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Thread: Student's First Lesson

  1. #11
    Joe Delene's Avatar
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    I moved my 15 y/o Son to the left seat of the Warrior. My CFII has been expired for a while, but I thought he could get a little headstart. His take-offs are fine, still working up to landings. Most of his flying is at altitude, maneuvers & the straight & level stuff. We usually go over an item or 2 on each event/flight. I was surprised with his 'pushback' with my instructing him to taxi on centerline. Of course it takes a bit to get the feel for steering & all. Besides the safety & clearance aspect of centerline taxi I think it shows you have your head in the game. Am I asking to much? We've only had a handful of flights with him left seat though, just setting the bar.

  2. #12

    First flying lesson

    My first lesson was similar to the "Good Guy" CFI's description. I meet my first CFI at a company golf league--he was nervous because I'm real clutzy at athletic things. We were both engineers at an electronics company. He spent 20--30 min teaching me how to preflight and I kindof expected that. He did the initial taxi and takeoff and handed me the airplane at a safe altitude. I put my left hand on the yoke and my right hand on the throttle--he said "Oh, you have been in a small plane before" and sort of moved on to lesson two since he saw that I know what each control did.

    I have a lot of friends and college classmates who fly and I have been an aeromodeler. I am also a ham radio operator so I didn't have any problem with the radios. But the basic thing is that I was already a technical hobbiest and therefore "Had a clue..."

  3. #13
    escapepilot's Avatar
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    I have to agree w/ Bill. A potential student's first experience should be one that leave him/her wanting to come back. In fact, the whole learning to fly experience should leave a student/pilot wanting to continue to fly. While it is important to teach students to be safe, it is also important to demonstrate that flying is enjoyable.

  4. #14

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    Hmmm. Somewhere, something I wrote got missed.

    First and foremost, if we're going to teach people to fly, we really do need to instill good habits from the start. Some, including the FAA, call this "primacy". Others call it "first learned is best learned". If you've ever had to "untrain" a bad habit, you know how powerful this can be. That's why I do what I do from the start.

    However, this is what I think got missed: it's all in the "sale" by the CFI. Done properly, this can be part of the engagement that draws the new student in and makes them feel part of the process. Giving them ownership of the process is one of the most powerful motivators I know. This is not to say that a preflight should take 90 minutes - that's crazy, as I said before. But taking 15 minutes to do it and explain it is not onerous at all.

    To expand, being a CFI is far less about the mechanics of flying than it is about interpersonal dynamics. You can be the greatest stick and rudder pilot on the planet and not be a good CFI if you can't pass the lessons on. Taking each element and breaking it down into simple, logical components is crucial, along with finding ways of keeping the student engaged and interested. My CFI candidates are always encouraged to keep me interested, and to show their enjoyment in flying as they "teach" me to fly. In fact, my CFI students know when they've gone into "Ben Stein mode" I just flat out lose interest in what they're saying.

    BTW, Bill, I know the DA40 well. Yep, that checklist lists the pitot heat several times. However, what an opportunity to teach a student about certification and approved checklists (not at the runway, but in the classroom, before or after the flight). Right or wrong, Diamond thinks that having the pitot heat on prior to takeoff is important. That does not obviate, one bit, the need for flying the aircraft properly, including ensuring that you're on centerline, crosswind correction, and all the other fundamentals.

    Also, I see your complaint as yet another opportunity to teach: explaining why it's important to dig into the performance section of the manual before going out to fly a new make and model.
    Last edited by Bob Meder; 08-15-2011 at 11:18 AM. Reason: CRLF's, CRLF's, CRLF's...
    Anxiety is nature's way of telling you that you've already goofed up.

  5. #15

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    Bob, I have a feeling that your lessons for any student are enjoyable and informative.

    However, let me state again that there are 3 main things that can happen when a student (prospective customer about to spend $8000 or so) comes for his intro flight or first lesson.
    And two of these things are bad. I didn't make that up, I got it from 2 time nat champion football coach Darrel Royal when the media used to ask him why they didn't modernize the offense and pass more. I E, when you pass 3 things can happen and two of them are bad.

    Ok, the student might crash, but not very likely, even the lowest CFI can usually make it around the pattern.

    The student may get bored or find the CFI stuck up or just not able to connect with the student, or find that the whole learning to fly thing seems to center on minutia and is not really much fun. AND THE STUDENT MAY NOT COME BACK. He can take that 8Gs over to the motorcycle store and find a lot of fun really quickly. ( My Son was an ace motorcycle road racer). And you can bet that the salesman at the cycle shop is not going to bore the heck out of the guy with some nonsense just because some lawyer wanted to CYA in case the guy rode it into bad weather and crashed.

    Of course the student may have a good flight and love it and come back. Am I correct that 42% of students drop out and don't finish? And if they don't get the private, then they aren't going to bring their checkbook or credit card back for any advanced lessons or airplane purchase or service.

    How many FBOs and flight schools have closed over the last 30 years? How many CFI s are not working or not making a good living? But hey on the day that the flight schools closed, I'll be that the nav lights and pitot heat were working fine.

    As for "dig into the performance section of the manual"; why not have a manual that is written with common sense, and the important speeds are primarily and prominentaly displayed, not hidden in fine print after the big emphasis on num numb stuff like pitot heat. If not, the CFI should cover the checklist, but he should interpret it for the student and emphasize what is important,and it ain't pitot heat on a cavu vmc day.

    I was at the airport yesterday and heard a CFI talking to a new prospect after an intro flight. There was virtually no encouragement, nothing that made flying seem fun. The CFI is one of the ones that just came over from the big airport nearby, where the flight school just went out of business. He told the prospective student that when it came time to do his first landing they would fly down to the big airport, Metro BJC, where the runway was 9000 by 100 because it was a little tight here at Boulder. Our runway is 4100, with clear approaches, and even used by a few jets. They were flying a Piper Archer, which should need about half the runway. I am not sure what the young man thought, but he was not smiling when he left the FBO and did not look like he was having a lot of fun. Nobody asked my opinion and it was not up to me to interfere, but if so I would have sure told him to get another CFI who had a little more spark.

  6. #16

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    Bill, I think we're violently agreeing here. The salient points are these:

    1) Flying needs to be taught properly from the start
    2) A good CFI needs to make the whole process meaningful and enjoyable
    3) Too many CFI's don't do 1 or 2 or both. Too many new CFI's think that it's all about learning to fly from the right seat while talking. That's not it at all - it's about relating to the person in the other seat.

    Really, it's a combination of marketing and teaching, which too many CFI's don't learn. I'm just one person, but it's something that I want to affect in this industry.

    I can't really argue the merits of the Diamond (or any other) AFM. It is what it is (although there are some LSA handbooks that are, um, interesting, IMHO). My point about the digging into the manual for the check out was really geared towards transition training, not initial*. For the first flight, I'd tell someone, "we'll discover that down the road as we dig into the importance of limitations and such. For now, we have to honor what it says here" or some such.

    Edit: Thank you for the compliment. I don't handle those well, so I blew by it, which is rather ungracious of me.

    =======
    *My comeuppance came during the oral portion of my commercial ride a long time ago. We were using a 172RG. The conditions given to me by the DPE (a very good one that is very senior in an airline) were "Soft field and max gross. Describe how you'd take off."

    Me: "Well, I'd add 10 degrees of flaps, pull back the yoke to the stop, make sure the nose gear doesn't touch, etc..."
    DPE: "Really...?"
    Me: [alarm bells] "Um, lemme check on something..." [flip, flap, paw through AFM]
    Me: "Oh - Um, there's a restriction under section two about no flaps with a gross weight over xxxx pounds, so I'd do everything the same except the flaps." (I don't remember what the weight is and I don't have the book in front of me right now)
    DPE: "Very good"
    Me: "That was my one gimme, wasn't it?"
    DPE: "Yep. Of course, I know in a marginal operation like that you'd double the check the manual before attempting it, so we can move on."
    Me: [stylus makes deep grove in cerebellum]
    Anxiety is nature's way of telling you that you've already goofed up.

  7. #17

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    Bob, there is a story on WIX this am about a T-6 crash in Georgia; pilot not hurt fortunately, plane severely damaged, engine broken from the mounts.
    Story says he was ferrying from the midwest redo shop where it was just bought, to Florida and ran out of fuel "30 seconds" from the next airport.

    I don't know any more of the story or what the pilot was thinking when he flew across several states and past dozens of airports and fuel stops, or what he normally flies.
    However I do know that he probably didn't have any trouble with nav lights or pitot heat, at least that is not mentioned in the story.
    And he may have even known the gotcha question about taking off with full load on a soft strip in a 172. But that was of little help to him. Frankly I wouldn't want to take off with a full load in a 172 anywhere if I didn't have to, but I live and fly above 500 feet where they climb about like a submarine.
    Maybe he normally flies some airline or biz jet or there is some reason I don't know.

    But, to me, having flown some planes with less endurance than a T-6, and being old fashioned and not as up to date as the lawyer/clerk that wrote the manual for the D40; I really believe in my naive stubborn way, that knowing fuel consumption and distance and endurance figures for the plane you are flying is more vital. And not just knowing them, but being aware and planing for them.

  8. #18
    Paul8661's Avatar
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    Bill,

    I agree with you. The short point here is that flying is lots of fun. A student's first experience should highlight the fun, once he/she is "hooked" then the hard work that supports the fun should begin. Nobody has ever been runined by a discovery flight or taking the controls under a CFI's supervision without ground school preparation or a course on aerodynamics. When my son took his first lesson the CFI had him assist with the pre-flight inspection then they took to the sky, hit the practice area and my son took the controls. When they returned a future pilot was born.

  9. #19

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    Paul, sounds good to me.
    I think Bob's idea of starting with a weather brief and a preflight is good. It gets it in the mind of the student that there are a couple of things that need to be considered before getting in the plane, it;s not like a car.
    However, you could easily spend 2 hours on just weather and getting weather and resulting decisions. So the CFI needs to speed up that process for the first few lessons. When the student is about to go on his cross country then may be the time to really get deeper into weather.
    As for preflight, seems to me it should take about 10 or 15 for a normal walk around. It does not need to be a lecture on what an ELT is or what the different antennas are. When you are doing a night flight or a IMC flight then there needs to me more detail and emphasis on preflight and nav lights and pitot heat, etc.

  10. #20

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    Bill - thanks for the compliment. Please understand, I am not talking about a full ground school lesson on these topics before the first flight. Rather, it's to show the newbie that it's not like jumping into a car, as you said. It's also to pull them into the process and make them feel like pilots ("What do you think? Should we go?). My little procedure adds about 20 minutes to the whole process.By getting pilots into the habit of preflight actions early, I really am trying to preclude people from running out of gas "30 seconds from the airport..."
    Anxiety is nature's way of telling you that you've already goofed up.

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