Giving float ratings

[letmedrive]

I am wondering what I would need aircraft insurance wise to give float ratings. I assume I would nee commercial insurance, as well as some sort of insurance to cover students for the solo hour, but would I have to file for my own AOC to do this on my own? If it was just float ratings?

Thank you

[cessnafloatflyer]

If you are collecting money, yes you need a 702 OC. You will also have to provide TC with insurance papers that prove you have the authority from an underwriter to do the flights.

[Heliian]

Chapter IV of the CARS covers flight training units.

[cessnafloatflyer]

Actually seaplane ratings, not licensing is 702 subsection training.

[Pop n Fresh]

So are you giving them away or this?

If you are collecting money, yes you need a 702 OC...

I could go for a free one.

[spafloats]

A FTU O.C. is not required to conduct seaplane training. They are usually done on a 703 (Air Taxi) O.C. with all the required paperwork and commercial insurance coverage that meets CTA requirements.

If the rating is done on a private aircraft the student must have some ownership in the aircraft and it must be insured for liability to allow the student to do solo flight to meet the requirements for 5 SOLO take-offs and landings for the rating.

Spafloats

[Shiny Side Up]

A FTU O.C. is not required to conduct seaplane training.

While its not required, you can do it under a FTU OC as opposed to a 70x OC. Not sure which is the easier path to do it. As I recall, CFC is doing float ratings these days on an amphibian and they don't have a 70x OC.

[photofly]

If the rating is done on a private aircraft the student must have some ownership in the aircraft

Don't think so - that's only for an initial licence.

Subsequent licences and ratings can be done in a third party aircraft, as long as it's obtained at arm's length from the instructor. Obviously that doesn't help the OP who wants to use his own aircraft.

[Cat Driver]

Lots of luck with trying to do more than one sea plane rating using an " At arms length " airplane.

All it will take is one complaint from the holder of a FTU-OC and T.C. can refuse to recognize your training...

...not to mention the cost of getting insurance to cover the idiotic requirement of five solo take offs and landings that T.C. requires.

[Big Pistons Forever]

...not to mention the cost of getting insurance to cover the idiotic requirement of five solo take offs and landings that T.C. requires.

+ 1

This is one area where I think the the US system where there is no solo requirement, but you have to do a flight test with a designated examiner is much better.

Not only does it simplify the provision of training but it also keeps everyone honest.

[trey kule]

I have never understood the opposition to the solo requirements.

You are training a pilot to a standard that that they can get a rating. But they are unsafe to fly solo? Whats up with that?

When 703 operators did ( or maybe still do) their rating training, they train to a standard able to turn a pilot loose.. And it does not take a 50 hour bush course where you learn campfire songs to get to that level.

If insurance is a problem, it is because of accidents.....hmmmmm? Might that have something to do with the quality of the training?

Train well, and the solo thing is not an issue, in my opinion.

[Shiny Side Up]

...not to mention the cost of getting insurance to cover the idiotic requirement of five solo take offs and landings that T.C. requires.

+ 1

This is one area where I think the the US system where there is no solo requirement, but you have to do a flight test with a designated examiner is much better.

Not only does it simplify the provision of training but it also keeps everyone honest.

I don't know about that anymore. Just like there are people going "solo" on float ratings, I've seen where there are PPL students going "solo" if you catch my drift. CPL students especially its a problem. Just like there's examiners out there who give "passes".

[Cat Driver]

I don't know about that anymore. Just like there are people going "solo" on float ratings, I've seen where there are PPL students going "solo" if you catch my drift. CPL students especially its a problem. Just like there's examiners out there who give "passes".

Ratings are ad-dons to an existing pilot license.

There is no requirement during the training for solo to get a multi engine rating and there is no requirement for solo during training for the instrument rating.

However there is the requirement for a flight test.

The requirement for solo during the float rating only penalizes the people doing the rating to have to pay the high insurance premiums to allow solo.

[Pop n Fresh]

CPL students especially its a problem. Just like there's examiners out there who give "passes".

Do you know them and can I get a "recommend"?

[cessnafloatflyer]

To add to what Cat is saying -- when you are solo, how does the 'instructor' know what you are doing in there? All we can do is sign off that you made it back with what look like reasonable landings. Check lists done? Who knows? A flight test would need a demonstrated level of abilities as with all other ratings. Cat is right, it just adds to the cost because of insurance and lessens the skill level. This is why very low time pilots near where I am based are teaching ratings with not much skill of their own. Hell, I got an email from an extremely low pilot yesterday dolling out ratings, for tips on what to do. Crazy. Little to no experience teaching and signing off ratings. Nice -- lots of the blind leading the blind. Poorly written rules making for poor pilots. I can name 3 'professional' organisations using very, very low time seaplane pilots to do seaplane ratings right now, charging top dollar and the students are non the wiser. Pathetic, dangerous and annoying.

[Cat Driver]

Pathetic, dangerous and annoying.

And 100% created and supported by an apathetic regulator filled with drones with no desire to bring Canadian pilot training into the 21st. century.

Canadian aviation.....can you say third world quality and fourth world mentality? .....I thought you could.

[PilotDAR]

pilot training into the 21st. century

But ., is the 21st century the era in which the best pilot training is to be found? I'm concerned that pilot training has drifted away from the core "hands and feet" skills, which were the core of good pilot training 25 and more years ago.

[Cat Driver]

PilotDAR, my problem is I tend to think using logic in my expetations with regard to flying training.....logic should dictate that the quality of training would at least keep pace with the evolution of technology.

Thank you for jolting me back into the reality of how it is really going.......down, really down.

[PilotDAR]

A part of it is up to the student too. The training they get will unlikely be much more than they ask and pay for. One of my students this year (who got his PPL on a floatplane) can't get enough training, from myself, and others too. I tell him he's doing very well, and he asks for more.

The notion of a new pilot splashing a few times, getting the float rating, and thinking they are ready for the water, because they have the rating, worries me. Float instructors need to teach their students that the rating is step one of safe water flying. This is little to do with regulation, and much more to dedicated students, demanding more training than the minimum, and instructors skilled and experienced enough to provide it. Neither of those requires regulation....

If the 50+ hours, over a month, and many destinations, that one should have to be safe on the water, were regulated, there would be a cry of foul from coast to coast!

[Pop n Fresh]

You guys are just jealous that my mom said I'm the best pilot, even though I don't have as much experience as you. Now someone give me my free CPL and Float rating!

[Taiser]

Doing my float rating right now and loving it. I'm lucky to have an instructor here who is semi-retired with 13,000 hours of mostly bush time and is a GREAT teacher. Using a PA-11 for the instruction. I have a buddy who offered to teach me but he's got a 185 which I figured was too much power for me to learn on! Given what I am building, the PA-11 is much closer to what I prefer learning on.

Before I started the training here I was suppose to be down in southern Ontario next month for a couple of weeks for work and I called an outfit down there who told me they could give me an endorsement flying on one week-end on a 172!!! Given what I'm doing now, I can't see how the hell that would be possible or be safe! After an hour of doing circuits now is draining, can't see doing 3 or 4 hours a day! I'm sure it can be done, but I find things sink in better with some time off in between!

[pdw]

The 172 on straight floats is a piece of cake around those lakes.

Go down there and get it done

[Shiny Side Up]

Ratings are ad-dons to an existing pilot license.

There is no requirement during the training for solo to get a multi engine rating and there is no requirement for solo during training for the instrument rating.

However there is the requirement for a flight test.

The requirement for solo during the float rating only penalizes the people doing the rating to have to pay the high insurance premiums to allow solo.

I'd only submit that the premise is the same. A SPP holder who gets turned loose for his first solo has about the same amount of landing experience on wheels as a new float rating pilot turned loose solo does on floats. As a flight school person, I'm penalized in the same fashion, float people aren't that much different. I would say that obviously since there's a higher risk of loss with a float plane (the whole risk of sinking and all) the same sort of thing holds true if you were going to turn it loose for solo rental.

In the end, that extra risk simply has to be borne by the customer. If you can't make it worth while, ie: not enough people are willing to pay the premium for such training, then don't be in the business of giving float ratings.

Personally, if I was to engage in such activity, I'd go through the labours of trying to press the insurance people to prove that we deserve a lower rate, much like we do with the school on wheels. After all, no one deserves to get turned loose on wheels unless they've proved that they're going to return with the plane to some degree, Schools that offer float ratings shouldn't be of the mindset that everyone is guaranteed a rating in the minimum time and that the school reserves the right to not complete your rating if you aren't up to the task. Just like everywhere else.

That's just my thought on the matter though. Personally I think an examiner - especially an in house type - would be doing just as much damage with guaranteed test passes to anyone willing to pay. Because I can't see TC really taking ownership of the QC.

[Cat Driver]

Schools that offer float ratings shouldn't be of the mindset that everyone is guaranteed a rating in the minimum time and that the school reserves the right to not complete your rating if you aren't up to the task. Just like everywhere else.

Of all the sea plane ratings that have been finished in Canada in the past twenty years how many have taken longer than the seven hour minimum under the present rules?

Personally I think an examiner - especially an in house type - would be doing just as much damage with guaranteed test passes to anyone willing to pay.

Of course there can always be examiners who pass students that do not measure up to the minimums, in house examiners should not be allowed.

The sea plane rating is more knowledge intensive than a multi engine rating therefore the minimum requirements should be the same as the multi engine rating....when the student can demonstrate the knowledge and flying skills they are recommended for a flight test.

That would get rid of the week end sea plane ratings.

[cessnafloatflyer]

The notion of a new pilot splashing a few times, getting the float rating, and thinking they are ready for the water, because they have the rating, worries me.

My experience is that these are often the instructors! 50 hours of float time at anytime, doing anything and you're qualified to teach and sign off the rating. What a joke. That worries and annoys me. Customers are seldom educated enough to know to ask. The flight school has a seaplane, they offer ratings, student figures they must be qualified. And they are qualified because the minimums are scary low.

As far as the insurance goes, it is expensive. Floatplanes are by far more expensive than wheels, incidents and injury is far more substantial than running off the runway into the grass. You don't drown in the grass and the plane isn't necessarily written off.