Welcome Guest. Sign in or Signup

4 Answers

Instrument Rating with Safety Pilot

Asked by: 3390 views
Instrument Rating

I am working on getting my instrument rating in a C172 & would like to use a safety pilot for 25 of the required 40 hours.  Is there a syllabus recommendation for the 25 hour safety pilot portion?

Ace Any FAA Written Test!
Actual FAA Questions / Free Lifetime Updates
The best explanations in the business
Fast, efficient study.
Pass Your Checkride With Confidence!
FAA Practical Test prep that reflects actual checkrides.
Any checkride: Airplane, Helicopter, Glider, etc.
Written and maintained by actual pilot examiners and master CFIs.
The World's Most Trusted eLogbook
Be Organized, Current, Professional, and Safe.
Highly customizable - for student pilots through pros.
Free Transition Service for users of other eLogs.
Our sincere thanks to pilots such as yourself who support AskACFI while helping themselves by using the awesome PC, Mac, iPhone/iPad, and Android aviation apps of our sponsors.

4 Answers



  1. Wes Beard on Apr 23, 2013

    No syllabus. Doing it this way may require more time than the minimum 15 hours with a CFII. My advice is to get 30+ hours with a CFII. It is valuable time.

    +1 Votes Thumb up 1 Votes Thumb down 0 Votes



  2. Mark Kolber on Apr 23, 2013

    I like to think of flying with a safety pilot during instrument training as the instrument student’s equivalent of a student pilot soloing.

    And, like student solos, it’s best something coordinated with the instructor to practice what was taught and to avoid practicing and ingraining mistakes. The best student pilot solos are those where the CFI assigns the solo “homework.” The same is true for instrument students and safety pilots.

    Discussions of instrument training suggest Wes is correct. Most instrument students require more than the 15 minimum hours of instruction. That may or may not apply to you, but if you sit down with your CFII and work out safety pilot “homework,” you’ll find out soon enough whether it enhances your training or not.

    +2 Votes Thumb up 2 Votes Thumb down 0 Votes



  3. Ray Svobodny on Apr 26, 2013

    Wes & Mark, thank you for your CFII advice, I appreciate it.

    0 Votes Thumb up 0 Votes Thumb down 0 Votes



  4. Juan Carl's Gellert on Jun 10, 2013

    I suggest you fly with your CFII as much as you can afford. It’s money well invested. Remember that your Instruments Rating is for our own safety and the ones with you on the aircraft. I did my check ride 10 days ago and I logged only one hour with safety pilot, the rest always with an instructor, I had four of them and I learned good things from all of them. Now that I know, I would not have done it different. This was my personal experience anyway.

    0 Votes Thumb up 0 Votes Thumb down 0 Votes


The following terms have been auto-detected the question above and any answers or discussion provided. Click on a term to see its definition from the Dauntless Aviation JargonBuster Glossary.

Answer Question

Our sincere thanks to all who contribute constructively to this forum in answering flight training questions. If you are a flight instructor or represent a flight school / FBO offering flight instruction, you are welcome to include links to your site and related contact information as it pertains to offering local flight instruction in a specific geographic area. Additionally, direct links to FAA and related official government sources of information are welcome. However we thank you for your understanding that links to other sites or text that may be construed as explicit or implicit advertising of other business, sites, or goods/services are not permitted even if such links nominally are relevant to the question asked.