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Thread: Passing the written pilot test

  1. #11
    DEN 190853Z 15009KT 10SM CLR 12/M03 A3018 RMK AO2 SLP153 T01221028 58008 $
    APA 190853Z 18005KT 10SM CLR 14/02 A3021 RMK AO2 SLP170 T01390017 56007
    BKF 190855Z 14008KT 25SM FEW100 14/00 A3020 RMK SLP156 57008
    EIK 190855Z AUTO 00000KT 10SM CLR 10/04 A3019 RMK AO2 T01000041
    FTG 190857Z AUTO 15010KT 10SM CLR 16/00 A3020 RMK AO2
    Last edited by spydergun45; 08-19-2012 at 03:07 AM.

  2. #12

    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Posts
    1
    Building a Cannon to Kill a Mosquito


    Who isn’t impressed watching a medical drama on TV when the doctors are rifling off acronyms and abbreviations to each other? It just sounds cool and important … and I’ll bet the doctors agree! Pilots are no different: ATIS, E6B, Roger, Niner, “No Joy on the Traffic” is always a fun one. And listen to clearances at some of the busier airports when dealing with the airline pilots; not only are they filled with acronyms and abbreviations, but they’re read back faster than an SR-71! Why is this?

    Simple – we all love to feel and sound important, sophisticated and smart.

    Where this becomes a problem is in the training environment where many well-educated and intelligent CFIs are already trying to be airline pilots, and sounding more impressive to themselves trumps providing the simple and easy-to-follow answer to their budding-pilot student. We see this from initial contact all the way through the training. Having shopped for flight training before, I’m often amazed at the responses I received when inquiring about someone’s flight program.

    Example: We can provide either CFR Part 141 or CFR Part 61 flight training. 141 requires a minimum of 35 hours of flight time, only 5 of which have to be solo, 20 are dual and 10 can be either. We see a school average of 52.3 hours for completion. A part 61 program is slightly different, with the regulations requiring 40 hours of total time of which 10 have to be solo and 5 solo-x-c. Those national averages can be as high as 70-90 hour of total training. 141 also requires a minimum of 35 hours of ground instruction where 61 does not, but we still will have to provide some training to enable you to pass the written exam … and we haven’t even gotten cost yet!

    Now, none of this information was wrong – it all sounded good – but was any of it fun or educational … or did it matter? The person on the other end of the phone wants to learn to fly because it sounds fun, but at initial contact, we have them doing math and computing percentages and multiplying! The average person never asks a mechanic what types of tools or checklists they’re going to use to fix their car nor do they interrogate their surgeon on the same matters; the customer or patient’s assumption is that the expert will do what is necessary to get the job done. For the average person shopping for flight training, the same is true … that is, until they’re deprogrammed by flight schools into thinking the above cited information is more paramount. The most important information was never even touched upon like, “tell me why you want to learn to fly” or “great, when did you want to get started?” Aren’t these pieces far more important for the customer’s dreams of flight than the regulations involved in the checking of boxes or keeping training statistics for the AOPA?

    The “look how smart I am” display continues throughout the training. I walked by a classroom once where a day 1, lesson 1 private pilot student – a retired 5th grade teacher who wants to fly so she can see her grand children in Ohio – was scratching her head while the CFI was talking about Bernoulli. A day 1 student! Is this really what we want to cover first?

    Is flight training trying to use a cannon to kill a mosquito? Or, better yet, are we teaching someone how to build a watch when they ask us for the time? Are we so proud of the knowledge we worked so hard for on the CFI checkride that we want to use all of it on each student?

    Recently as I was browsing some of the aviation forums, I came across a student who was struggling while trying to pass the written exam – a PERFECT example of forcing too much of the technical and not enough of the fun factor – and had asked for assistance. The first reply, and I won’t include all of it, included several passages like this:

    The pressure and the temperature are related by the equation P=NRT/V, where P is the pressure of a gas, V is the volume of the gas and essentially a constant, N is the quantity of the gas and R is a constant, and T is the absolute temperature. This can be approximated as P=kT where k is a constant, because in the atmosphere, the quantity and volume don’t change.

    Poor guy! Will this information help the student either on the written or in the aircraft? No! Does the CFI who posted this answer likely feel like an astronaut? You betcha. I was watching a veteran CFI provide some basic instruction to his 5-hour student in a simulator on landings. I observed, with great sympathy, while this instructor barked phrases like “Stabilize your approach, John, or this is never going to work” and “Back Pressure, Back Pressure, Back Pressure!”

    In both of these cases, the student likely left the encounter thinking that they weren’t good enough or smart enough to be a pilot because they just didn’t understand what their teacher was saying. And, in both cases, the instructors were both individuals who likely had a lot of knowledge and even flying time; but were they good teachers? Could they convey knowledge?

    Here’s a question along the same lines: should you pre-flight the airplane with a student you’re taking on a first time intro flight? I’m not asking if you should pre-flight the airplane – that’s a given – I’m asking if it should be done in the presence of a first time pilot. Does someone taking to the air for the first time need to know that you need to check for four bolts and a piano hinge in a few places on the aileron to make sure it doesn’t fall off mid-flight? Do they need to see you verify that there is no water in the fuel? Ask yourself if the student needs that education or if you feel it’s important that he knows how serious aviation is.

    The Fundamentals of Instruction – the basis for teaching in aviation – talks about establishing common ground and going from the known to the unknown. So why do we have to refer to fuselages, yokes, horizontal and vertical stabilizers when flying with initial students? Why can’t we talk to our students about the body or passenger compartment, the steering wheel and the tail? Simple – it’s because we feel and sound important, sophisticated and smart.

    While lead instructor and founder of Pilot Training Solutions Written Test Preparation software can certainly walk the walk and talk to talk with the most cerebral of pilots and CFIs, he chooses not to. Instead, he chooses to teach his students. Lucas Noia is of the opinion that impressing PTS’s students with their own test results far outweighs impressing them with his intellect in the preparation process, instead choosing to impart tricks and techniques designed to 1) make it simple and 2) get the semantics of the written out of the way to pave the path for the real flying education. They’ll be plenty of opportunity for student’s to be wowed by aviation throughout their flying journey, but it should not occur during their initial education; this is the time to simplify and contribute to their success.

    For an example of our teaching methods take a look at our free demos here at:
    http://passfaaexams.com/free-demo-downloads/

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