Learning to fly, or thinking of learning? Post your questions, comments and experiences here

Moderator: AndyR

User avatar
By OrangeBird
#1562568
I'm sure this has been answered, I did a quick search but couldn't find it - apologies if I've missed something.

Just wanted to check, before I put pen to paper, that there's no reason not to log a 'trial' lesson in my logbook along with my normal lessons. I have a number of entries already for my PPL training, and was recently lucky enough to be given a 'trial' lesson (in a different aircraft type) as a present.

The pilot is an instructor for that type, so I'm assuming I can just enter the hours as normal and put it down as PUT?

Is there any complication here with it being a different type, or then having to separately track my 'normal' training hours for towards my licence?

Thanks :)
User avatar
By Sooty25
#1562572
If you intend to use the time towards your training hours your logbook will need to show an exercise number and be countersigned by the instructor.

Well, that's my understanding!
By cockney steve
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1562574
AIUI, you should get each lesson signed off by the instructor, as otherwise, you could just build "Parker pen" hours.
Friend had a 10 year break in training, due to family problems. He wrote to the CAA(or his new school did) they credited all completed and signed-off hours...saved him over £2,000 .
sooty is a quicker typist and is more accurate (the exercises completed in the lesson)
Note there's a difference between a "trial flight" and a "trial lesson" :P
User avatar
By OrangeBird
#1562576
Sooty25 wrote:If you intend to use the time towards your training hours your logbook will need to show an exercise number and be countersigned by the instructor.

Well, that's my understanding!


Thanks Sooty :)

If that's the case then I'm not so worried about it 'counting' towards my PPL, guess I just want to make sure I'm logging it correctly and not causing a problem down the line. Ultimately the 30 minutes won't make a massive difference in the grand scheme of things, I'll have way more than the amount of time I need when I get to the point of sending off my licence.

I suppose I don't even have to log it at all - I just want my log book to be a complete record of all the flying I've done, so wanted to include it for completeness.
User avatar
By OrangeBird
#1562578
cockney steve wrote: Note there's a difference between a "trial flight" and a "trial lesson" :P


Totally - hence why I checked with the pilot. He's definitely a qualified instructor, and there was definitely an element of 'instruction' :D

I get that the CAA would be worried about (as you put it) 'Parker Pen' hours - hopefully though, given that I'm not intending that this should count towards my hours on my PPL (and, by virtue of me not yet having a licence it can't count towards currency) a lack of a signature shouldn't be an issue here?
User avatar
By Sooty25
#1562582
You could always log it in one of the spare columns in your logbook, so you have a record for yourself, but easily separated out from your training hours.
By riverrock
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1562583
You don't need the exercise number but instructor should counter sign the entry.
In some schools, instructor or CFI will counter sign all the items at once with a single signature and summary at the end of the course rather than doing each individual one, which is fine unless you change schools (make sure to get that signature).
There is a cut off for very old hours when going towards a PPL - you have to get special permission from the CAA to use them (complete with Fee).

I added all the trial flights I'd had to total instruction hours. Made no difference to me in the end, as I flew more than the minimum.
User avatar
By David Wood
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1562690
If the flight was done with an FI (NB, not a CRI and not just a pal who may or may not have once held an FI rating) then you can log the time as 'under instruction', ie log it as dual time P/ut. It is common for a student to log the first hour at the start of his training as a trial lesson (Ex 3), since many start their training that way. In my own ATO, even the trial lessons are written up in the student's training record sheets (not his log-book) if it is felt that he is likely to go on to complete a course of training - precisely so that he can claim that hour in due course.

Technically speaking the FI doesn't need to sign the student's logbook, but here's the rub. At the end of your training the Head of Training of wherever you did the training has to sign a box on your PPL application form to certify that you have completed the prescribed training including the necessary time. If you had, say, a couple of hours of trial lessons done elsewhere and had subsequently completed the training in, say, 50 hours of training then it isn't really an issue because you've done more than the 45 hours required within the training establishment for which the Head of Training is signing. He's unlikely to care if you'd done a couple of hours somewhere else, because you are over the minimum. But if you've done, say, just 45 hours training, a couple of which you are 'claiming' from previous trial lessons done somewhere else at some other time outside of that ATO then you may find that that particular Head of Training is unwilling to include those because he simply doesn't know whether or not they were really flown, what was covered in them, whether the FI was suitably qualified etc. So, in those circumstances he may be more willing to accept that 'training' on face value if it has a name and number to it which he can check if necessary.
By CapnM
#1562731
Some interesting replies. I logged my trial lesson as I would a normal lesson, but the trial lesson I had was at Newcastle and my training was done in the Midlands. I've never had to get any kind of signature in my log book to validate entries. I don't know if this a 'recommendation' if you send your log book to the CAA with your PPL application as I did mine online, where you don't need to send them anything through the mail.
User avatar
By Sooty25
#1562785
the irony is that out of your 45 hours you could quiet easily have spent 20 hrs taxiing and holding if you pick the wrong airfield!
User avatar
By Morten
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1562804
Log it as flying - and if it was with an FI, as PUT. I have about 6 pre-PPL hours of flying with various FIs in places other than my flying school - (and therefore not part of my course) and the experience was good regardless. Whether they count towards your 45 hours is up to your ATO, but noone can take the actual flying experience away from you :)
User avatar
By PeteSpencer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1562814
cockney steve wrote:lesson)
Note there's a difference between a "trial flight" and a "trial lesson" :P


No there isn't.
By riverrock
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1562829
There is a difference between an "Air Experience Flight" and a "Trial Lesson". One can be performed by anyone appointed by a club (non-renumerated if I remember correctly), and doesn't count as training, the other needs to be by an instructor. If someone says "trial flight" - I would be thinking they weren't being conducted by an instructor.
User avatar
By David Wood
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1562852
riverrock wrote:There is a difference between an "Air Experience Flight" and a "Trial Lesson". One can be performed by anyone appointed by a club (non-renumerated if I remember correctly), and doesn't count as training, the other needs to be by an instructor. If someone says "trial flight" - I would be thinking they weren't being conducted by an instructor.

There is some understandable confusion about this. We used to call these sorts of things Trial Lessons/Trial Flights/Air Experience Flights and the like; all basically meaning Ex3 - an instructional flight forming the introduction to flying which is part of the PPL syllabus. However EASA recently introduced (and the CAA have adopted) the concept of the 'Introductory Flight' which is not a flight exercise and which, as Riverrock says correctly, can therefore be performed on behalf of an ATO (under certain prescribed circumstances) by a non-FI on essentially the same basis as if you as a LAPL/PPL holder were to take a mate up privately. That is not a training flight (unless it is conducted by an FI), it is merely a passenger flight.

There is obviously plenty of scope for confusion here since one might turn up for a 'trial lesson' (old speak) and find that it is actually an Introductory Flight (new speak) being potentially conducted by a non-FI and is therefore un-loggable. It is really down to the ATO to put in place systems to ensure that everyone involved (the pilot, the passenger and the ATO) know that they are doing on a flight-by-flight basis. There are obviously some legal and liability issues there to be closely managed.

However, all that said, personally I think that the introduction of the Introductionary Flight is a good thing and it opens up some opportunities for non-FIs to do some flying on behalf of an ATO. But it isn't as simple as it first appears.