Getting insured for ferry flight after new purchase

[jpleonard2000]

I'm in the process of forming a flying club with a few other sport pilots in Albuquerque. We're still in the early phases of planning, but we will likely be buying an aircraft in the next several months. Buying a plane that's nearby would simplify the logistics, but we are also looking at a few planes that are out of state. Buying out of state obviously would require us to ferry the plane back home. We could either hire a professional for this or have one of the members do it, provided he gets checked out by a CFI in the plane first.

Does anybody here have experience ferrying a newly purchased plane back home on their own? I'm wondering if insurance companies would insure a sport pilot for this kind of thing or if you would be flying uninsured. Do insurance companies typically require a minimum number of instruction hours before allowing a pilot to do this kind of flight?

[drseti]

I've ferried a couple of newly purchased LSAs. Even though I'm a commercial pilot, my insurance company required 5 hours of dual in make and model. For the first one I ferried (I only had 4 hours in type), I got checked out by the seller's CFI. The second one I ferried was a model in which I had over 1000 hours, so it was non-issue.

[3Dreaming]

The insurance company will establish what pilot requirements they want for the pilot to be insured in the airplane. The pilot flying the airplane home will have to meet those requirements. It would be the same for flying around your home airport. The one thing you can do if you don't have a pilot that meets the requirements is to ask for different requirements specifically for the flight home. I once picked up a Luscombe for a fellow, and the insurance company wanted me to have a checkout from the 80+ year old pilot on a short grass strip where the airplane was located. I called the insurance broker and told him that was crazy, and a little dangerous. He went back to the insurance company, and got it approved for me to fly it home without a checkout. They did require me to have 5 hours before providing any instruction in the airplane.

[drseti]

They did require me to have 5 hours before providing any instruction in the airplane.

That seems to be a pretty standard requirement, Tom. It's been imposed on me for every student-owned aircraft I've instructed in. (Fortunately, solo will suffice, so I didn't have to find someone to check me out in those planes.)

[3Dreaming]

They did require me to have 5 hours before providing any instruction in the airplane.

That seems to be a pretty standard requirement, Tom. It's been imposed on me for every student-owned aircraft I've instructed in. (Fortunately, solo will suffice, so I didn't have to find someone to check me out in those planes.)

I did have to have an instructor checkout plus 10 hours of solo time to be able to instruct in a customer's Aeroprakt. The checkout had to be with a experienced Aeropract instructor. I found the airplane flew nicely, and nothing like the instructor portrayed. I think it was another case of an instructor trying to fly a LSA like a heavier airplane.

[JimParker256]

Short version: Insurance for ferry flights generally requires some time with a CFI familiar with make and model, but it is generally easily available. The challenge can be finding the CFI that meets the insurance companay's requirements.

I've purchased three aircraft that had to be ferried to my location. The first time, I hired a CFII to fly home with me, because the airplane (a Grumman Traveler) was located inside the Washington special rules airspace, and I didn't feel comfortable negotiating that... That CFII was also a "type-club approved" instructor, and getting a thorough checkout with him earned me significantly lower insurance rates from the type-club's insurance agency. It turned out to be an excellent choice, because we wound up logging a few hours of actual IMC enroute. And while I hold a Commercial-Instrument license in helicopters (former Army pilot), my ASEL license is Commercial with NO instrument rating. Plus, he was a great guy, and we had a lot of fun on the flight.

The second time, I was purchasing a turbo-normalized, complex HP retractable gear airplane (Commander 114 HotShot), and the insurer wanted me to get "a checkout from a CFI with 20 hrs in make and model). There are only a handful of turbo-normalized Commanders out there (aftermarket STC), so I negotiated with them to allow an instructor who had 20 hours in a 114-Turbo (not turbo-normalized, but standard turbocharger) to give the checkout. As it turned out, the commercial flight schedules to South Dakota were such that it was faster for him to fly home with me than wait for the airlines, so that's what we did. Another great experience flying with a great guy.

Most recently, I purchased a RANS S-6ES that was near Salt Lake City, whereas I live in the Dallas area. My insurance company required a checkout in the airplane by a CFI with at least 20 hours in make and model before I could fly it solo. I hold Commercial ASEL, and Commercial-Instrument Rotorcraft-Helicopter certificates, with just shy of 2000 hours total time (former Army Helicopter pilot). As it turns out, the broker (Rocky Mountain Kitplanes) is a RANS dealer, and have a CFI on staff for their local flying club, which has several S-6s, S-7s, and S-20s.

Though I could have legally flown an hour with the CFI and then departed on the cross-country flight home, I elected to spend a bit more time with him. We don't have too many mountains around the part of Texas I live in, so I asked for some "refresher training" on mountain flying. This wasn't a full course, but more of a reminder of the key things you have to do to operate safely at higher DA, flying through canyons, etc. And, since I was getting close to my BFR expiration date, I also arranged to knock that out as well.

PS: The flight home was quite memorable (35-knot headwinds on average), and it seemed like every single airport on my route home had 25+ knot crosswind components - right at the airplane's limits! I was really glad I took the extra time for some additional training, which at the last minute included some crosswind landings...