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Thread: Student's First Lesson

  1. #21

    Join Date
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    Back when I was instructing....

    Intro flights: I did the weather check & I did the preflight before they got there. I did walk around and point out the main parts of the aircraft. I ran the checklists and did what I could to get them into the air as quickly and as stress-free as possible. After takeoff they flew it all until short final. No steep banks, no rapid maneuvering, and NO TURBULENCE. If it was bumpy I cancelled. One lousy flight can ruin a prospective student.

    After that: all instructional flights were basically as described earlier - weather briefing and preflight by student. I made them carry around the preflight checklist until they could demonstrate they had it memorized. Lights were checked only if flying at night. The very act of checking them shortens bulb life, and is no guarantee they won't fail the next time you turn them on. Same for pitot heat.

  2. #22

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    Here's what I wrote on the subject on the old forums back before my checkride:

    (The italicized quote format is tiresome, so I removed the quote tags)

    As a soon to be ex-student, I thought I might share some observations on what makes a CFI a teacher rather than an instructor.

    My current instructor is actually my second; I switched from my first after two hours. The biggest reason I dumped the first one was purely physical - I didn't want to train for one license (Sport Pilot) in an aircraft designed for another (172, and therefore Private). But a large part was the sense that he was teaching me to fly a plane in a purely mechanical way, with little context of the why. Do X, get Y. He also was very quiet with little by way of feedback, trying for aloof but coming off as bored. I got the impression he might be logging time as a CFI on the way to other career goals, and it didn't really matter who was in the left seat for this hour. He also sniffed at the notion of Sport Pilots.

    In other words, a perfect case of instructor/student mismatch on a whole lot of levels. He's competent and I don't want to sell him too short in one paragraph, especially since I only had two lessons with him; but at around 200 bucks an hour I don't have the fiscal patience to build up report.

    My current instructor, however, really impressed me from the get-go. He asked why Sport Pilot rather than Private, but in a way that came off as wanting to make sure that it fit my flying desires. The answer is simple - I have no desire to fly when I can't see out of the aircraft (night, bad weather, mist, etc) and so learning a bunch of skills that would simply evaporate over time due to disuse seemed wasteful. Likewise, I'm building my own plane which will fall under LSA qualifications, so it's a fit.

    He took that at face value and then asked a few general medical questions - just small talk around the edge sort of stuff that eventually lead to "do you have any reason to believe you would fail a flight physical?" It sounded pretty weird, but he later explained that some people think of Sport Pilot as a doctor dodge, and if you're not well enough to fly a 172 you shouldn't be flying a CTLS (I agree). I didn't get the physical, though. Not because I'm afraid of it, but because it's one less thing I can fail to go get at the appropriate time (I'm infamous for failing to get my car tags and driver's license renewed on time).

    And then he laid out the syllabus, including a rough timeline by hours with a lot of caveats ("if you have trouble with something, we'll spend more time on it until you can do it safely," and "it also depends on how often you can fly."). While my first instructor was more than willing for me to just show up, fly my hour with him, pay, and be on my way, my second asked if I had ground school study materials ("No." "Order some tonight - I have some recommendations.").

    Oh oh. This guy's serious about this, and expects me to be, too!

    Plus he had an LSA available to train in, so I'm using the right gear for the right task.

    During my first pre-flight with him I got corrected quickly for grabbing the checklist and starting right in on it. "Whoa, what are you doing? Before you get six inches to the airplane, come back here about ten feet and just look at it. Does it look right? See any bird crap on it, which means maybe one got in the hangar and is trying to start up a nest somewhere, or dirt daubers flying around? Are there oil stains or gas slicks under it? Is it sitting level? The check list is a guide, but it's not an inspection."

    My whole experience with him has been like that - one doesn't enter into the pattern at a 45 at the correct altitude because that's the book answer, one does it because that's where other pilots will be looking for you. Don't rely on the radio - look, look, LOOK around; not everybody has a radio (we fly in uncontrolled airspace) and pilots are people (this demonstrated itself to me quite literally when on my second hour of solo a fellow was one airport over from where he thought he was and went right pattern on a left pattern strip, without a radio and matching me on the downwind on the other side! I went long to base and let him have it.). Follow the rules not because they're the rules, but because almost everyone else does and that makes things safer....and most of the rules actually are there for very good reasons. But always watch because it's only almost everyone else.

    So I've been getting PILOT training - how to think as part of the whole of aviation rather than simply flight training operating as one guy in a finite universe the size of the aircraft.

    The funny thing is that the why and the context really help out on the mechanical operations. Why the pattern? Because it's consistent, and if you fly consistently you'll get fairly consistent results. Why was I all screwy after my turn to final? Because I cut my turn in to base too soon; and I cut it too soon because I was too high on the pass of the numbers and fell into the trap of using a landmark instead of paying attention to the aircraft and adjusting for it ("Learn landmarks and you'll land here; learn distances, altitudes and airspeeds and you'll be able to land anywhere.").

    I'm pretty typical for a Sport Pilot student - 45, bald, and motivated. I'm used to learning things within broader context, and really do need to know the why of things; not to challenge them, but to understand how it fits into the larger scheme. I actually do the homework assigned, and don't mind the pop quiz to find out what I don't know, so give them both to me. I can take it when I'm not making the grade and need more training on something (I think I'm gonna get a bumper sticker that reads ASK ME ABOUT CROSSWINDS), and I appreciate an acknowledgement when I get stuff right.

    And I don't need a friend. I don't need a driving instructor. I need a teacher and mentor. Lucky for me, I got one.

    (End quotation!)

    Now Jim helped me through to my checkride with 26 hours in my log book, and now I'm torturing him with tailwheel training (Ask me what "frangible" means and how it relates to landing lights), thanks in large measure to the professional manner of that first lesson with him.

    He was just as interested in teaching me to be a pilot as I was in becoming one, and it really came through.
    Last edited by Frank Giger; 08-22-2011 at 12:40 AM.

  3. #23
    "What do other students or CFI s think a first lesson should be?" I think Bob Miller's Flight Training does it right. Check out "Over the Airwaves". You can't learn if you are not interested. A teacher teaches what he is paid to teach. An instructor teaches what the student wants to learn. We are flight instructors and the student wants to fly, not inspect the airplane. Inspection is primarily a maintenance function and secondarily a pilot function as necessary for safety of flight. On the first flight the CFI is responsable for safety of flight. He should be instructing the student on the principles and proceedures for flight. He should mention that the pilot is the final authority to determine the the aircraft is airworthy and that he has accomplished that task. He may then ask if the student would like more details as to how that is accomplished or if he is ready to go for a flight.

  4. #24
    Barnstorm's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bill Greenwood View Post
    But really THE BIG RISK of a first flight, Discovery or lesson is that the student is bored and won't come back or tell his friends how much fun and how easy it is.
    A lot of flight school have closed over the years, a lot of CFIs out of a job or at best a subsistence living. Used to be most every airport and most FBOs had a flight school. Not anymore. Why did they fail? Sure wasn't because a nav light was not given enough attention on a CAVU day. The real risk is the CFI and school going out of business because their marketing and people skills are bad. Of course the economy and cost of flying are part of it , maybe the biggest part. ....I think I have read 40% of students drop out, is that about the facts?
    Bill THANK YOU!

    This is a GREAT topic!

    My wife was interested in flying and NEARLY GOT TALKED OUT OF BEING A PILOT BY THE WAY SHE WAS TREATED SHOPPING FOR LESSONS!

    Points:

    1. Drop out rate. 40%? No try over 70% according to figures quoted at AirVenture. The SAFE "fix the industry and training" committees think the fatality/accident rate is causing the problem. NOPE. The people that sign up and drop out already know that issue. The issue is POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE BY CFI's and training centers!

    2. Cart before the horse. How many people teach children to change the oil and plugs before a RIDE in a car? How many people have gone to buy a new or used car and had the sales person start out by showing you how to check the oil level and tire pressure? Sure they will LET you if you are interested but 99.9% you take the thing for a couple of spins around the block first.

    3. Good Instructor / Bad Instructor. I do advanced technical training (non aero) for a living. After EACH class the students evaluate me on my performance. If my performance falls below acceptable levels I AM OUT OF A JOB. Where do CFI's get honest anonymous feedback on their performance from the flight training students?? If students drop out on a CFI or business falls off, from what I have seen they just blame it on something else.

    4. The Learning Instructor. How do instructors know what they are doing right and wrong? Why did the student's that did not complete training REALLY drop out? Unless there are anonymous exit interviews there is no way for instructors to get important feedback on their own training styles and techniques and therefore no way to improve or correct weaknesses from the customers point of view.

    .
    Last edited by Barnstorm; 11-10-2011 at 02:21 PM.
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