Hours until you feel proficient?

[GMack]

The FAA used to - maybe still does - require private pilots to get about 40 hours flight time for their license, and longer if the CFI deemed it necessary. I think it took about 20 hours dual before the CFI jumps ship and you are on your own to make up the 40 hours total.

For whatever reason, if 40 hours was the FAA's private pilot threshold that they felt someone was competent to fly, what would the number of hours be for a sUAV pilot should the FAA feel the need to apply a standard?

If our UAV flights average 20 minutes, that would mean 120 flights to get 40 hours. Since no CFI is around and we're left mostly on our own devices, maybe just the 20 hours or 60 flights? A once a week flight would take some time doing it that way.

The FAA has gotten into a lot of the Macho psyche stuff in their 107 tests. Guess too many newbies adopt that and then end up in this mess:

Maybe more hours was needed and less Macho.

 

[Monte55]

The FAA used to - maybe still does - require private pilots to get about 40 hours flight time for their license, and longer if the CFI deemed it necessary. I think it took about 20 hours dual before the CFI jumps ship and you are on your own to make up the 40 hours total.

For whatever reason, if 40 hours was the FAA's private pilot threshold that they felt someone was competent to fly, what would the number of hours be for a sUAV pilot should the FAA feel the need to apply a standard?

If our UAV flights average 20 minutes, that would mean 120 flights to get 40 hours. Since no CFI is around and we're left mostly on our own devices, maybe just the 20 hours or 60 flights? A once a week flight would take some time doing it that way.

The FAA has gotten into a lot of the Macho psyche stuff in their 107 tests. Guess too many newbies adopt that and then end up in this mess:

Maybe more hours was needed and less Macho.

I think the main thing is for the operator to be honest with their self. Many go out and fly and don't crash. ..and think they are great. But...when it's not a calm day, and there may be obstacles to avoid etc and a quick reaction is necessary, many fail. Not as good as they thought they were. When I was flying rc planes, I would see many new guys get a plane into the air and do some stunts with a lot of space in the air...that's easy....but these same people were lost when the plane went dead stick in an emergency. They had terrible control on landing . Couldn't hit the right spot if their life depended on it. People need to honesty evaluate their skill level and correct their faults. But, we know that most likely won't happen. I always test my skill. If I'm not good at something, I work on it till I am good at it. I've always been that way. It really helped when I got my pilots certification in about 1985. My life depended on it.

 

[CCrew]

What's the saying, there are old pilots and bold pilots but there are no old bold pilots? My take is on it you should always respect that something may happen and you're always learning. When you believe you're proficient is usually when you find out you aren't.

Which is what the out of the box newbies that put them immediately into trees don't think about.

 

[garyinok]

What are you guys talking about? Who are all these people supposedly putting their drones into trees. I've been flying mine since the Vision 2 days and RC planes before that, and to be brutally honest these things require virtually no skill whatsoever to fly. It's not an airplane. Sorry but the idea of needing the same level of training or even half that of an aircraft pilot just seems ludicrous. I mean seriously I'm not a pilot. We are talking about a toy. A sophisticated one, but still a toy. I get the concept of "skill" level if you are talking videography or photography, but just flying the thing? Sorry, but no skill required. Out of the box, read the manual, you know all you need to to fly.


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[Monte55]

What are you guys talking about? Who are all these people supposedly putting their drones into trees. I've been flying mine since the Vision 2 days and RC planes before that, and to be brutally honest these things require virtually no skill whatsoever to fly. It's not an airplane. Sorry but the idea of needing the same level of training or even half that of an aircraft pilot just seems ludicrous. I mean seriously I'm not a pilot. We are talking about a toy. A sophisticated one, but still a toy. I get the concept of "skill" level if you are talking videography or photography, but just flying the thing? Sorry, but no skill required. Out of the box, read the manual, you know all you need to to fly.


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Your last sentence makes our point. Read the manual, charge it and go fly...without knowing all of the things that can go wrong....like understanding all the features and settings. I am a VFR pilot. I was good at it...but it in no way qualifies me to fly in IFR conditions. Check youtube for all the crashes that are not happening.

 

[QuadcopterCrazy]

If you are talking about Quadcopters without GPS and all the other safety features then its really up to the person how well they can conquer the learning curve, which is steeper for some people and some people they learn quick. If you flew every day for a month in my opinion you should be pretty good at flying it.


If you are talking about a Phantom with all its bells and whistles, IMO a few days or even hours. You have to be an idiot to crash one of them IMO.

 

[kennedye]

I actually asked about this in the recent FAA webinar session, if we might eventually see a practical test component to a remote pilot exam; the response was basically "not yet, but maybe." I imagine it'd be kind of difficult to arrange though, it's not like airports have Inspires or something lying around like they do Cessnas...at least, not yet. We'll see what happens around August 2018 when the first 107s start expiring. Of course, who knows what kind of UASs we'll be flying by then?

 

[With The Birds]

Anyone with prior RC heli or aeroplane experience just needs to understand settings and RTH behaviour and they are good to go. Zero experience will see you flying first flight without incident as long as you don't get ahead of yourself. Launching straight into autonomous flight with third party apps, going past VLOS and/of flying from your back yard will almost gaurantee you come to grief the first time you loose GPS or have any sort of hiccup. When all works as expected these AC are ridiculously easy to fly.

 

[Chesapeake]

If you are talking about Quadcopters without GPS and all the other safety features then its really up to the person how well they can conquer the learning curve, which is steeper for some people and some people they learn quick. If you flew every day for a month in my opinion you should be pretty good at flying it.


If you are talking about a Phantom with all its bells and whistles, IMO a few days or even hours. You have to be an idiot to crash one of them IMO.

How frequently do they crash on their own for no apparent reason? I am thinking of buying a P4pro plus to fly over water,marshes and trees but am afraid it might not return home at 2-3 miles out from losing it's signal?

 

[sas099]

Correct me if I am wrong but Part 107 should not expire.

 

[Klaus_Klavier]

I feel right at home with my drone because I've flown RC helis (indoor gyrocopters) for a long time and they all pilot and handle the same as the drone does (with the exception of the drone being much faster, high tech, more expensive, and overall longer range


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[bischofftep]

Correct me if I am wrong but Part 107 should not expire.

I believe he is referring to the fact that Part 107 requires recurrent testing every 24 months. The regs don't expire, but your certification does!

As for the original question, I'm a VFR pilot, too, and in my experience the things you don't know will be what bites you, but also emergency preparedness: what do you do when an automated system suddenly stops? How do you recognize impending weather conditions? What are your "twitch" reactions to sudden aircraft behavior, and is it correct?

THOSE are the sorts of things that you only gain from training, experience, and preparation.

Hope that helps!


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[Chesapeake]

Well there's one good thing about drones compared to small planes. Atleast if your drone crashes, you live to tell about it.

 

[QuadcopterCrazy]

How frequently do they crash on their own for no apparent reason? I am thinking of buying a P4pro plus to fly over water,marshes and trees but am afraid it might not return home at 2-3 miles out from losing it's signal?

VERY RARE. If you follow the proper steps in setting the Phantom up, its rare that it happens. I don't know if you'll get 2-3 miles on the stock setup, I don't have the p4pro but, you always need to plan for your return, if you fly out at distance you have to realize you have to have enough battery to make it back.

 

[Chesapeake]

VERY RARE. If you follow the proper steps in setting the Phantom up, its rare that it happens. I don't know if you'll get 2-3 miles on the stock setup, I don't have the p4pro but, you always need to plan for your return, if you fly out at distance you have to realize you have to have enough battery to make it back.

I thought that the Pro 4 would indicate when it was time to return with enough battery reserve? Also, is it difficult to see the white phantom at that distance against the sky back ground or would I need binoculars?

 

[Monte55]

The Phantoms are easy to fly....even out of the box. I think the biggest problem with crashes or losing the birds is by taking risky chances and not understanding what all the functions can do. The person earlier said....take out of box and fly. It's that simple. RTH seems to be a problem with some. Crashing into things due to improper settings . With the new tech on these things, many don't bother to learn and understand all the features and how to use them properly. They get impatient and go fly and get into an accident. So, they want to blame DJI or the equipment for their lack of fully understanding. That's pilot error in my opinion. I got my first P1 in April 2014. Later I bought two more as prices dropped. All three are flying great. They are very sophisticated but not by today's standard. I can fly mine well and other than a couple of bumps at first, I have no problems. I would probably be lost with the newer birds due to the complexity. I don't care to learn it really. I have no desire to fly missions or fly miles away. I don't want the Phantom to fly itself. I want to fly it. I would not be comfortable if it was out of sight. That's just me. You can do what you want. If all I wanted to do was watch a screen and fly, I could do that with a video game. I always enjoyed flying my rc scale type airplanes which I still have. It never dawned on me to want to program it to fly itself while I went to have coffee. Different world today. People want to push a button and have things done for them...while missing the fun of doing it themselves. There is no right or wrong here....it's just what we want out of this.

 

[CCrew]

How frequently do they crash on their own for no apparent reason? I am thinking of buying a P4pro plus to fly over water,marshes and trees but am afraid it might not return home at 2-3 miles out from losing it's signal?

See, there's the rub. 2-3 miles out is not VLOS. But people think you can just get these and fly. Sure you can, if you don't mind disregarding rules and giving the sport a black eye.

 

[Chesapeake]

That's what I was wondering. I would get bored quickly without the range I need

 

[QuadcopterCrazy]

I thought that the Pro 4 would indicate when it was time to return with enough battery reserve? Also, is it difficult to see the white phantom at that distance against the sky back ground or would I need binoculars?

It does but it doesn't take into account how far you are or the wind speed, it will tell you the battery is getting low and you need to land soon but it doesn't tell you that since you are X amount of miles away that you need to return at a certain point. Wind speed will play a big part too because if you are flying back home into a head wind it will take more battery to get back.

Yes the Phantom is hard to see against the sky, especially in overcast situations, a spotter would be a good thing.

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[ianwood]

What are you guys talking about? Who are all these people supposedly putting their drones into trees. I've been flying mine since the Vision 2 days and RC planes before that, and to be brutally honest these things require virtually no skill whatsoever to fly. It's not an airplane. Sorry but the idea of needing the same level of training or even half that of an aircraft pilot just seems ludicrous. I mean seriously I'm not a pilot. We are talking about a toy. A sophisticated one, but still a toy. I get the concept of "skill" level if you are talking videography or photography, but just flying the thing? Sorry, but no skill required. Out of the box, read the manual, you know all you need to to fly.

This is a dangerous attitude. One the FAA identifies and strongly discourages. Drones don't require the same knowledge and skill as full-scale planes do but they require knowledge and skill, nonetheless. Many people just open the box and fly without much consideration for where and how to do it or for having a basic understanding of safety, rules and operational aspects. We've all seen the videos.

To the OP, it is hard to say how much time it takes to get proficient. There are basic skills and then there are more sophisticated skills and there is a lot in between. Even when you are proficient, you still have to maintain a vigilance for safety and knowing your limits. This is the same with full-scale flying.

The best approach is to start with very simple operations and move on to the next level slowly and methodically in conjunction with learning on-line from others. Practice within your limits. You will know when to take the next step.