FLIGHT REVIEW, WHAT DO YOU DO?

[donkaye]

42 minutes ago, Hank said:

That looks good, Don, but I've yet to be able to figure out which courses I need to take to complete a single level. At times I've had credits in all 3 categories (Basic, Advanced and whatever they call the third one), but I've yet to complete a set because their cryptic, incomplete instructions and byzantine Help sections leave me baffled.

Assuming you've signed up correctly on the website, you go to My Wings.  There you will see default courses for each category.  I usually don't like the default courses, so I will click on Search and look for courses in that category that I would rather take.  You can do that for each section.  When you click on Search only those courses are presented that will qualify for that particular category.  It's not difficult to complete the courses.  After you have completed a course, a green check mark will automatically be placed by that category indicating that you have completed it.  After you have completed whichever 3 courses you do, and you have a flight instructor validate the 3 flight categories (green checkmarks will appear after each category that the flight instructor validates), then all categories, both knowledge and flight will have green checkmarks next to them and you can print out your certificates.  Your new Flight Review date will automatically be indicated.  All of this is really not very difficult and is worth the effort..

[cnoe]

47 minutes ago, Hank said:

I've thought the revised Wings program is less than clear, and the website is truly horrible.

I have to agree with Hank on this.

I love taking the online courses and find several of them to be very informative but... Though a quick check of my hard-drive reveals that I've accumulated 38 of these "Safety Course Certificates" in the past 6 years I have not once completed a Wings Course Level. I keep taking the courses because I believe they make me a better pilot.

Not a single pilot I've queried utilizes the Wings Program to satisfy the Flight Review requirement. And the only time I tried to get a CFI to validate our flight together on the Wings site he quit replying to my e-mail. I suspect that many CFIs don't know how it works either.

The concept is great but it's much simpler to just pay a CFI for a couple hours time every other year.

[HRM]

Just now, cnoe said:

Not a single pilot I've queried utilizes the Wings Program to satisfy the Flight Review requirement. And the only time I tried to get a CFI to validate our flight together on the Wings site he quit replying to my e-mail. I suspect that many CFIs don't know how it works either.

I always take a course just before my FR and then I take the certificate with me. It gets you out of the ground school requirement. The local CFI du Jour typically doesn't like it, but they are too afraid of the FAA not to accept it 

Frankly, I enjoy the online courses and wouldn't mind doing the flying part of the Wings Program, but as you point out, nobody seems to know how it works.

What they ought to do is set it up over a two year period, where for two years you work through the online courses and then at the end you go for your FR and your FR consists of the "in the air" final exam. You get your 'Wings' and your FR out of the way at one time. They could also include a few solo flying assignments that the CFI could verify when they review your logbook.

[cnoe]

Just now, HRM said:

I always take a course just before my FR and then I take the certificate with me. It gets you out of the ground school requirement.

I just learned something!

[Hank]

6 minutes ago, cnoe said:

I have to agree with Hank on this.

I love taking the online courses and find several of them to be very informative but... Though a quick check of my hard-drive reveals that I've accumulated 38 of these "Safety Course Certificates" in the past 6 years I have not once completed a Wings Course Level. I keep taking the courses because I believe they make me a better pilot.

Not a single pilot I've queried utilizes the Wings Program to satisfy the Flight Review requirement. And the only time I tried to get a CFI to validate our flight together on the Wings site he quit replying to my e-mail. I suspect that many CFIs don't know how it works either.

The concept is great but it's much simpler to just pay a CFI for a couple hours time every other year.

Yep! I have the Bronze WINGS (twice, once under each system), both earned courtesy of MAPA. I also have a laundry list of completed courses, and generally have several "expire" every month. But how to turn them into "Ready to Fly" with a CFI continues to elude me, all other pilots I personally know, and every CFI with whom I have talked.

But the FAA thinks they have a successful program because I have completed a level, without me doing anything other than signing up and taking a bunch of courses but not achieving a single section with the magical three green check marks. Someone at MAPA did it all for me. It's been about five years since I got my new set of giant the bronze wings, I wear them on a hat . . .

[cnoe]

Just now, Hank said:

giant bronze wings, I wear them on a hat

Damn! I didn't know you get an actual set of WINGS for your hat!

I'm gonna have to try harder I guess. Or attend a MAPA PPP.

[midlifeflyer]

2 hours ago, kpaul said:

Decrease AoA?

Yes. I needed coffee.

[Hank]

Yep, got another one. No idea what to do . . . This is a regular occurrence. At least I'm taking the courses and learning. The every 24 months, hire me a CFI.

***************

Credits you earned by completing an FAASafety.gov Accredited Activity on 6/25/2016 will be expiring soon. When used in the WINGS - Pilot Proficiency Program, credits are valid for one year from the date of completion. Remember, even though individual credits expire after 12 months, your Flight Review requirement is satisfied for 24 months after the completion of any Phase in the WINGS - Pilot Proficiency Program.

If you have not already done so, we encourage you to select a new activity to accomplish toward your next phase of WINGS. We are constantly updating our online courses and activities on FAASafety.gov with new and expanded materials.

**************

WINGS, not a successful program.

Edited June 3, 2017 by Hank

[midlifeflyer]

1 minute ago, Hank said:

Yep, got another one. No idea what to do . . . This is a regular occurrence. At least I'm taking the courses and learning. The every 24 months, hire me a CFI.

***************

Credits you earned by completing an FAASafety.gov Accredited Activity on 6/25/2016 will be expiring soon. When used in the WINGS - Pilot Proficiency Program, credits are valid for one year from the date of completion. Remember, even though individual credits expire after 12 months, your Flight Review requirement is satisfied for 24 months after the completion of any Phase in the WINGS - Pilot Proficiency Program.

If you have not already done so, we encourage you to select a new activity to accomplish toward your next phase of WINGS. We are constantly updating our online courses and activities on FAASafety.gov with new and expanded materials.

**************

WINGS, not a successful program.

I've done my last three FRs via Wings. Once you do t, it become easy to figure out. The weird part to me is the number of people (not talking about you) who seem to think ground courses alone meet the requirements. You have to fly too.

WINGS, successful for those who use it; unsuccessful for those who don't.

[donkaye]

30 minutes ago, HRM said:

I always take a course just before my FR and then I take the certificate with me. It gets you out of the ground school requirement. 

Please point me to the place in the FARs or somewhere else that says this is acceptable.  Susan Parsons once wrote an article where she said that taking a particular online course and satisfactorily passing a test would qualify for part of the ground requirement, but not the whole requirement.  That was back in 2006 and the referenced URL doesn't exist anymore.

[donkaye]

4 minutes ago, midlifeflyer said:

WINGS, successful for those who use it; unsuccessful for those who don't.

Couldn't have said it better myself.  Thank you.

[peevee]

8 minutes ago, midlifeflyer said:

I've done my last three FRs via Wings. Once you do t, it become easy to figure out. The weird part to me is the number of people (not talking about you) who seem to think ground courses alone meet the requirements. You have to fly too.

WINGS, successful for those who use it; unsuccessful for those who don't.

I also have a hard time finding flight modules that for what I want to do. A lot of it is type specific or part 141 courses. When you enter your info and have a commercial (I assume that's the reason) it recommends weird stuff, like a king air refresher. I did it once two years ago but not since.

[MyNameIsNobody]

1 hour ago, HRM said:

I always take a course just before my FR and then I take the certificate with me. It gets you out of the ground school requirement. The local CFI du Jour typically doesn't like it, but they are too afraid of the FAA not to accept it 

Frankly, I enjoy the online courses and wouldn't mind doing the flying part of the Wings Program, but as you point out, nobody seems to know how it works.

What they ought to do is set it up over a two year period, where for two years you work through the online courses and then at the end you go for your FR and your FR consists of the "in the air" final exam. You get your 'Wings' and your FR out of the way at one time. They could also include a few solo flying assignments that the CFI could verify when they review your logbook.

My instructor "assigned" the two courses and had me bring the completion slip print outs satisfying the ground portion of the Flight Review.  We then flew 1.2 hours for the flight portion of the Flight review.

[MyNameIsNobody]

The two courses were significantly MORE than an hour of my time.

[midlifeflyer]

37 minutes ago, donkaye said:

Please point me to the place in the FARs or somewhere else that says this is acceptable.  Susan Parsons once wrote an article where she said that taking a particular online course and satisfactorily passing a test would qualify for part of the ground requirement, but not the whole requirement.  That was back in 2006 and the referenced URL doesn't exist anymore.

AFAIK, there isn't any. OTOH, there is also nothing anywhere that says the "ground training" has to be a one-on-one. Flight schools and others have been known to market "get back to flying" programs with group FR ground sessions. For years, I used my own written quiz as the preflight homework assignment. Now I use Wings-qualified courses. I'm more than comfortable assigning Wings-qualified courses on relevant topics and leaving the one-on-one to some quizzing and questions the pilot raises about the material. I do end up spending an hour of ground, but most of that is spent discussing what the pilot wants to discuss.

I've heard there's a movement afoot within Flight Standards to do to the Flight Review what they did to the IPC - remove much of the instructor discretion what to cover, and replace it with specified ACS tasks.  Personally, I think that would be a shame.

[HRM]

3 hours ago, donkaye said:

Please point me to the place in the FARs or somewhere else that says this is acceptable.  Susan Parsons once wrote an article where she said that taking a particular online course and satisfactorily passing a test would qualify for part of the ground requirement, but not the whole requirement.  That was back in 2006 and the referenced URL doesn't exist anymore.

Well, it is not in 14 CFR 61.56 and I read through the Wings site and didn't see it there. My guess is that at one point it was there, possibly in the the old Wings program, and now it is gone--but the CFI's don't know that. This supports almost everyone's contention that the program is too complicated.

It is true, however, that completion of any phase of a Wings program counts as a FR. I am thinking that in the old Wings program the 'knowledge activities' counted for the ground portion and that is where it got started.

[carusoam]

Back in the late 90s Wings was new... so was the internet.

i recall some detail about doing the Wings to avoid the cost of the BFR.

each level of wings you received, earned you a pin. It coincided with no other issues with the FAA.

The first pin you get is the wings of a bumble bee or something equally meaning full.

I recently came across these fine adornments and wondered what they were....

Thanks MS! For the answers to questions I didn't know to  ask...

I've got to check my AOPA file to see what else is in there.

Best regards,

-a-

[donkaye]

I've just looked at my records and I've done in excess of 72 Wings programs with various students over the past few years.  I participated in the first program to year 15 when they cancelled it (they only gave out different wings for the first 10 years).  In the current program I'm on Phase 11 Basic and Phase 8 Advanced.  If you can fly an airplane, then it should be easy to take the time to figure out the Wings Program.  It's just not that complicated.  Bryan Neville put his heart and soul into developing the current program before he retired.  I can only say that the current crop of flight instructors are just "plane" lazy if they don't take the time to investigate this program and both participate in it and encourage their students to participate in it.  

[1964-M20E]

Wings program is successful in the respect that there is a record of you taking some type of course.  IMHO that is all it is good for the way it is currently structured.

I got frustrated with the program after attending a number of seminars, doing online courses, flying with an instructor and still never completed any single level all in the time span of a single year.  After that experience I resolved myself to not worry about completing any level of Wings and just take the courses and seminars as they come about and get what ever credit I get for doing them.

Another side note about he AOPA courses many of the are excellent however sometimes they do seem to be overly long.  IMHO they need to be structured to be no more then 20 minutes of total online time to compel a course 15 minutes would be optimal.  A single topic may even have 2, 3 or more parts to fully complete.  Using this a person has the option of doing do one or more classes during their lunch hour.

They need to set up several categories for FR online classes and review that can be done by the pilot before going to the flight instructor.  Get with your local CFI along with the printed certificate that you complete the online portion of the FR a short 10 minute Q&A session then off to fly.

Categories would be the same as the ratings you have on your pilot cert.  SEL, MEL, IR, commercial, Rotor craft etc.

So a private pilot that only flies VFR would get a different online course than an instrument rated commercial pilot flying multi engine craft.

Have these sessions broken won into four or five 15 minute online courses that you complete within 3 months of your FR.

Conventional FRs would could still be done as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MyNameIsNobody]

Interesting how threads progress.  I hadn't expected to be getting all the CFI input and critique/input on WINGS program.  All good.

[donkaye]

2 hours ago, 1964-M20E said:

Wings program is successful in the respect that there is a record of you taking some type of course.  IMHO that is all it is good for the way it is currently structured.

Most of my 1st time Wings Program Students hadn't participated in the program before coming to me.  We easily set them up  and chose the Courses that they wanted to take.  Then even if they hadn't completed them yet, we went out and did the flight portion.  I initiated the validations so they didn't have to do it.  Then all they had to do was finish the Courses at their leisure and their Phase was completed.

That you haven't completed a Phase, yet, after having taken multiple courses indicates a need to make some changes to your instruction and find a flight instructor interested enough in excellence and his students to have familiarized himself/herself in the program to both understand and promote its value.

[cnoe]

Most of my 1st time Wings Program Students hadn't participated in the program before coming to me.  We easily set them up  and chose the Courses that they wanted to take.  Then even if they hadn't completed them yet, we went out and did the flight portion.  I initiated the validations so they didn't have to do it.  Then all they had to do was finish the Courses at their leisure and their Phase was completed.
That you haven't completed a Phase, yet, after having taken multiple courses indicates a need to make some changes to your instruction and find a flight instructor interested enough in excellence and his students to have familiarized himself/herself in the program to both understand and promote its value.

Don, I admire and respect what you're doing with regards to the Wings program. And getting new student pilots involved with these online courses is great.

OTOH, I don't understand any great benefit for an active pilot (flying 3-4 hrs/wk) who's simply trying to keep current. As I understand it, in addition to the online courses I still have to hire an instructor to fly with me 3 times to complete a phase. I'm truly not trying to be argumentative but how is that simpler than hiring that instructor only once every 2 years to conduct the flight review?

I'll admit that I'm no perfect pilot and always gain something from the flight review, but IMO it's certainly more complicated to go the Wings route. Please tell me if I'm missing something.


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[donkaye]

21 minutes ago, cnoe said:

 

Don, I admire and respect what you're doing with regards to the Wings program. And getting new student pilots involved with these online courses is great.

OTOH, I don't understand any great benefit for an active pilot (flying 3-4 hrs/wk) who's simply trying to keep current. As I understand it, in addition to the online courses I still have to hire an instructor to fly with me 3 times to complete a phase. I'm truly not trying to be argumentative but how is that simpler than hiring that instructor only once every 2 years to conduct the flight review?

I'll admit that I'm no perfect pilot and always gain something from the flight review, but IMO it's certainly more complicated to go the Wings route. Please tell me if I'm missing something.


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The Wings Program concentrates on areas found to create the most accidents, so it is very valuable.  For a pilot who is reasonably current, I can complete the requirements in about an hour.  No need for 3 flights.

My last personal Phases done this past April included both Phase 10 of the Basic and Phase 7 of the Advanced, and all items were complete in 45 minutes.  Of course it was done very efficiently by the flight instructor and former DPE.   Doing the Advanced Phase for me gives me a significant discount on my Flight Instructor Insurance, as does doing the requirements for the Master CFI.

[cnoe]

It wasn't clear to me that 3 phases of flight could be signed off on one flight (assuming the pilot was proficient/adequate in the skills). That certainly would help.

Thanks for that clarification.


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[donkaye]

Let me emphasize one more time.  If you have completed a phase of the Wings Program and inadvertently violate an FAR and are called on it, you get a "Get out of Jail Free" card once every 18 months.  None of us want to have an infraction, but the free pass is nice to have in reserve.