then told his parents about it. There was an company a few miles from the school off of the highway that sold/rented ultralights, so the parents called them about it. Apparently, someone walked away from the crash and just decided not to tell anyone about it. As a reward for reporting the location of the "lost" ultralight, the place offered free flights to the kid and parents. The parents said no thanks. It was always one of those stories that stood out as a kid growing up and I hadn't thought about that in a really long time.
If I were a kid, I’d be livid to not get free flights. I always wanted to fly - I think the first time I ever got on a plane was in high school and I remember being glued to the window almost the whole time.
Incidentally, I just learned about ultralights not needing a license last week and there are some really affordable ones for like 16K: http://www.uflyit.com/aerolite103main.htm
It’s also wild to me that some of these kits are build-it-yourself - they assemble the kit, test fly it, take it apart and ship it to you. I’m more than happy to build my own bike, but my own aircraft? That will make me triple check every step and still be super scared to fly it.
If your kid discovered a crashed something and the people that operated the something didn't know it was missing gave your kid free time to fly/ride a thing just like it, would you let your kid go? But of course the kid was upset.
If your kid discovered a crashed rental car and the people that operated the rental car didn't know it was missing gave your kid free time to ride a rental car just like it, would you let your kid go?
Amazing how people today let fear get in the way of enjoying life
If you want to compare an apple to a kumquat, then sure, your analogy makes sense, maybe, if you really try and want it to. Otherwise, I hope the rest of your day is less upsetting.
Depends whether they were the ones responsible for ditching and not reporting. A well-run place that rented to an idiot is one thing, a slapdash place that plays loose with the rules another.
> and the people that operated the something didn't know it was missing
This element is not present in the story as it is described.
They were not aware of where the ultralight was, but they were aware that it was missing. It could have been stolen, or it could have been landed at some other location.
> This element is not present in the story as it is described.
Yes, I didn’t write the full history of the company. However, to fill in some details, the company ultimately closed after numerous incidents from being a company run by Kletus and his brother Kletus and his other brother Kletus (Daryl just doesn’t imply the same that Kletus does). I would say fly by night, it apparently they didn’t fly that well.
Um, I'm pretty sure there are two seat ultralight airplanes - at least here in the Czech Republic. And IIRC that's also the maximum number of people that can fly on an ultralight here.
Yes the categorization in Europe seems to differ a lot. I flew in a Czech ultralight once, it was a Lambada, I forget the manufacturer. Very nice aircraft by the way. Just very very cramped with its 2 abreast seating.
You can still go to flight school first, if you want, and get training in a dissimilar two place light sport aircraft, a Cessna, etc. There are also places that do ground school aimed at ultralights with no in-air training, watch youtube videos, or just go for it.
That covers what you can fly. There are also restrictions on when and where you can fly. These are daytime VFR [1] conditions only, only in uncontrolled airspace, cannot fly over cites or towns or large groups of people, cannot create hazards to other people or property, must yield right of way to other aircraft, and must comply with all FAA NOTAMs [2].
[1] Visual Flight Rules. VFR conditions are conditions where you can operate and navigate primarily relying on what you can see outside the aircraft. As opposed to IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) where you can rely entirely on your instruments and do not need to see anything outside.
[2] originally Notice to Airmen (now Notice to Air Missions if one wants to take into account female pilots). Notices that the FAA publishes about potential hazards or events that might affect flights. For example if some airspace is temporarily closed because of military activity, there would be a NOTAM to let civilian pilots know that they have to avoid that airspace.
The lack of mentioning daytime in the article had me worried.
Also there is no flying in an aerodrome and hopefully the person knows what an aerodrome is. Or near hospitals since many are restricted for helicopter air ambulances. Or anywhere near anything military.
I briefly took some flying lessons and there is an enormous amount to know both the flying part and the ground school part.
Sorry I didn't realize aerodrome would not be common term for anyone familiar with flying. Here's the Transport Canada (federal government) page and definition about it:
"Aerodrome: Any area of land, water (including the frozen surface thereof) or other supporting surface used or designed, prepared, equipped or set apart for use either in whole or in part for the arrival, departure, movement or servicing of aircraft and includes any buildings, installations and equipment situated thereon or associated therewith."
If you have reason to know that they're there, sure. Flying over a high school football game is probably going to cause you issues. If you happen to be flying along and there happens to be a couple dozen people in the bleachers you fly over, you've unlikely done anything wrong.
I'm not a lawyer but I don't think negligence holds up well as a defense.
If the FAA is unhappy with what you have done or someone else who is loud enough is unhappy with what you have done, they can bend the loose definition to fit the situation. Look to Trent Palmer for a recent and pretty public version of this.
Setting the legalities aside, flying any of these without the training behind a pilot's license sounds like a great way to have some fun, right up until you have a really bad day. Maybe you can skip the license---I haven't looked at those regs myself---but you can't skip the skills.
(I'd also want to take a hard look at the design, parts, and maintenance before I flew something like this---but I don't really have the training or experience to do that. I know some people who I might trust to do it for me, but I think they all have A&P certificates. Again, maybe you can take shortcuts & skip the expensive, highly trained mechanic, but that shortcut may not take you where you want to go.)
Flying the plane is the easy part. What makes getting a pilots license hard and expensive is all the complex rules and regulations you have to know about and the complex engine operation that you have to be proficient in to fly safely. And what makes keeping a license expensive is the requirement to stay current, which means flying a certain amount of hours. Which is not cheap.
In my opinion, general aviation is due for a little disruption. Basically current cost, rules, training and practices are appropriate for planes that are half a century old, have a combustion engine, and require a lot of micro managing to fly safely, and regular and expensive inspections to keep airworthy.
The electrical drones and more or less autonomous planes currently being designed by dozens of companies are very different in nature. Cheaper to manufacture (less moving parts). Cheaper to operate (less maintenance, electricity is cheap). Fly by wire; you just point them in the right direction and they go there. They are orders of magnitude easier to deal with for pilots. Less buttons, dials, switches, etc. Some of these things can operate without a pilot even.
There are going to be a lot of experimental planes with electrical engines and a small enough battery that you might even operate them without a license. It will take a while for these to get very cheap as the high end batteries with > 500 wh/kg still are a combination of very hard to get and expensive. But they are getting to market. At least two companies have announced they are shipping such batteries this year. One of them is CATL. Better batteries might follow in a few years. But 500wh/kg is good enough to improve ranges quite a bit of currently already flying planes. And it also enables smaller form factors. Electrically propelled para gliders already exist, for example.
It will take a while but the rules are likely going to have to be adjusted for these new types of planes. And since they are much cheaper to operate, there will also be a lot of pressure for the current ATC system to be modernized to keep up with the growing number of planes.
+1 - They are simpler and slower, but not really safe without adequate training. Best to get quite a bit of it, though it wouldn't need to be as extensive as a private pilot course.
They are the only thing an old pilot can continue to fly after they can no longer pass a strict medical check. For this purpose, they are perfect. For random people trying to fly without training they are a natural selection tool.
> Maintenance is absolutely a possible issue, and due to their restrictions the engines are generally MORE needy than normal GA aircraft.
Interesting! How so?
> Part 103 compliant aircraft are meant to have limits low enough to be LESS immediately lethal, but they are still dangerous.
What do you have in mind?
Quite a lot of what worries me when I fly involves misjudging the combination of weather with the aircraft's capabilities & my capabilities. Time under the care of a good instructor helps a whole lot with that judgement: you get to see a whole bunch of conditions that are beyond your capabilities & struggle with them, without endangering yourself or the aircraft. And (e.g.) winds variable 13-23, 3G12 on runway 09 is not so trivial, even if your aircraft has a 15kt crosswind limitation.
Or---I fly gliders, and I've had it drummed into my head that you never ever fly between trees when you're landing in some random field, because there may be a power line and power lines are a great way to kill yourself.
There are a thousand things like this, that are more about environment & pilot than aircraft.
(FWIW I've flown power in the past, but mostly fly gliders now; still newish. Maybe that skews my perceptions a bit; glider pilots are pretty willing to fly in windy or gusty conditions, in search of ridge or wave lift, so it's not so uncommon that I'm standing there asking myself "sure, the much more experienced pilots are fine to fly in this, but am I fine?" This is really hard! I'm really grateful to my instructors for giving me knowledge & experience with which to make that decision, and for giving me good training to fall back on if I misjudge!)
To stay under the Part 103 weight requirements you are almost certain to need a small, air cooled, two stroke engine. Even the best of these fall FAR short of both the TBO and reported MTBF numbers. As an example, offhand the Rotax 582s were a 200hr TBO and were known for cutting out in flight if abused or not maintained very well.
As for them being less lethal, that comes down to the listed operating areas and the limits imposed by the construction of them. In reality they are just less lethal to non-involved bystanders; they will still kill their pilots quite easily.
Part 103 aircraft must have a stall speed under 25 knots and a top powered speed of 55 knots in level flight. I don't fly but I imagine aircraft designed for lower speeds could be more survivable in a crash. Also you need less runway to land
Well, one of the planes mentioned somewhere has a full-frame parachute, so as a worst-case kinda thing, maybe you have a bumpy landing?
It’s like other things you can do but maybe shouldn’t do, where you’re making questionable life decisions if you know nothing and still opt out of training. …though the people opting out are probably the ones who lack the self-awareness to note the questionable nature of that choice.
Yeah gliding is great. I started at 15 before I was even allowed to take driving lessons.
I did some GA motor flying lessons since but never really liked it. It's so incredibly noisy and do procedural. Gliding is much more seat of the pants and it's a sport to stay up as long as possible.
Also the low speeds and air brakes/spoilers make landing a breeze even out of field.
If I pick up flying again (I moved recently so I couldn't stay in the club) it'll be gliding for sure.
The Mirocopter SCH-2A meets the FAA requirements so it doesn't require a pilots license. You can buy it for $35k on Ebay [0]. It's cheaper than most cars and gas wise (5 gallons for 50min for flight time) would make it about the same cost as commuting to work in a car.
The article doesn't really cover it but being able to fly without a license probably isn't the same as flying near a controlled (ie. towered) airport. If want to commute and aren't in the middle of nowhere you might find that flying in your local airspace does require a radio license in practice at least.
Source: I am a licensed pilot but not familiar with flying in the US.
You are correct. Knowing the airspace is required under Part 103, and operating an aircraft under those rules puts you under the legal requirements of Part 103.
If you want to know more the entire document is only a couple pages:
I was wondering how access to class D airspace would work for an unlicensed ultralight pilot. Can they get a radio? Would they need a [radio] license both for themselves and for the aircraft? Is that practical to acquire without a PPL? Or, without a radio, would ATC approval for a flight be available over the phone before departure instead or would that be out of the question?
For a regular pilot this is all just automatic with flight following of course.
No person may operate an ultralight vehicle within Class A, Class B, Class C, or Class D airspace or within the lateral boundaries of the surface area of Class E airspace designated for an airport unless that person has prior authorization from the ATC facility having jurisdiction over that airspace.
What does that mean in practice? I suspect my local airport (a moderately busy class D field) would not authorize a NORDO (no radio) ultralight. There is no longer a requirement for an FCC license for an aviation band radio. (That was previously required and possible to get as an individual without a PPL.) I suspect most class D fields would authorize the transition of a radio-equipped ultralight.
You can bet that people that fly these planes without a license also don't spend the time and money to get a radio license; that automatically prevents from flying to or from a towered airport.
These ultra-light planes are practically big toys that you can fly over some empty field and relatively low altitudes. Powered parachutes also fall in this category.
> You can bet that people that fly these planes without a license also don't spend the time and money to get a radio license; that automatically prevents from flying to or from a towered airport.
I don't think having a radio license will keep you from flying into a towered airport. I worked as flight instructor in the southwest US, out of a class D under a bravo shelf and flew in and out of class B, C, and D airports all over the US just a few years ago and I've never held one. I worked at a busy 141 school. It wasn't and isn't required for anyone I worked with.
They are used for low flights mostly yes but that doesn't mean they can't get very high. They certainly can get high enough to pose a threat to other air traffic. For this reason I'm kinda surprised they are completely unlicensed in the US.
I watch a creator on YT who regularly takes his paramotor (a powered parachute) across town and on longer trips. He also takes it up to at least 15k feet. That seems vastly more than empty fields and low altitudes.
15k feet is not G class airspace (uncontrolled) in most of the world, that means you need radio contact with FIR, radio license, training etc. This is not your regular ultralight.
> (uncontrolled) in most of the world, that means you need radio contact with FIR, radio license, training etc
That's not true in the US, at least. You can easily still in be class E at 15k, which doesn't require radio communication if you're VFR and not in the vicinity of an airport.
Ultralight? A paramotor is just a backpack motor and a parachute. Is it even in the same category as an ultralight? He does not have a radio on him but he does it somehow. I believe he has some kind of flying license however.
A paramotor is an ultralight in Europe and requires license, I completed the flying school for that category (fast-tracked as I already have a license for airplanes), but I never moved to take the exam, still I am aware of the regulations.
In US there is no license required, but that also restricts where you can fly. If you get some licenses it does expand where you can fly, but I am not knowledgeabe on the details there.
Huh, TIL. I've seen paragliders fly without headsets though near me (30mins from my states capital). Earning a radio license and getting a comms setup seems trivial though.
Look for the blue SFC (surface) with a line over it designation around the area for the airport with the multiple concentric blue rings. Those will be class B airports. Typically two rings and magenta will be class C. Class D will be dashed blue.
The site is one of the places authorized by the FAA to do required TRUST certificates for non-Part 107 drone flights, and Greg here is a well-regarded instructor-so quite legit and all.
You can also get the non-flying part of a private pilot’s license through them.
Well, there's definitely some SEO involved, because the site sells ground school courses for various piloting and drone flying subjects, as well as some free ones on specific hardware (like https://pilotinstitute.com/course/cessna-172-deep-dive/ about the Cessna 172). The courses are pretty good from what I've looked at with their drone stuff, though.
The only reason this page is here is is to have more content for SEO purposes. The only 2 links on this page are links to other pages on the same website.
Dunno if it counts as a plane, but you can fly a paramotor (basically a parachute attached to a 2-stroke motor and prop). Cheap to get into and fairly safe, although kinda limited.
I looked into it after being treated for depression made it practically impossible to get a private pilots license. The FAA would rather you fly untreated, undiagnosed.
Wow here in Europe you need a license for ultralights as well. Not quite as rigid in terms of requirements and the medical is easier too. But you still need one.
I've flown gliders also which meet these criteria too and they need it as well.
I think it makes sense though. You can still hurt people on the ground and more importantly, you could endanger other air traffic. Airspace in Europe is too dense for people not to know what they're doing. This is why every aircraft needs a mode S transponder now too at the very minimum.
Please actually get lessons to fly unless you have a lot of room to crash and kill only yourself while learning (in which case you probably have enough money for lessons).
Police in the US do not have to have a license to operate anything, including aircraft. In this case, insurance requirements take over though. They may have a legal right to fly but no insurance company would approve operation by anyone but a commercial pilot. I got a few hours in a local police Bell 206 because they needed a commercial pilot to fly while their official pilot only had a private license. Fun!
I’d like to hear more about this, because I’m a pilot and I’ve never heard anywhere that the FAA waives their license requirements for local police? That doesn’t make any sense to me.
As I mentioned above it is not that the FAA waves their requirements as much as the FAA does not have jurisdiction over such operations (under appropriate circumctances).
Here is a quote from AC No: 00-1.1A (Public Aircraft Operations):
What Oversight of PAO Does the FAA Have? The FAA has limited oversight of PAO,
though such operations must continue to comply with the regulations applicable to all aircraft
operating in the NAS. The government entity conducting the PAO is responsible for oversight of
the operation, including aircraft airworthiness and any operational requirements imposed by the
government entity. The government agency contracting for the service assumes the responsibility
for oversight of a PAO.
The military is another entity that operates aircraft outside of FAA jurisdiction. Even military airman certificates have to be `converted' to civilian ones i a military pilot wants to become a civilian pilot.
True, though this may mean many things. The only part of CFR 14 that mentions that a certificate is required for operating aircraft is CFR 14 61.3 which states that an unexpired certificate is required to `exercise the privileges' of that certificate. So if the PAO does not require the certificate to begin with, this part does not apply and one only has to comply with part 91 rules. Again, feel free to disagree, the sheriff told me this so who knows:)
I once had dreams of becoming a pilot but the FAA considers adderall a no fly drug, even though it makes me better at everything I do. Because I wasn't diagnosed with it by a shrink or psychologist, the FAA doc in Oklahoma told me I could stop taking it for six months and then get my medical but there wasn't any way I could do that.
Another guy I know who was in the same boat as me, went and got his pilots license in another country (I think Australia) and just flies here without any problems.
The FAA needs to let go a little bit, otherwise more and more are going to start violating laws because we are tired of the overreach.
Update: Forgot to mention a lot of people that are getting caught up with ADHD or Adderall can go get their sports pilot license but that restricts them to ultralight planes with a max of 2 seats and very low weight limits. The good thing about the sports pilot is it doesn't require a medical.
There's different degrees of ADHD, like in my case I don't have hyperactivity though I have issues completing things I'm not into, however if it's something I am passionate about, I'm 110% in on it.
I have 19 hrs towards my private license, have flown 3 different lines of planes (Cirrus, Cessna, Piper), have a great understanding of aviation principles and aerospace science, and am confident I can operate in every class of airspace proficiently.
Pretty insane you can fly these with no license or certificates when basically all drones require having your TRUST certificate or full on drone license to fly.
That’s because people with drones were assholes. Flying into people’s yards and demanding their property back, or suing because it broke. All kinds of stupid shit.
1. These can only be flown in most class E airspace and class G, so not anywhere close to most airports
2. They are much bigger and more visible than drones
3. The ultralight pilot is inside the aircraft which means “see and avoid” is much more reasonable
It’s hard to compare ultralights to drones IMO as a licensed pilot
Barrier to entry. With a $1,000 drone you can be doing something stupid in an hour and not second-guess yourself right up until it crashes into somebody's head at full speed. On the other hand, for an ultralight you've shelled out $27,000 (current price for an Aerolite 103), plus costs for storage, transportation, arrangements for taking off at a small airfield, etc.
an instructor’s solo sign off is only valid for 90 days in the US, and there are a bunch of restrictions as to what a pilot is operating under the instructor’s sign off can do.
My hot take is that hobby pilots are a bunch of selfish assholes creating a bunch of noise and emissions just do they can have fun. So selfish they only started thinking about removing lead from fuel very recently. One of the aircraft is even called a mosquito so the industry is so aware of the issue they're making a joke out of it. At least commercial aircraft have a purpose and try to be as quiet as possible. Fuck pilots.
> creating a bunch of noise and emissions just so they can have fun
Wait until you hear about parents!
I haven't actually done the maths but I expect an ultralight is comparable to a car hobbyist in both noise and emissions. Agree that flying a jet liner for fun would be a dick move.
Yes. I think my core thesis is that if noise and pollution upsets you, then I would spend less time complaining about a niche hobby that barely effects anybody, and a lot more time getting annoyed about really common hobbies, business patterns and lifestyle choices that are destroying the planet.
And I think the obvious counter is "that's whataboutism, you can care about lots of things at once" but I personally am pretty fatigued with just causes, so when I see people complaining about hobby aviation in ultralights I just see it as a distraction that pulls time, focus and attention from bigger problems.
All of this is, of course, completely subjective. But that was the intent behind the comment.
I do actually post about other pollution like (micro)plastics. But this thread is not about that.
Back to the scope of the thread: The reason I find it so distasteful is that the pilots have a big noise footprint. One aircraft can be heard by thousands of people. That one person has a disproportionate effect compared to the neighbours lawnmower which can only be heard by a few dozen people. I understand your argument that there aren't that many aircraft but I must say those few people are punching orders of magnitudes above their weight when it comes to noise.
I don't think you can fly anything without a license in Europe. Even small drones require a license now (that you can obtain online in 1-2 evenings).
Also, please just get whatever license is required. It's not difficult to do, and they will teach you what you absolutely have to know when flying. A fresh pilot with a private license knows just enough not to crash and not to be a problem to others, nothing more really. It's very similar to a driver's license, where you first get it and only later over the next year or so learn how to feel really comfortable on the road.
You can also get a pilot's license at 14 years old in many parts of the US.
That said, do so with caution. Flying is still dangerous and accidents will often be fatal, license or no. Note the provisions about "no passengers allowed".
One reason these planes don't require licenses is that the risk of collateral damage is low enough to be comparable to a car. You can hurt yourself quite badly while not endangering others.
So have fun, but definitely read up on the risks before you play around with aviation on a lark.
I'm not sure about power licenses, but for gliders (sailplanes, not hang-gliders), you could solo at 14 via a student license that required instructor supervision. You could get a full license at 16.
Growing up my family was into gliding (sailplanes) and I counted down the days until I was 14 so I could solo. Looking back, especially w/ a 14 yr old kid of my own...I think my parents were crazy for letting me fly, but I'm really glad they did. I have a medical condition and so couldn't reasonably fly power planes. This was before the power "sport-license" that is a good compromise between access for hobbyists and a regular license.
The comment about risks if very true. These types of activities can have real risks. It is sobering seeing a friend have a fatal accident. (With gliding it is almost always trying to make it back to an airport, getting too low and having a stall/spin close to the ground).
> You can also get a pilot's license at 14 years old in many parts of the US.
FAA is federal in scope, so the rules are the same across the US.
You can get a student pilot certificate (allowing you to solo an aircraft) at 16 for airplanes/helicopters and 14 for gliders and balloons. 17 is the minimum age for a private pilot certificate and I believe 16 is the minimum age for a glider/balloon pilot.
Having a picture of a Piper Super Cab in the header and gliders with tractor engines in the content, sounds like clickbait. I'm a big fan of ultralights and paragliding, but they have more in common with gliders than with aircraft. Also, maybe UPO, but simulators teach more about airplanes than those tools.
Ultralights are fun and practical and their enduring popularity speaks against your assertion. They are also popular even in countries that require a pilots license for them.
I like ultralights myself and paragliding for fun. I'm speaking at the point of having a picture of a piper super cub (required license) in the header and write 'this is the airplanes you can fly with no license'.
In fact I just saw a Quora question with this exact question and the answer came from a 60 year old pilot that has been flying without a license for 30 years.
If you never fly out of a major airport where an FAA inspector can ramp check you, who will ever find out?
Please don’t do this.