Private Pilot Flight Training and Instruction
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The Student As A Problem
Of great concern to the responsible instructor is the prospective
pilot who is heavily occupied with concerns unrelated to flying.
Many students who are highly successful in a given field expect
that level of success to carry directly into flying. Such will
not be the case. It is important that the student be apprised
of this and the instructional program adapted to the conditions.
We are working toward a personality change.
The pilot, who drives to the airport after a hard day, presents
a unique flying problem. Flying requires a completely different
mind-set. The combinations of mental and physical skills of flying
are so different from most occupations that failure to make the
change over is a common cause of flight difficulties. Getting
into the air will not get you away from it all -- unless you
throw the mental switches. Few occupations require the use of
CHECKLISTS the way flying does. The forward planning for such
things as frequencies, altitudes, communications, speeds, directions,
and cockpit settings must be part of the pilot's mind set.
Not every learning experiment is going to be successful. A
student who expects immediate and continual success is being
self deceptive. It doesn't work that way. Unrealistic expectations
of progress and success may tempt a student to quit. Don't let
it happen. Embarrassment, anxiety and fear are typically experienced
in flight training. We all have instinctive fears of falling
and loud unexpected noises. Fear is an intelligent reaction to
a perceived threat--failing to acknowledge the presence of a
threat and its companion, fear, is indicative of a lack of perception
and/or intelligence. We will practice falling (stalls) and the
creation of noises to customize the student's reaction to these
instincts progressively and gently. A successful student takes
the long view, has patience, is willing to recognize and admit
mistakes, and remembers both successful and unsuccessful operations.
The more learning mistakes you make the sooner you will develop
a confidence level needed to succeed.
More often than not the student pilot with a problem has something
similar to what is medically known as agnosia. He is oblivious
to the obvious. He doesn't know what he doesn't know. Have you
failed to recognize the missed or ignored items of the preflight?
Were checks omitted during run up? Was the radio used to give
incomplete or inaccurate radio information? Was a required control
input needed to achieve coordinated flight not applied? Did flight
into airspace occur without clearance? The forgiving nature of
the aircraft, weather, Air Traffic Control, and the instructor
will only last so long and will cover only a certain number of
situations. The worst possible event is to 'get away' with a
mental omission. Next time you might not 'get away' with it.
I have had occasion to fly with pilots whose primary instructors
allowed rather than corrected fundamental safety errors. This
permissiveness is poor instruction and a disservice to the pilot
and aviation. What is worse, these pilots are the most resentful
of being shown the error of their ways.
There is an agnosia like deficiency, being oblivious to the
obvious, not knowing what you don't know, that can lead to unexpected
and undesirable instructional excitement. The agnosia look-alike
causes complacency, a factor responsible for many more accidents
than one would think. An insidious aspect of this complacency
is that it tends to affect those who have the greatest feeling
of competence and experience. The opposite of this is the kind
of student who realizes that the more you know about a given
aspect of flying, the less certain you will become of how well
you really understand what you think you know. It reminds one
of the advanced student who learned more and more about less
and less until he knew absolutely everything about nothing. The
standard check for knowledge would be the ability to explain,
in our own words, a complex operation to a child.
As our flight skills grow, they are outgrown most of all by
our perception of those skills. As flight time accumulates our
perception of skill leaves actual skill far behind. We think
we are better than we are. We may be tempted to push our safety
limits since nothing bad will happen--until it happens. How you
live within your capabilities is what determines good judgment
and longevity. Be twice as careful when you think you can fly.
Every landing is a challenge. Landings should become more accurate,
softer, and controlled. Become more aware of the options that
allow us to correct deviations safely.
As a teacher, I was not given to meaningless praise or reward.
A student wants to hear instructor feedback as to how he is doing.
It is important that false praise not be given at any point.
Such contrived praise is easily detected and felt by the student.
As a flight instructor, I judge the lesson by knowledge applied,
improvement observed, and satisfaction achieved. The achievement
of normal expectations is viewed as acceptable but not deserving
of profuse adulation. Only when my retarded students did beyond
the usual were they praised. Praise, thus achieved value by not
being a throw-away for everyone. My gifted students were always
faced with ever higher expectations. My standards were once compared
with an ever extending extension ladder. One of my many weaknesses
as a flight instructor is an unwillingness to accept from a pilot
or a student less than their highest level of performance. Close
is accepted only when accompanied by significant improvement.
It is a poor student that does not exceed his teacher.
The instructor helps you teach yourself to fly. The instructor
tries to get inside your head. He wants to recognize your fears
and concerns. The instructor is trying to use what you know and
don't know to shorten the time and lower the cost of your learning
to fly. Good instructors like to teach. They will keep you from
getting hurt you as you wander through all the mistakes that
every student pilot should make.
Once read, that every advance by mankind has been achieved by
laziness. I hate to see students preflighting inefficiently.
I believe that flying correctly is the easiest way to fly. Every
maneuver can be either easy or hard depending on how 'lazy' the
pilot has been in knowing how to make it 'easy'. I cringe when
a pilot works too hard at flying. Flying is easy only when it
is efficient and I don't mean using an autopilot.
Written by Gene Whitt
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