checkride and hearing attention

pilotod

pilotod

Pre-takeoff checklist
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Sometimes my hearing attention isn't always 100%. I'm concentrating on something and my CFI might tell me an altitude or heading but I have not always heard it. I wonder if I can ask the DE before we takeoff if he will repeat it if I seemed to have not reacted. My hearing is fine but I have to say it's like my spouse talking and I didn't hear a thing. Shame on me but I don't want to miss the message in the plane.
 
Just set the intercom level a bit higher than normal.
 
I wouldn't say anything ahead of time. That might give him something to worry about. If he asks you to do something then repeat it to him and make sure you understand what he wants you to do.

I'm the same way and it's not a bad thing. But you'll need to train yourself on what to focus on. One day that DPE will be ATC and you'll need to hear them. One day it'll be a chatty passenger and you'll need to ignore them.
 
Do you "read back" instructions?
I've found that repeating the instructions helps me to actually remember what had been said, and let the "other guy" (CFI/ATC/DPE) know I got it.

On my Instrument rating I just wrote down everything. That helps too.

Its a good skill to have, think traffic alerts, or cleared to land in the wrong runway.
 
This might be a good time for one of the famous one-liners from my first CFI.

"Pay attention. There's going to be a test."

;)
 
denverpilot said:
This might be a good time for one of the famous one-liners from my first CFI.

"Pay attention. There's going to be a test."

;)
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lol, this is good advice.

I would be hesitant to say anything to the examiner for fear of him/her thinking, "What if ATC called... would this person 'not hear' them either?"
 
Tracey said:
lol, this is good advice.

I would be hesitant to say anything to the examiner for fear of him/her thinking, "What if ATC called... would this person 'not hear' them either?"
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I'm not an examiner nor ATC and I had this thought run though my head...not sure if I want to share the skys with him. :eek:
 
Tracey said:
lol, this is good advice.

I would be hesitant to say anything to the examiner for fear of him/her thinking, "What if ATC called... would this person 'not hear' them either?"
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My thought, too. I would suggest not calling attention to this issue. If you have to turn up your headset volume, do so, but if this really is a problem, in brings into question your ability to fly safely. If the examiner isn't sure you heard him/her, s/he will repeat it without you giving that speech before flight. If it happens too often, you're not going to pass whether you gave that speech or not.
 
Sounds like your "Fixating." Whether or not it becomes an issue for your check-ride, it is definately something you need to work on.

The image that comes to mind is your head is buried in the cockpit... Not good

My 2 cts... by the way this comes from a guy who has "senior moments," regularly :D
 
pilotod said:
Sometimes my hearing attention isn't always 100%. I'm concentrating on something and my CFI might tell me an altitude or heading but I have not always heard it. I wonder if I can ask the DE before we takeoff if he will repeat it if I seemed to have not reacted. My hearing is fine but I have to say it's like my spouse talking and I didn't hear a thing. Shame on me but I don't want to miss the message in the plane.
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What you're describing should fail/disqualify you from being PIC.
 
There is nothing that happens in a cockpit (even an airliner) that I couldn't teach an eighth grader. Any specific action or concept could be understood and performed by any average eighth grader.

But what makes a pilot a skilled aviator is the ability to prioritize ALL the required actions. Flying along and you hear ATC call while you're tuning a VOR, you stop tuning and answer. But while talking to ATC you notice the oil pressure drop to zero you say "stand by" and deal with your new priority. While dealing with the low oil the engine bursts into flames and all of a sudden the oil pressure isn't so important. While shutting down the engine you notice another plane on a head on collision and the engine is no longer important and you take evasive action. While dodging the head on collision you see your going to hit the ground and now there is only one important thing and that's not hitting the ground.

The point is priorities change based on the situation. If you're busy and the examiner says something maybe you should reprioritize and listen to the examiner. ATC, the oil pressure, the engine fire, and the other plane will still be there after you avoid hitting the ground...if you catch my drift.

Btw, THAT's what can't be taught to an eights grader and that's what makes a pilot a true professional.
 
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If you don't "hear" your instructor (or "hear" the examiner - on an occasion as special as your checkride), do you really think you'll be able to "hear" ATC or other pilots radioing on the CTAF - especially when you may be in conversation with your pax? Honestly?
If not, well... I'd recommend some serious reflection.
 
Henning said:
What you're describing should fail/disqualify you from being PIC.
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No. What he described needs to be fixed before the checkride.

I had the same problem. My day job for the last 25 years has been sitting at a desk giving one problem 100% of my attention. I taught myself to multitask and prioritize while learning to fly an airplane. I'll never be as good as my instructor, but the FAA says I'm a qualified pilot.
 
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The question really is did, you not even know someone has said something to you? Or, were you distracted, and did not know what they said to you? If your not sure what someone said, due to in attention then you should ask them to repeat. If you are unable to realize ATC, your instructor, or your DPE is talking to you. You will need to figure out how to fix this, if you can not....
 
pilotod said:
Sometimes my hearing attention isn't always 100%. I'm concentrating on something and my CFI might tell me an altitude or heading but I have not always heard it. I wonder if I can ask the DE before we takeoff if he will repeat it if I seemed to have not reacted. My hearing is fine but I have to say it's like my spouse talking and I didn't hear a thing. Shame on me but I don't want to miss the message in the plane.
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My hearing / attention is at dunce level. You are not the only one. I almost did a left pattern when the Tower told me right pattern. I need to write things down but haven't been lately.
 
Old Geek said:
No. What he described needs to be fixed before the checkride.

I had the same problem. My day job for the last 25 years has been sitting at a desk giving one problem 100% of my attention. I taught myself to multitask and prioritize while learning to fly an airplane. I'll never be as good as my instructor, but the FAA says I'm a qualified pilot.
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You started that comment by saying no, then went on to admit it being disqualifying and what you had to change in order to qualify. :dunno:
 
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Henning said:
You started that comment by saying no, then went on to admit it being disqualifying and what you had to change in order to qualify. :dunno:
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I assumed he was a soloed student. I don't believe that the issue is sufficient to ground him if he is.
 
Old Geek said:
I assumed he was a soloed student. I don't believe that the issue is sufficient to ground him if he is.
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Had he noted that to the AME, he could have had to go through some testing before being issued a medical/student pilot cert.

Fixation is a HUGE issue with the FAA, and it's one of those ones that was written in a lot of blood in the Everglades after three Eastern Airlines pilots drove a jet straight into the swamp over changing out a blown landing gear indicator light bulb. Everybody fixated on changing a light bulb, nobody flying the plane. (It was also a major contributing accident on the road to the CRM procedures now in place) Fixation on instruments is probably the quickest way to die hand flying in IMC.

If a person cannot get past fixation tendencies, they are not in very good shape to be PIC because for as easy as it is, it requires continuous multi tasking ability. You have to be able to pay attention to everything always, and it all counts. You get 6 links in an accident chain then you have an accident, in aviation that regularly leads to death. The key is to break the chain links as they forge and never let more than 2 links come together (not all the links have to be yours, errors my mechanics and just plain luck can toss a couple links in as well). Thing is, you have to be paying attention to everything always because you never know where the next link is coming from.
 
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pilotod said:
Sometimes my hearing attention isn't always 100%. I'm concentrating on something and my CFI might tell me an altitude or heading but I have not always heard it. I wonder if I can ask the DE before we takeoff if he will repeat it if I seemed to have not reacted. My hearing is fine but I have to say it's like my spouse talking and I didn't hear a thing. Shame on me but I don't want to miss the message in the plane.
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Need more information.

All of us zone out from time to time, and need to ask a person with whom we are speaking to repeat what they said.

It may be that you are fixating on a particular task, making it difficult to process more instructions.

I would suggest a few flights which focus on distraction (which CFIs are supposed to be trained to teach).
 
I think the CFI was constantly distracting me. Sometimes I think he was genuinely conversing and other times I wasn't sure. Maybe it was all distraction. Some of my "listening" issues might be because of all the conversation and blocking some of it out and then not getting the instruction because it all ran together. I dunno. But that's over. I'd have to say that learning whether the CFI was distracting me or not wasn't easy.

spiderweb said:
Need more information.

All of us zone out from time to time, and need to ask a person with whom we are speaking to repeat what they said.

It may be that you are fixating on a particular task, making it difficult to process more instructions.

I would suggest a few flights which focus on distraction (which CFIs are supposed to be trained to teach).
Click to expand...
 
pilotod said:
I think the CFI was constantly distracting me. Sometimes I think he was genuinely conversing and other times I wasn't sure. Maybe it was all distraction. Some of my "listening" issues might be because of all the conversation and blocking some of it out and then not getting the instruction because it all ran together. I dunno. But that's over. I'd have to say that learning whether the CFI was distracting me or not wasn't easy.
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I know what you mean, and you can work on it. I find it easy now to put my CFI on mental "hold" while I fly the plane or make a radio call, if he's not telling me to do something. I do sometimes realize that there was just a call on the CTAF, and I have no idea what was said... I was busy flying. So far it's been calls for OTHER airports that share the same frequency, calls I wouldn't hear were it not for some springtime tropo ducting. Yesterday I had to think about one... guy made a call for a 20 miles, inbound for a straight in approach for 36. I just caught the tail and am trying to figure out if he's going to be a problem for me... duh. We're at KMLE. 12/30. He's on a long final for somewhere else. It MAY be that I unconsciously didn't pay attention because he didn't say "Millard". I'm not sure though, so I'm working on paying more attention to radio traffic.
 
Sounds like multitasking is at issue. As a law enforcement trainer, it is an issue I dealt with for many trainees - missing radio traffic or required observations/tasks due to fixation on another task. We use various exercises to get past it.

Commentary driving - trainee drives, describes what he is seeing to include cars (speed, description, activity), describing pedestrians, repeating all radio traffic to the trainer.

Rule of three - the trainee has to describe three things about every person we contact (victims, witnesses, the barista at Starbucks), and every location we go to.

Distraction - trainee is just starting a task (driving to a call, writing a report, whatever) and the trainer asks an unrelated question. Halfway through the trainee's answer, the trainer asks about the original task.

These are some basic exercises that are adaptable to flight training. Even with great multitasking skills, when I was a low-time student pilot, I would tend to focus on one thing and exclude other necessary input. Fortunately my CFI was an experienced one, recognized the problem and fixed it quickly.

Maybe try similar exercises and see how they work for you.
 
Captain said:
But what makes a pilot a skilled aviator is the ability to prioritize ALL the required actions. Flying along and you hear ATC call while you're tuning a VOR, you stop tuning and answer. But while talking to ATC you notice the oil pressure drop to zero you say "stand by" and deal with your new priority. While dealing with the low oil the engine bursts into flames and all of a sudden the oil pressure isn't so important. While shutting down the engine you notice another plane on a head on collision and the engine is no longer important and you take evasive action. While dodging the head on collision you see your going to hit the ground and now there is only one important thing and that's not hitting the ground.
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That is ONE thorough scenario Captain! Put it to country music ... add mama/a train/prison and you'll have the PERFECT C&W song:lol:
 
Everybody misses a call now and then, that's not an issue. When someone can repeatedly miss attention, then there is something that needs to be addressed. My first suggestion would be a Clarity Aloft or Lightspeed Zulu by experience, and I have a buddy with the LS Mach 1 with the molded ear pieces he thinks are better than sliced bread. Have you had an audiology box test done? In Aus I had to do one for my class 1 medical, I was surprised how well I did considering my life long exposure to major industrial noise.
 
I think your fine. Its just task saturation right now. No different from when you first started driving or any other activity where you have alot of things going on at once. It will come with time. Relax.
 
> I think the CFI was constantly distracting me.

Good! That should be part of your PPL training.

>> What you're describing should fail/disqualify you from being PIC

+1

Someone who is task saturated in a PPL VFR checkride, ain't ready for the checkride.

My suggestions:

- More training that focuses on handling multiple concurrent tasks.
- Read-back/repeat instructions, much like when dealing w/ATC
- Write things down
- If in doubt or the least bit uncertain; ASK, DAMN IT!
- Whenever you become task saturated:

-- Fly the airplane.
-- Consider slowing the airplane, it gives you more time to cope.
-- Say, "Unable" or "Standby."
-- Be damn well prepared to explain/defend "Unable" or "Standby"
-- If you cannot unbumfuzzle yourself; admit it, ASK FOR HELP.
 
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Just don't over look 'need aid hearing' as a possible cause. Getting tested is cheap or free typically.
 
Seems like I might have somewhat given the wrong impression about hearing. It's all a test to see if I can handle distraction and it's so subtle. I'd just rather the banter not be there. I don't carry on conversations in the car and as a matter of fact I don't like to drive when there's much conversation going on. If this were my wife talking I would have asked her to hold it but when the CFI is talking I don't know if there's real information coming or not. But some of your comments are good. The headset I have is a basic $100 passive NR Pilot USA brand...I think. It works but maybe a nicer set would be better.
 
Is the radio turned up? Is that a part of the distraction? Also, if you think that your CFI is trying to distract you, you have the right to establish ground rules and tell him to limit his chatter to useful information. Part of becoming PIC is establishing the ground rules.
 
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