Busy Airport or Quiet Non-Towered Airport - Which is best for learning?

[bobmrg]

No question in my mind that at the initial stages, a quiet non-towered airport is the best place to learn. A busy, tower-controlled airport provides too many distractions and too much interference with the teaching process at that point. Once the trainee gets those fundamentals down, you can introduced additional problems with which to deal.

The Puget Sound area is blessed with a number of uncontrolled airports and not-too-busy controlled airports. When I trained pilots out of Boeing Field, do you think we stayed in the pattern and did T&Gs? Plenty of alternatives, and the training value of getting into and out of a Class D beneath a Class B was still there coming and going.

Bob Gardner

 

[poadeleted20]

How about an empty towered airport?

No big deal. The problem is when you're having to spend so much time dealing with tower and there's so much chatter you can't talk to your trainee.