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What planes can you fly without a pilot’s license?

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Re: What planes can you fly without a pilot’s license?

#111

Post by psunavy03 »

shakow wrote: post #62
NikolaNovak wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People's instinct and intuition are EXTREMELY incorrect in situation of your sight obscured while flying an airplane (and untrained and even trained personnel are extremely ill-equipped to judge their spatial awareness and capabilities in blind situations). People end up trusting their body reflexes that have evolved for very different situation and absolutely lie to you. When an airplane turns, the actual G forces u…

Probably a stupid question, but why can't these lost pilots just maintain their attitude indicator in the middle, fly straight, grit their teeth, and wait to get out of the cloud?

Not all airplanes are required to have attitude indicators. If so, the pilot is expected to just look outside . . . and also to be responsible enough not to fly into instrument conditions.

Re: What planes can you fly without a pilot’s license?

#113

Post by taneq »

userbinator wrote: post #78
grepfru_it wrote: post #73

Unpopular opinion but technically correct answer: you can fly any plane without a pilots license. In fact I just saw a Quora question with this exact question and the answer came from a 60 year old pilot that has been flying without a license for 30 years. If you never fly out of a major airport where an FAA inspector can ramp check you, who will ever find out? Please don’t do this.

and the answer came from a 60 year old pilot that has been flying without a license for 30 years. More precisely, someone who claims to be one online.

What do you want GP poster to do, check their license? :P

Re: What planes can you fly without a pilot’s license?

#114

Post by taneq »

amluto wrote: post #105
Dalewyn wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the same vein, the only reason you need a license is because you use publicly owned space. For a mundane example, consider your driver's license. You only need it because you drive on public roads and highways; a driver's license is a license stating you are competent enough to not ruin the shared public roads and highways. Likewise, a pilot's license is a license stating you are competent enough to not ruin the s…

> Hell, you probably don't even need to register that car. In California at least, you are required to file for “planned non-operation”, which is inexpensive but not free.

Is that the same as de-registering the car? In Australia if you have a car that you don't intend to drive on the road, you can just hand the number plates back. They refund the remainder of your licensing fees and you're done. The car can still be driven (even without a driver's license) on private land, just not public roads. If you want to drive it on the road again, you have to re-register it and get it inspected.

Re: What planes can you fly without a pilot’s license?

#115

Post by inconceivable »

taneq wrote: post #114
amluto wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hell, you probably don't even need to register that car. In California at least, you are required to file for “planned non-operation”, which is inexpensive but not free.

Is that the same as de-registering the car? In Australia if you have a car that you don't intend to drive on the road, you can just hand the number plates back. They refund the remainder of your licensing fees and you're done. The car can still be driven (even without a driver's license) on private land, just not public roads. If you want to drive it on the road again, you have to re-register it and get it inspected.

it's not the same. un-registering and re-registering a car in california is a giant bureaucratic pain in the ass.

Re: What planes can you fly without a pilot’s license?

#116

Post by harpiaharpyja »

mschuster91 wrote: post #50
quasarj wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flying into a cloud is a big risk? They're everywhere!

Here in Germany, if you don't have an IFR (instrument flight rules) rating, you're not allowed to fly through clouds, because if you're not trained in using avionics or the plane doesn't have them in the first place, you are very very likely to kill yourself, your passengers and people on the ground. If you encounter unexpected clouds, you are supposed to GTFO... if you try to fly "under" the clouds, you may end up f…

Thank you, this is important information that anyone planning to fly an ultralight without a license (or with one, but presumably in that case you would know already) should know.

Re: What planes can you fly without a pilot’s license?

#117

Post by paulddraper »

grepfru_it wrote: post #73

Unpopular opinion but technically correct answer: you can fly any plane without a pilots license. In fact I just saw a Quora question with this exact question and the answer came from a 60 year old pilot that has been flying without a license for 30 years. If you never fly out of a major airport where an FAA inspector can ramp check you, who will ever find out? Please don’t do this.

I'm a private pilot.

This is basically correct. If your airport is small and you never get in trouble with ATC or have an emergency situation, you will probably not get caught.

However, if you do get caught, it is a criminal charge with (IIRC) up to $250,000 fine and 6 years prison time.

Or worse, you overestimate your ability and die/kill people.

I wouldn't take that risk.

If you want to fly a lot, get a license. If you want to fly a little, make friends with a pilot.

You can even get a student license with relatively few requirements, and fly solo (no passengers) during the day.

---

That said, I do sympathize with people wanting to opt out of the FAA's draconian rules. (E.g. If you have been professionally diagnosed with ADHD, the FAA bans you from any pilot's license ever, even a student license. :/ Lovely)

Re: What planes can you fly without a pilot’s license?

#118

Post by voldacar »

K0balt wrote: post #67
lsh123 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are studies about non-instrument pilots entering clouds (instrument meteorological conditions or IMC in aviation lingo): - in 60 secs the plane control is lost (though still recoverable); - in 90 secs the plane is in an unrecoverable attitude; - in 180-270 secs the plane breaks up or hits the ground. An example of someone who lived to tell the tale: http://www.37000feet.com/report/879711/new-in-type-private-p..…

Mmmmm I’m going to take exception to this. It is certainly possible (and easy) to become disoriented in IMC. But every private pilot has at least a couple of hours of simulated instrument time and should be capable of navigating their aircraft back out of a cloud. You are taught, if you have a competent instructor, to ignore your senses and rely on the instruments in such situations, as well as recovery from unusual…

It's not possible to enter an unrecoverable spin in a light aircraft?

Re: What planes can you fly without a pilot’s license?

#119

Post by gusennan »

Justin_K wrote: post #89

After your solo signoff you can fly alone without a license. Many people do this and never go all the way, they'll l fly for years.

an instructor’s solo sign off is only valid for 90 days in the US, and there are a bunch of restrictions as to what a pilot is operating under the instructor’s sign off can do.

Re: What planes can you fly without a pilot’s license?

#120

Post by lsh123 »

K0balt wrote: post #67
lsh123 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are studies about non-instrument pilots entering clouds (instrument meteorological conditions or IMC in aviation lingo): - in 60 secs the plane control is lost (though still recoverable); - in 90 secs the plane is in an unrecoverable attitude; - in 180-270 secs the plane breaks up or hits the ground. An example of someone who lived to tell the tale: http://www.37000feet.com/report/879711/new-in-type-private-p..…

Mmmmm I’m going to take exception to this. It is certainly possible (and easy) to become disoriented in IMC. But every private pilot has at least a couple of hours of simulated instrument time and should be capable of navigating their aircraft back out of a cloud. You are taught, if you have a competent instructor, to ignore your senses and rely on the instruments in such situations, as well as recovery from unusual…

The link I posted above is from an instrument rated pilot of an instrument flight plan who nearly got himself and passengers killed in IMC. A couple or few hours under the hood is not nearly enough to handle actual IMC a few years later.

And yes, in theory properly loaded certified plane can be recovered in most of the cases. But it is not going to help you to know that recovery takes 10k feet if you are at 8k AGL.

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