Does ground/clearance delivery know the phrase "learner pilot"?

OkieAviator said:
Even as a student pilot I never used 'student pilot'(or learner) on the radio. I feel like I missed out on something...
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Neither did I nor any of my students. I always treated the call as something to be used as needed. OTOH, I was once flying and heard a pilot say "student pilot" in every single readback, even

ATC: Altimeter 3012.
Pilot: 3012. Student pilot.
 
schmookeeg said:
This is actually making me want to figure out where this "learner pilot" business started. I actually have no idea and not even a guess as to why.
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Really? This is about the 69th time the subject has come up here since idiocracy was enshrined in the instructor handbook a couple years ago.

https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media...ehind-the-faas-switch-from-student-to-learner

Like a lot of things, the FAA thinks it knows and understand adult learning theory and instructional systems design. Instead, they just employ people who have heard the terms before.

My two word summary for that would get me banned.
 
From the AOPA article:
As for the rationale: “The change from student to learner started several years ago in an industry working group,” he said. “Industry wanted to get away from using the word ‘student’ because traditionally we think of student as in ‘student pilot’ or a beginning student pilot/mechanic.”
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This is definitely government at work. "People thought of the term in it's proper context. Obviously, we could not allow this to continue, so we had meetings to change it."

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In all seriousness, it probably went more that someone went to a flight school to become an ATP after having already been issued a cert. However, the school required the person to still use "Student Pilot" as a standard call and they were offended that they might be confused with a real student pilot that it scarred them for life.

Then, this person being the obviously thin skinned person they are, got moved up the ladder because their co-workers didn't want to deal w/ their sensitivities. This continued until one day they accidentally moved this person to a position where pushing to change "student" to "learner" was within their power. The aviation world has never been the same.
 
guest user said:
In all seriousness, it probably went more that someone went to a flight school to become an ATP after having already been issued a cert. However, the school required the person to still use "Student Pilot" as a standard call
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Thank goodness I have never heard of a flight school that required (or even seriously suggested) anyone other than a holder of a student pilot certificate (let alone an ATP candidate) use the phrase with ATC.
 
Terry M - 3CK (Chicago) said:
Say again?

Say again all after . . .

My 14th primary instructor (1992 - I was 18 at the time) yelled at me for saying student pilot at the end of my transmission with Peoria Approach. He told me how embarrassing it was and to NEVER use it with him onboard and only in an emergency if he wasn't onboard.

I honestly think that is dumb. You do you. If you are more comfortable saying student pilot, say it.

If you said "learner pilot" I (I'm not a controller) would assume you were a foreign trained pilot or something because that isn't standard phraseology. To me, that reflects poorly on your instructor(s) because you are presumably solo and using incorrect terminology.

My $0.02.

EVERY SINGLE (or married) PILOT YOU WILL MEET STARTED AS A STUDENT PILOT!!!! Every one of us. Not something to be ashamed of.

Don't act like you have experience you haven't yet earned. You miss a lot of learning that way.
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My primary instructor told me to use the "student pilot" call when I took my first solo xc (to Peoria!). I naively thought that if I told CMI when I got flight following, they would somehow pass that information to PIA. PIA tower then, assuming I knew what I was doing, sequenced me tight in front of a CRJ, which then had to go around. I'll never forget that. In my defense, I flew the plane normally, and she shouldn't have made me #1, but In hindsight there was an unspoken "I'm making you #1, keep it tight" that went right over the head of this "learner".

I think @Racerx nailed the reasoning.... some puppy mill instrument student got called that and took offense because he's "NOT a 'student pilot'!". Because we no longer teach kids to deal with the slightest bit of being offended (that's called a micro- aggression now), we have to change the language.

As to whether ATC would understand "learner"....I bet it would confuse them, but you'd still get the "watch this guy, he might be an idiot" handling you're looking for ;)
 
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Jim K said:
My primary instructor told me to use the "student pilot" call when I took my first solo xc (to Peoria!). I naively thought that if I told CMI when I got flight following, they would somehow pass that information to PIA. PIA tower then, assuming I knew what I was doing, sequenced me tight in front of a CRJ, which then had to go around. I'll never forget that. In my defense, I flew the plane normally, and she shouldn't have made me #1, but I'm hindsight there was an unspoken "I'm making you #1, keep it tight" that went right over the head of this "learner".

I think @Racerx nailed the reasoning.... some puppy mill instrument student got called that and took offense because he's "NOT a 'student pilot'!". Because we no longer teach kids to deal with the slightest bit of being offended (that's called a micro- aggression now), we have to change the language.

As to whether ATC would understand "learner"....I bet it would confuse them, but you'd still get the "watch this guy, he might be an idiot" handling you're looking for ;)
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Long before this silliness, I was trying to figure out how to refer to those who do recurrent training with me. Whenever I talked about a "student," at least 90% - pilots and non-pilots alike - assumed I was talking about someone brand new to flying. I went through through "flight client" ("client" alone means something special in context), "trainee," and a few others. I don't use "learner" and won't even consider it. I think it's silly and pretty meaningless. But I accept the basic premise that the unmodified word, "student " is typically understood to be someone who holds a student pilot certificate (or none at all) without having to use 5,000 year old biases against youth. I think that's true more broadly than aviation. That's why we have been referring to "college student," "grad student," etc. for many, many years.

(Fortunately, my CFI never told me I had to use "student pilot." Just another tool to use as needed. Too bad about those CFIs who didn't trust their "student pilots" enough and told them to use it in all communications.)
 
Pilot Under Instruction, pronounced "poo-ey."

edit: or maybe 'Duallist'

Nauga,
and a title, a callsign, and a style of flying
 
nauga said:
Pilot Under Instruction, pronounced "poo-ey."

edit: or maybe 'Duallist'

Nauga,
and a title, a callsign, and a style of flying
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Mine is shorter to say - pilot-in-training, pronounced "Pit". Only one syllable! :D

And in a world where most people seem to have an inability to spell things properly, you might want to steer clear of duallist to avoid your students deciding to fight out who gets the plane that day. ;)
 
Rgbeard said:
students study and learners learn.
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Using that logic, couldn't we just call them 'billionaires', since a billionaire is free to do whatever they wish?

I mean, lets go ahead and cut out the "work to support yourself and maybe save a few dollars" and jump straight to "financially independent".

Or would that be a case of even the bleeding hearts aren't that oblivious to reality?
 
If I was ATC and some jackwggon used the term "learner pilot" I would make sure in the next transmission they understood how little they had "learned" up to that point!

As a pilot I would be silently judging you through the radio.

You gotta be kidding me....

"Student Pilot" and "New Pilot" were the two best useful terms my CFI taught me when needed if a transmission was not explicitly clear and understood that let me accelerate my confidence and abilities with ATC.
 
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midlifeflyer said:
Maybe the should change the "student pilot certificate" into a "learner's permit"?
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When I was learning to drive, I had a learner's permit but I was still a student driver...I have decided that people simply don't understand the English language, and don't understand the concept of words being equivalent and possessing the same meaning but having different forms for their different usages.
 
Don’t cave into peer pressure, keep using student if you want. I don’t use learner pilot in any terminology. Just like I will keep using BFR.
 
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Only the FAA is pushing the change from student to learner. When I am sitting around the office with other CFIs, we talk about students, not learners.
 
Jim K said:
As to whether ATC would understand "learner"....I bet it would confuse them, but you'd still get the "watch this guy, he might be an idiot" handling you're looking for ;)
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Perfectly put!
 
At least in my experience, I don't think that it's really necessary to tell them. Usually after I exchange a couple of calls with ATC, the controller will say, "Let me guess - you're a student pilot, aren't you?"
 
DesertNomad said:
Only the FAA is pushing the change from student to learner. When I am sitting around the office with other CFIs, we talk about students, not learners.
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The FAA wordsmithed a couple of non-directive documents. The change didn't affect they way any of us should be operating.

Nauga,
and another balloon race
 
Shawn said:
If I was ATC and some jackwggon used the term "learner pilot" I would make sure in the next transmission they understood how little they had "learned" up to that point!

As a pilot I would be silently judging you through the radio.

You gotta be kidding me....
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This vitriolic reaction makes me want to use the phrase more now. :D
 
In Florida, just adopt a heavy foreign accent and they'll assume you are a puppy mill flyer.

Gotta hand it to them, though. I speak a couple of foreign languages, and I cannot fathom trying to deal with ATC in them.
 
Ed Haywood said:
In Florida, just adopt a heavy foreign accent and they'll assume you are a puppy mill flyer.

Gotta hand it to them, though. I speak a couple of foreign languages, and I cannot fathom trying to deal with ATC in them.
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Very true... Sometimes it is a little cringey but then I think about how stupid I would sound in German...
 
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