How many hours before you can say you're experienced?

[kevinm]

How much air-time would you say you need to have in order to say you're an "experienced" pilot?

Moreso than just knowing how to pilot the drone, it's having enough time under your belt that you've encountered enough unexpected scenarios where you can deal with something going wrong.

Perhaps put in other terms, how many hours would someone need to have before you'd be comfortable lending them your drone

 

[ChiefStealth]

I lend my drone to no one. Regardless of experience.

 

[kevinm]

@ChiefStealth touche - I'll take that off as I assume there's a decent amount of people who are the same.

 

[AlecW]

I only lend my stuff to very good friends that I know would pay for any damage with no questions asked. Obviously the neighbor can borrow a ladder or the one socket he's missing.

 

[kevinm]

My bad. Getting a bit off topic because of my wording. My main question was about the number of flight hours needed until you can say you're experienced.

 

[AJT]

How much air-time would you say you need to have in order to say you're an "experienced" pilot?

Moreso than just knowing how to pilot the drone, it's having enough time under your belt that you've encountered enough unexpected scenarios where you can deal with something going wrong.

Perhaps put in other terms, how many hours would someone need to have before you'd be comfortable lending them your drone

I would say that after 4 hours you will have a enough experience

 

[Numone]

I lend my drone to no one. Regardless of experience.

+1 And your question is somewhat difficult to answer. Just like learning to drive a car, bicycle, motorbike, learning to control a P3 depends on the abilities of the individual and thereby, the amount of time it takes to hone their piloting skill-set. So nope, there isn't a guide number of hours.

 

[RW-1]

You gain experience thru learning, so ... How many learning experiences does it take before you don't repeat one? Or need to purchase a new Quad?

 

[AlecW]

It's really to hard to answer, I've got about 4.5 hours on mine but I'd hardly can call myself experienced. I haven't crashed other than a flipped no damage landing oops. Mileage is a bit irrelevant, my first 20+ flights added up to hardly any miles. Then I discovered I can get a mile or more out and I blow those numbers away in 3 days . All that really proved is that I can push the right stick forwards, do a 180 and come back.

 

[BryanBTX]

My main question was about the number of flight hours needed until you can say you're experienced.

How high is up?

Some will say a few. Some will say you can't have enough.

 

[kevinm]

Just like learning to drive a car, bicycle, motorbike, learning to control a P3 depends on the abilities of the individual and thereby, the amount of time it takes to hone their piloting skill-set. So nope, there isn't a guide number of hours.

I see what you're saying and I agree it's a difficult question to answer. But I don't necessarily agree you can't put a number of hours someone's expected to have before you'd consider them an experienced pilot. Obviously it won't be a hard and fast rule because there are an infinite amount of variables that can't be captured within just the amount of hours you've flown. But, you can create a decent baseline from it.

If you have 50 hours driving a car that's good enough (at least in my home state) to qualify you to take the driver's license test before you're 18. If you're an airplane pilot, the number of flight hours they have under their belt is very indicative of their experience level.

If someone approached me and showed me that they have 100 hours on their DJI GO account, I'd tend to believe that they're a pretty experienced pilot.

 

[AlecW]

I agree about 50 hours, that what I'm shooting for before summer and I start taking it to some harder to fly areas in the mountains. Thing is, I know myself and I will take some risks for a good shot, but I'm fully prepared to pay for those risks on my bird.

Think of this another way. How much time would you want flying before you flew someone else's drone. I'm a pretty skilled jeeper and I've driven other peoples jeeps out of really bad spots when they got in over their heads. I hate doing that and I also don't really like spotting much either.

 

[BigAl07]

At 100 hours I'd think you've seen some circumstances/instances that you have to use experience and knowledge to get out of. At 10 hours I'd say you're still flying by the seat of your pants and have a ways to go.

It also depends are they "flying around" or hovering around the yard during the latter part of their "experience". Some people pick it up right away while others still get confused after dozens of hours of "stick time".

 

[Numone]

You gain experience thru learning, so ... How many learning experiences does it take before you don't repeat one? Or need to purchase a new Quad?

Learning experiences? I passed my driving test after only having 4 driving lessons. My wife had 15 and had one failed test. Our son, 9 lessons and daughter 8. My friend took 40 lessons and failed 6 tests.

 

[AlecW]

My friend took 40 lessons and failed 6 tests.

LOL, I would not lend that friend near your drone or let him anywhere near the drivers side of your car

My mother way back in the day hit a police car on one of her tests. No clue how I survived as a kid!

 

[kevinm]

At 100 hours I'd think you've seen some circumstances/instances that you have to use experience and knowledge to get out of. At 10 hours I'd say you're still flying by the seat of your pants and have a ways to go.

It also depends are they "flying around" or hovering around the yard during the latter part of their "experience". Some people pick it up right away while others still get confused after dozens of hours of "stick time".

Absolutely. There are so many variables that are in play that pure "stick time" can't capture.

I've also wondered about fidelity of the data coming from manually logged hours. It's easy for even well-intentioned pilots to diligently keep a logbook whose total flight time is completely overestimated.

 

[Numone]

LOL, I would not lend that friend near your drone or let him anywhere near the drivers side of your car

My mother way back in the day hit a police car on one of her tests. No clue how I survived as a kid!

LOL! He's now a fully qualified twin engined private pilot....

 

[alokbhargava]

Experienced means you have gone through almost all sorts of scenarios multiple times and you are in a position to guide others resolving flight issues. A good litmus test would be to fly in windy conditions in ATTI mode making multiple "8" figures up in the sky.

 

[kevinm]

LOL! He's now a fully qualified twin engined private pilot....

Oh man, that's scary....lol

 

[jwmcgrath]

The more you look, the more manuals you come across...

So I'm going to consider myself "experienced" when I can do two figure 8's... one with the nose pointed in at the center, one with the nose facing direction of travel, at full throttle.

In both directions.

I just decided that right now.


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