training to give Flips

[louwrens]

Hi

I was wondering, if you have a game farm or a pice of land and offered microlight flips. Do you have to do a specail course like a CPL on aircraft or will your MPL do? If you have to do a extended course what is it called and how much does it cost?

Kind Regards
Louwrens

[Fairy Flycatcher]

Hi Louwrens

There are 3 ways in which you can do flips. None of them straigh-forward.

1. Part 96 Authorization or CPL, and an Air Services Licence
This is the way it has been written into law, BUT! if you follow this forum a while you notice that nothing is really written into law, and CAA is a bit of a gemors.

This entails your pilot either having a CPL, or a "Part 96 Authorization" The Part 96 Authorization has not been finalised yet, as it is part of Part 62, which, between Aero Club and CAA will probably never be written into law.

Your aircraft will also have a "Commercial Authorit to Fly", before CAA will give you an operating certificate. This means that CAA comes and inspects your aircraft, logbooks and maintenance schedules and gives you a little certificate at a cost of about R 1700.

Then you have to go the "Air Services Licensing Council", at the Department of Transport in Pretoria, and make application for a Class III Air Services licence, Class "G" "Other". Your application gets published in the government gazette for 90 days, and then you get to go sit in front of the council and state your case, and a couple of really out-of-touch old boy's club gets to tell you yeah or nay. What does not make it easier is that you make application along with SAA etc. with all their R 10 000/day "Aviation Consultants". Not easy.

Now if you have all your ducks in a theoretical row, you still get no-where, because CAA has issued a moratorium on "operating certificates" for flips, because they have a problem with illigal operators so they figured the best way to deal with illigal operators is to make it impossible to do it legally. You know... the African way

So at the moment, you can not go this route, as approved laws are not being implemented and things which aren't in the law, are....


2. Open a School

The only really solid and legal way of doing flips at the moment is to open a ligitimate school, and offer people a single lesson called "Air Experience (lesson 3).

As with any school, university, college, whatever, there is nothing which prevents you from offering a single course or lecture for "non-degree-purposes", and advertising popular courses more than others.

The standard syllabus consists of about 27 lesson. The include various excercises such as "effect of control" (lesson 4), "taking off" (lesson 12), "landing" (lesson 13) etc.

By far the most popular lesson, however, is lesson 3, "Air Experience", which is only to "familiarise the student with the sensation of flight", and it is recommended that "no actual flying training" be given.

This therefore fits perfectly into our way of doing "flips" under a school. You are legally covered, and we are finally getting CAA support on doing it this way.

3. Open a club

The Harvard club has been operating for a looooong time, and they offer membership to the club including a "free" flip. There are a number of other places doing this legally, such as the Huye club in CT, but you need to get professional legal advice on how to do this properly, so that you don't loose everything if you should get sued.

With a school, CAA approves and inspects things, and therefore they will stand by you should there be an incident. They frown on "Clubs" though, and you will probably find you get some harrassment rather than help.



The best way to do it is a school. Get a ligitimate instructor to work for you, and offer full-time courses to international and local students. You can then sublement your income with a steady stream of 3-4 week visitors to your game farm. In time, do your instructors' rating as well. Remember the guy(or girl) you employ, has to be a Grade B or A instructor, as a Grade C instructor may not worked unsupervised.

[louwrens]

Hi Thanks for the great advice....

One last thing, explain your slogon.

"Flying is a hard way to earn an easy living."

[RV4ker (RIP)]

Interesting FF.

May I ask how you go about reg'n a school? Asked this question many moons ago and got gazzillion different answers. None concrete. Have similar situation, but does not warrant full time instrucotr or aerie.

Looking basically for a Dummies guide to establishing a flight school (so to speak)

[louwrens]

Hi Yes

ME TOO!

[Fairy Flycatcher]

One last thing, explain your slogon.

"Flying is a hard way to earn an easy living."

I saw the quote in Aviaiton Safety, and just liked it. It said a lot to me, but can't tell you what it meant to the person who coined the phrase. Flying for a living is great. Income vs the number of hours worked is not too bad, but it calls for hard choises at times, and dealing with fairly stressful situations often. Customer wants to fly- weather bad (should we or shouldn't we) Lots of bookings, plane marginally (un)airworthy . Need to get altitude - flu with blocked nose . Very little in aviation is clear-cut right and wrong, but wrong can be fatal. Its a constant challenge to stay on the right side of experience vs luck. That is the hard part, but I will still not trade it for anything else.


Opening a school:

You have to apply to CAA for an "Aviation Training Organization Accreditation and Approval". The cost is not very high, and for the initial application it is R 2020, anywhere in the country, valid for 1 year. Renewal is R 1070. If you fail your initial inspection though, it can get expensive, as you will then have to pay the CAA inspector's travel expenses and hourly rate from leaving Midrand. Better not fail.

The initial applicaiton is done on CA 141 - 01, which can be downloaded from the CAA website under " Forms and Applications", "Operations"

Also print and download CA 141-03, which gives you a good idea of what will be required from you at your inspections.

Some of the things required from you include: some kind of lecture room for ground-school, a runway, an office with lock-up filing cabinet for student files, facility for storage of documents for a minimum of 5 years, notice boards, model aircraft, up to date AIC's Notams and AIP subs. Up to date 3-volume Airlaw books, Up to date 2-volume AIP's, Library with some textbooks.

You also need a manual of procedure in duplicate, including an approved sylabus, which you can buy from someone like John "Red Socks" Young.

You will have to have aircraft with CAA approval to do flight training, and each of them must be covered by R 1 000 000 public liability insurance. They have to be fitted with a compass, with a valid compass-swing plate.

The school has to have a CFI (Chief Flying Instructor), who has to be a Grade B or A instructor. All training by Grade C instructors is only allowed under supervision by a grade B or A instructor.

It is not difficult or very expensive to get a school going. With the basic infrastructure in place, it should take you no more than 3 months and about R 20 000 on admin, laws and manual of procedure. Many pilots have a lot towards the requirements (such as NOTAM's) already, and you can get quite creative with the rest when you need to.

If anyone wants help with setting up a school, phone me on 084 602 3455 or e-mail comefly at mweb dot co dot za.

[louwrens]

Hi

I want to start a school.

My plan for now is, to get a MPL in next year and train for a grade A instructor. (This will also give me a change to see how everybody operates)

By the end of the year 2007 I must have my own Microlight and setup a school so that by Jan - Feb 2008 I can run my flight school.

[RV4ker (RIP)]

Ditto, but Just need instructors course in Jhb... (Anyone know in Mike Cathero is still doing them?)

[louwrens]

Hi again

How does the instructor rating work for microlight. (Whats is the cost and total flying hours you must have to become a grade C to A instructor?)

Kind Regards
Louwrens

[African Grey]

For C-Grade you need to have 200 Hours flying plus relevant Instructor course which includes patter and theory.
B-Grade you need 200 Instruction Hours and a flight test plus (although not a prerequisite) more theory on paperwork and sending students solo etc.
A-Grade you ned 500 Instruction hours and a flight test

Rgds

[FAWGie]

A-Grade you ned 500 Instruction hours and a flight test

Rgds

That's 500 hours total time of which 300 hours are instruction.... (200 hours private MPL flying to qualify for grade C, then 200 hours instruction to get to Grade B, then 100 hours more instruction to get to Grade A)

[FAWGie]

Ditto, but Just need instructors course in Jhb... (Anyone know in Mike Cathero is still doing them?)

Come now RV4ker, we need some action now!

[RV4ker (RIP)]

Ditto, but Just need instructors course in Jhb... (Anyone know in Mike Cathero is still doing them?)

Come now RV4ker, we need some action now!

My sentiments exactly. WX has not been good here for da light aeries. May have found solution closer to home than slummies and Cato. Will keep ya posted if anything comes from it...