Question on Caravan and Flight Safety

[cncpc]

I have been told that if one wants to operate a Caravan single pilot IFR, then it is mandatory to train at Flight Safety in the US, and that is a $20,000 proposition.

Is that true and who made it mandatory? TC, or insurance companies, or...?

Thanks

[Go Guns]

Transport Canada. It doesn't have to be FlightSafety, I did mine at PanAm.

See CASS 723.22 and 723.98

[Hornblower]

That's only for Part Vii ops, no such requirement for private, however the insurance companies may specify it as a requirement.

[cncpc]

Ok, thank you gentlemen.

[Doc]

For night VFR, or IFR, at any time with passengers, the captain must have FSI, or equivalent. Day VFR, or non passenger carrying, no FSI, etc., required.
Private ops....whatever you want to do.
Has nothing to do with single pilot ops. Same rule applies to two crew or one crew ops.

[Bobby868]

Pan Am, initial C208 is less than half of the $20,000 figure you quoted. Someone is trying to make a lot money off of you if that's what they are quoting.

[Doc]

Pan Am, initial C208 is less than half of the $20,000 figure you quoted. Someone is trying to make a lot money off of you if that's what they are quoting.

Never taken a course by Pan Am, but the two pilots I know who did (both fairly experienced with other courses to compare it to) said it totally sucked, compared to FSI. YMMV

[KK7]

I second the questioning of your $20 000 quote. Several years ago I did mine at FSI and it was $8000 (paid for by the company I worked for). I heard lately that it might be $10 000 now.

[cdnpilot77]

I have heard very mixed reviews about the Pan Am course but looked into it after discussing with the boss the idea of one of his relatives buying a Van. They decided against it.

I posted this a couple of months ago:

C208 PIC Initial Rating Course:

5 Days
All Training Materials
Ground School and Systems Integration 20 Hours
Full Flight Simulator Instruction and Check ride 10 Hours/pilot
Investment: $ 6,700 per solo pilot

C208 PIC Recurrent Course:

3 Days
Ground School and Systems Integration 10 Hours
Full Flight Simulator Instruction and Check ride 6 Hours/pilot
Investment: $ 3,775 per solo pilot

[Doc]

Is that the price for a Pan Am, or an FSI course. Interesting point is the "check ride" included in the quote is for an FAA check ride. Golden opportunity to get an FAA ATPL check ride, while you're at it, for free. You just never know....

[cdnpilot77]

That was Pan Am

[The Hammer]

Can you actually do the ride in those sims? I know for the PC-12 at simcom you must do 2 hrs a/c training and then the ride.

[Cap'n P8]

I know that the Pan Am sim was full-motion (I believe Level D) and was usable for circling approaches. I did their "ride", but that was only to complete the course. We didn't have a TC monitor, so I ended up doing my PPC on the actual a/c back in Canada.

[Cap'n P8]

As for the PC12 (in MCO) it is only an FTD (level 5 IIRC).

[Doc]

You can do FAA rides on the FSI sim. Probably do a TC ride if you had a CCP along with you. All the Yanks on our course did FAA rides at the end of the course.

[The Other Kind]

Golden opportunity to get an FAA ATPL check ride

In a single?

[Big Pistons Forever]

Golden opportunity to get an FAA ATPL check ride

In a single?

Yup in the USA you can have a FAA SE ATPL

[The Other Kind]

See, that's why I still visit here I have an FAA ATP, but hadn't heard of the SE version...does seem a little silly though. Thanks BPF!

[PT6onH20]

.

[Cap'n P8]

I have to second PT6, I took the training in KMEM back in 2004. It was my first ever sim, but I found it to be very good with great instructors. PC12 at simcom KMCO in 2005...not so good...

[tallyho]

I've only done FSI, no complaints, very thorough. I've done candian PPC on their sim. You just need to pay for a TC examiner to be there. Kind of dumb for doing forced approaches though, which you have to demonstrate for the canadian PPC.

I know Fedex switched from PanAm to FSI couple years back, not sure if it was quality, money or some other reason!

[Axial Flow]

I have been to Pan Am and FSI in Wichita and both were good.

PAN AM at the time had a nice brand new level D sim and it was located in a nice part of Memphis (Germantown). They also had the FedEx 727 sim there also.

PAN AM had a better sim experience but their use of multimedia for ground school was lacking. Most of the stuff at the time was on an overhead projector where FSI had nice computer animations for each system but on a Caravan you don't need too much detail as it's about as basic as you can get.

FSI put me in the old C208 sim and it was a POS compared to PANAM but they also have a newer Level D which I did not try.

PC12 sim is off topic but the NG and Legacy sim are both crap because nobody else can compete with them (exclusive deal with Pilatus) so they don't have to bring it up a level. Last time at sim I had to give control to the other pilot anytime I had to retract the gear so I could put my hand under the dash to push the pin so I could raise the gear handle. They didn't fix it for the whole week we were there. Also when the NG was brand new I spent most of the week watching windows blue screens of death and waited half the time for them to reboot it. FSI has a lot more cash so they seem to run a tighter ship and would probably go with them. If cost is an issue for you then PANAM (SIMCOM) is also decent .

[DHCdriver]

Did one about 9 years ago at FSI and it was 8-9,000. Great course, did so well they sent me home a little earlier( Great instructors) DHC