If you want to reach Grade 5, 200 landings in the last 90 days are assumed. Who, apart from students, can spend the time to make an average of 2.2 landings a day? I think that is excessive, especially for pilots who have to work on a daily basis. A more cultish regulation should be found here.
Is this a request to change it?
But if you do pattern work each day you should be fine.
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Some grade 5 pilots don’t know how to fly. You want it? Earn it. Doing 10 T&G’s a day is nothing, you can have it done in 20 minutes. Everyone has 20 minutes of free a day. Besides grade doesn’t matter, some grade 3’s know more then some grade 4’s and 5’s
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I’m Grade 5 but if I didn’t continue landing with that amount of consistency, skill would deteriorate QUICKLY.
A couple patterns here and there in a GA aircraft is always good for the soul.
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This sums it up pretty well. Go on casual and pick an airport with tons of runways like KORD, then use a small plane like a TBM and do some dive bombing/ Hard banking and you’ll get landings in no time.
2.2 landings is less than a minute with the XCub.
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I am Grade 4 and my way to stay at grade 4 and getting to Grade 5 is to do 2 touch-and goes with ATC a day and than one normal flight. That should be possible.
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May I ask what grade are you currently?
Grade 4. I’ve done 40 T&G’s in 30 ish minutes. I know what i am talking about. I’ve seen a grade 3 know how to use unicom better then a grade 5. and same with atc on expert. Doing T&G’s every day is fairly easy. Have anymore questions pm me🙂👍
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I’ve found it way harder to get the minimum hours required to reach G5.
I’ve had the XP, landing, even the last 90 days’ required flight time on occasions but as I was doing really short (<45mins) flights it was really hard to put those minimum hours together, especially as I wasn’t doing any long hauls at that time.
Since I’ve reached G5 it wasn’t hard keeping the landings and the 90 days’ flight time up to date.
I have a full time job and 3 kids (plus the usual other half as part of the Being Married package 😂 and even a dog 😂) so, it is doable!
I’d recommend the XCub or the SR22 at KLGB! 😉
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I’ve held grade five for a few months now. It’s not too hard to do 3 minutes worth of patterns a day. Really, just one full flight and one pattern should have you set.
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I once did 82 landings in under an hour and a half.
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The difference between grade 3 and grade 5 is merely looks and skill. There’s no ‘Elite Server’ that you are missing out on. Takes me longer to post on the IFC than to do 2 landings.
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That’s not the point. To get to grade 5 and maintain the it, shows your dedication to the the Sim. I don’t believe most grade 5 pilots not know what they doing because if you are able to to see the most ghosted pilots, you will see that 5s are the least. Grade 5 is there to encourage you to fly more and with that comes experience. It’s not only about T&Gs. Personally am most comfortable with a grade 5 flying around me because I believe they know what they are doing and I have not been disappointed yet.
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Clearly you haven’t seen what i’ve seen😂 Some grade 5’s have no idea what they’re doing. Yes more grade 3’s get ghosted but that’s because there’s so much more grade 3’s then 5’s. Grade 5 does require dedication. But not much at all. Any ways, want to continue this my pm is open. What i’ve said above sticks, and many can agree with it. Grade doesn’t matter.
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I suggest doing some pattern work.
It doesn’t take that much time honestly. I was able to reach Grade 5 this morning by flying 41 patterns in the course of 50 minutes. If you do 10+ patterns a day you should have no problem maintaining/reaching it
Here are some tips that helped me become Grade 5 in 1-2 months:
- Be active, play at least 5 days a week
- Do long-hauls. I would go to sleep and then land when I wake up. (Weekends)
- Do patterns. A lot of them.
- If you’re really desperate, go to EGLL on casual and spawn in an A318. Takeoff from 27L and then bank sharply to 9L. Do this many times. I got 120 landings in 1-2 hours.
- Do group flights! They’re always fun. Fly in formation, etc.
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Without going into any specific details, I can assure you what @Alphadog4646 says is unfortunately true. I have witnessed it myself.
Grade does not necessarily reflect actual knowledge or acceptable behavior on expert or anywhere.
You’d assume G5s or anyone who is on expert would know what hold short rwyxy means as well as when and why to go around or turn different external lights on/off or how to use the unicom. Announcing take off - remaining in the pattern when you can clearly see their flight plan is actually a north departure.
Pattern leg announcements (I’ll make straight in rwyxy while they are actually on right downwind)? I could go on!
The reality is (in my opinion) that grade means nothing. No offence.
The most important thing is how you behave and operate your aircraft at all times! Regardless of your current grade.
Not everyone has a serious amount of free time and that’s totally acceptable.
What can be an excuse for non-acceptable behaviour though? Regardless of grade… 🤔
We are going a bit off topic with this but I hope you get my point.
I’d rather be a good and respectable G3 than a bad G5. Any day.
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Grade 3 gets you access to the expert server if that is what you are wanting. Grade 4 and 5 is something you work towards if you want. Yes it takes dedication to reach these levels but that is what makes higher grades special. I am only a grade 3 because I am pretty busy to maintain the flight stats.
There are a large number of threads on this topic already with almost identical responses. To prevent people from going in circles, I am going to close this since everything that can be said has been said.
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