Ever have a student freeze on you?

ScottK

ScottK

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ScottK
I was talking with a local instructor and he was telling me stories about some of his past students, good and bad. He mentioned one who froze after a stall where the wing dropped a bit and he had to fight the guy to control the plane. He said it wasn't a big deal and they recovered quickly, but it got me thinking.

Have any of you had a student lock up where you "fight" to regain control of a plane from a student?
 
Not me, but I was in the plane when it happened. My instructor was doing a stage check for another instructor. Now Buzz very wisely figures that no student should be signed off for their eventual check ride if they don't fly the 172 at gross at least once. Otherwise, they'll be used to flying it with only two people and the first thing they're likely to do after getting their ticket is to load the seats up with three of their friends and run into the diminished performance.

Anyhow, I'm along playing human ballast in the back seat. The guy starts down runway 30 at FDK and rotates and keeps going. I swear the guy is going to demonstrate a departure stall on departure. This is when I hear what I call the CFI death scream which is the sound he makes when he is in fear of dying (I've flown with this instructor a lot and while I've had some performance he was not happy with, I've never heard this before).

I believe the line was "If you drop this thing on its tail, we're all going to die" as he is shoving hard as he can against the student pulling trying to get a reasonable pitch attitude.
 
Wow! Interesting to think about. I'll bet it would be impossible to tell which student would be likely to do such a thing.

In the Army when we threw grenades, the instructor that stepped into the area for my grenade throw appeared to be a nervous wreck. I think it was because he had to be there to peal the grenade out of someones hand if they froze. I got the idea that he had no idea who that might be.
 
flyingron said:
Not me, but I was in the plane when it happened. My instructor was doing a stage check for another instructor. Now Buzz very wisely figures that no student should be signed off for their eventual check ride if they don't fly the 172 at gross at least once. Otherwise, they'll be used to flying it with only two people and the first thing they're likely to do after getting their ticket is to load the seats up with three of their friends and run into the diminished performance.

Anyhow, I'm along playing human ballast in the back seat. The guy starts down runway 30 at FDK and rotates and keeps going. I swear the guy is going to demonstrate a departure stall on departure. This is when I hear what I call the CFI death scream which is the sound he makes when he is in fear of dying (I've flown with this instructor a lot and while I've had some performance he was not happy with, I've never heard this before).

I believe the line was "If you drop this thing on its tail, we're all going to die" as he is shoving hard as he can against the student pulling trying to get a reasonable pitch attitude.
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Something tells me that this instructor didn't go up with this student again.
 
Amazingly hasn't happened yet. The technique I learned to fix that is just place your hand in front of or over the eyes of the frozen student.nhavent had a chance to try it out.
 
I have to admit, I had thoughts like that for my primary instructor. I was twice her weight. If I somehow freaked out, there would be no way she could overpower me. Particularly on the rudder.

Fortunately, freeze-up isn't a problem I've had, even with a couple of oh-**** moments in primary training.
 
As an instructor, you must realize that anything can happen, and be prepared as best you can. I've had to overpower trainees on both flight and engine controls in the past, and it's just part of the job. The trainee who grabs for the flaps instead of the power on a missed approach or go-around is one of my more common experiences.

One point I would make is that a "death scream" may only scare the trainee worse, and make it that much harder to stop the bad thing from happening. As an instructor, you must take this to heart:
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Ron Levy said:
As an instructor, you must realize that anything can happen, and be prepared as best you can. I've had to overpower trainees on both flight and engine controls in the past, and it's just part of the job. The trainee who grabs for the flaps instead of the power on a missed approach or go-around is one of my more common experiences.

One point I would make is that a "death scream" may only scare the trainee worse, and make it that much harder to stop the bad thing from happening. As an instructor, you must take this to heart:
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The instructor whom I got my PPL with said the most afraid he has ever been in an aircraft was when a student dumped flaps before adding power on a go-around. It was a hot, humid day in a Beech Sport of all aircraft (absolute pig with two people and high temps).

I have a ton of respect for what you CFIs do.
 
Ron Levy said:
One point I would make is that a "death scream" may only scare the trainee worse, and make it that much harder to stop the bad thing from happening.
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I always appreciated that about my instructor. I gave him a couple of moments where his voice would get louder, but I never sensed a hint of panic in it. It was very reassuring. I'm pretty sure that's why my training went as well as it did.
 
I ceased primary flight training for ten years after such an event; I recovered at 700 agl from a spin after a huge hulk of a student lost it in slow flight. He had HEAVY feet in addition to weighing about twice my weight.

I do think if there had been video, I might have been accused of assault.
 
I've heard it often repeated that an instructors job is simply to keep the student from killing them both while the student learns what to do (or not do).

Fair bit of truth in that...
 
When I went to do my check ride, the DFE told me about a recent PPL check ride he had done.

Apparently on the cross country the guy got lost, really lost. The DFE asked him a couple times if he was lost, and he assured him he was not. After it became obvious he really was lost the DFE told him to go back to the airport, which of course the student could not find.

At some point the DFE told him he had blown the check ride, and offered to help him find the airport. The student completly shut down, refused to even touch the controls after that. After they got back to the airport the student went into the office, put his head on the desk, and refused to even acknowledge the DFE.

The DFE wound up having to call his CFI to come and get the student.

Not sure if this story was supposed to comfort, or scare me right before my check ride....

-Dan
 
"Scream" is sort of an exageration, but there was a firmness in the tone of his voice that I had never expereinced before (usually on sloppy landings or whatever he just quips "You don't want to die in Pennsylvania do you?").
 
Never had it happen to me, best thing one can do as a CFI is not get all excited, if you're a CFI you should also bee good enough to recover from what ever mess the student can put that plane into.
 
No, as I'm not a CFI.

But I have fixed the result of a freeze/lock up during the flare...
 
NineThreeKilo said:
Never had it happen to me, best thing one can do as a CFI is not get all excited, if you're a CFI you should also bee good enough to recover from what ever mess the student can put that plane into.
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Not an instructor, but it seems obvious to me that there are critical phases of flight where a student can put you in situations where your recovery skills are useless. In those segments, you have to anticipate them and not even allow it to develop fully. Not try to recover after the "mess" occurs.
 
NineThreeKilo said:
Never had it happen to me, best thing one can do as a CFI is not get all excited, if you're a CFI you should also bee good enough to recover from what ever mess the student can put that plane into.
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...or foresighted enough to stop it before it becomes unrecoverable. :wink2:

[which, after reading further, is more or less what Nate said]
 
denverpilot said:
Not an instructor, but it seems obvious to me that there are critical phases of flight where a student can put you in situations where your recovery skills are useless. In those segments, you have to anticipate them and not even allow it to develop fully. Not try to recover after the "mess" occurs.
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Yes. Your feet are your best friends as a CFI. I've "saved" a few uncoordinated stalls by stabbing the rudder as the wing dropped, because I was ready and primed to do so. Much easier to do that then to deal with a more developed spin entry.

I've been told that placing a hand over the eyes will cause a student to let go, or at least break the panic reaction. I haven't yet had a reason to try it out, and I hope I never do.

I had an MEI tell me that during the Vmc demo where one engine is at simulated minimum power and the other is at full to guard the mixture controls, since the student may block your access to the throttles. By pulling back the mixture on the "running" engine you can fix the asymmetric thrust if the nose starts to move too much and before you have a real upset. I'd be interested what other MEIs think of this.
 
Helen said she had to whack a frozen student with a clipboard once.
 
Ron Levy said:
As an instructor, you must realize that anything can happen, and be prepared as best you can. I've had to overpower trainees on both flight and engine controls in the past, and it's just part of the job. The trainee who grabs for the flaps instead of the power on a missed approach or go-around is one of my more common experiences.

One point I would make is that a "death scream" may only scare the trainee worse, and make it that much harder to stop the bad thing from happening. As an instructor, you must take this to heart:
logo.png
Click to expand...
That happened during my first hour of dual given. It was during an aircraft checkout.
 
denverpilot said:
Not an instructor, but it seems obvious to me that there are critical phases of flight where a student can put you in situations where your recovery skills are useless. In those segments, you have to anticipate them and not even allow it to develop fully. Not try to recover after the "mess" occurs.
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To a point this is correct.

However I believe I turned out some VERY good pilots by letting it get to the limits of MY skill set, it's probably not in the PTS or anything else, but the more I let my students get into a bad maneuver and the more time I allowed THEM to get out of it BY THEIR OWN SKILLS, the better pilots they became. Of course I would step in if needed and debrief them on what happened, what I did, what they should have done, etc.

Most of the aircraft I instructed in were fully aerobatic taildraggers, I knew exactly how far I could let these airplanes go and still regain control, I let my students take them to that edge if needed. As a CFI I was not there to show off my skills or prove I could fly the plane (that was already evident) I was there to let my students learn, part of that is letting them make mistakes and CORRECT THEM.... or try to at least :wink2:
 
MBDiagMan said:
Wow!
In the Army when we threw grenades, the instructor that stepped into the area for my grenade throw appeared to be a nervous wreck. I think it was because he had to be there to peal the grenade out of someones hand if they froze. I got the idea that he had no idea who that might be.
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Here's a grenade story. A buddy of mine who is an Army officer wanted to throw a grenade, never having done it before. He set up a time on the range with the instructor to try his hand at it. They got into the throw pit and the instructor told him what to do:

"Cock your arm back, pull the pin out, count to five, and throw over the berm."

My buddy cocks his arm, pulls the pin, waits the five and throws. BOOM! The grenade goes off in mid-air about two feet past the berm. Both men are deafened and the instructor is really shaken.

"What happened," he yelled, "did you hold down the spoon?!?"

My buddy: "Oh, the handle thing? No, it popped off when I pulled the pin."

They had been sitting in that pit for five seconds with the grenade fuse cooking off. The fuze time on the grenade is approximately five seconds.

The instructor took the rest of the day off to go home, kiss his wife, and throw up. My buddy was over wanting to throw a grenade. :eek:
 
bullwinkle said:
Here's a grenade story.
"Cock your arm back, pull the pin out, count to five, and throw over the berm."
:
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Instructor error. Assumed trainee knew about the spoon. This isn't unreasonable, given the fact that the trainee was in the army, and we've all seen about 200 years of war movies. Still, it should have been mentioned.

Also failed to observe trainee. Didn't he see the spoon fly off?

Glad they were okay. Lesson learned, and lived to apply it. :)
 
rotorhead1026 said:
Instructor error. Assumed trainee knew about the spoon. This isn't unreasonable, given the fact that the trainee was in the army, and we've all seen about 200 years of war movies. Still, it should have been mentioned.

Also failed to observe trainee. Didn't he see the spoon fly off?

Glad they were okay. Lesson learned, and lived to apply it. :)
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Agreed. My buddy telling the story was saying "how should I know about the spoon, I was there because I never threw one before!" I agree with that being an instructional deficiency. Still scared the crap out of both of them!
 
I've had two students so far do the flaps before throttle thing on go around. And we hd practiced at altitude and we had discussed it at length prior to their brain fart moment. Luckily my saying "No! Push!" And then pushing with my right hand on my yoke and left over theirs and on the second putting 10deg. Flaps back in helped. The first time student, with big as platters eyes, asked weren't you scared. I lied and said no, I was confident he could control the plane. But then I started laughing which I know now was likely nerves. I told him I was sure he'd never make that mistake again.
I've had others under control stalls but am not too worried about those. Haven't had one not let go yet. I tell them there are two ways to exchange the controls: the nice way for practice "you have the controls" etc. And the emergency way when I say loudly " let go!". We practice the LET GO part. Hands in lap, feet on floor. I know I can't overpower them so I try to train them to respond to that command instead. No one has minded.
 
I haven't ever froze nor has any of my students. Freezing up is best left for popsicles and Windows computers.
 
We don't know what happened in the cockpit prior tithe accident. Just piecing together the DPE's known check ride profile and where the accident occurred.

Simulated engine failure, only land able area, a dry flood retention basin or a busy road. The aircraft was found, nose planted and burning in the basin. Speculation, either a departure stall from a go around from an approach to the basin, or engine failure on the go-around and a subsequent stall.

No evidence of rotation, spin wing drop from a stall, straight ahead. Burned engine checked, no evidence of mechanical failure on tear down.

Did the student freeze on the controls, pitch up too high and stall on the go around, that the DPE could not over ride on the controls?
 
Jeanie said:
I tell them there are two ways to exchange the controls: the nice way for practice "you have the controls" etc. And the emergency way when I say loudly " let go!". We practice the LET GO part. Hands in lap, feet on floor. I know I can't overpower them so I try to train them to respond to that command instead. No one has minded.
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Don't think it was really an emergency at the time, but my instructor once gave me the "LET GO". Unfortunately only the "GO" made it over the intercom and I just got confused but did not let go of the controls until he said it again.
 
I don't remember every freezing up myself and I never had a student do it either but I told myself that if a student wouldn't let go of the controls and we were in trouble I would hit him/her in the nose with my elbow as hard as I could.
 
Yeah I had a guy freeze and I'm not an instuctor because of it.

I got a private in 55 and the early 60s saw me in the military stationed in Spain. I joined the Navy flying club at Rota Spain about 65 miles away.

The drive was a pain so I wound up buying a Champ from the club. I was a guest member of the Real Aero Club de Espana and was allowed to keep my Champ at Tablada Airbase near Sevilla.

A number of my buddies expressed an interest in learning how to fly. This gave me the brilliant idea of getting a commercial and instructor rating. I had the club T-34 available for the commercial and my own Champ for the instructor.

I took the commercial and instructor written and passed. I wasn't too worried about the commercial so I was practicing instruction with my own Champ.

We were doing stalls, all kinds of stalls, lots of stalls. I used to think that it was pretty important to recognize what the plane feels like and how to recover instinctively. ( I still do as a matter of fact)

The chap I was "instructing" didn't like them--not one bit. He argued that there was no way a person could accidently stall an airplane. During the debrief I told him to look up. One of the Spanish Club's Tiger Moths was turning final. He overshot, kicked it around with rudder, stalled, went over the top, did about a turn and SPLAT into the plowed field.

The Tiger Moth is soloed from the rear seat, The entire plane broke apart upon impact. The pilots belt failed and dropped him out onto the dirt with no more than a cut knee.

This made a distinct impression upon my "student". The following week my "student" was unable to do anything in the air. We needed to call it quits. I decided to make a wheel landing simply because they're fun and easy.

I came in pretty hot and greased the wheels on.The chap in front suddenly grabbed the stick and sucked it into his gut. !!!

The tail slammed into the ground and we bounced 20-30 feet into the air about to stall. I applied full throttle and pushed the stick as hard as I could with one hand and cursed and pounded him on the head with my other hand.

I managed to recover the airplane. There was a crack in the windshield, a loud banging noise from the rear and the airplane wanted to fly crooked.

I was so fixated on making the airplane fly that I didn't pull the power and land on the remaining runway. When I got my wits about me I no longer had room to land.

I had to go around with a broken airplane not knowing what was broken.

The tail wheel had broken off, this was hanging from the springs making the banging noise, The bottom of the rudder was bent, this was causing the plane to want to fly crooked. The only other damage was the cracked windshield.

It occurred to me that if this had been the T-34 we would have make a smoking hole. I asked him WHY??? His answer was that he thought we were going to nose over.

Well it's now 2012 and I do NOT have a CFI rating and my hat is off to you guys.

On a side note. That plane was N2426E the first plane that I owned. I am about 50% along with a Champ project that will wear that N number. There are pictures of 26E on the web taken during the filming of "The Battle of Britain" parked next to a Spitfire.

Paul
N1431A
N83803-N2426E
2AZ1
 
bbchien said:
I ceased primary flight training for ten years after such an event; I recovered at 700 agl from a spin after a huge hulk of a student lost it in slow flight. He had HEAVY feet in addition to weighing about twice my weight.

I do think if there had been video, I might have been accused of assault.
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It sounds like something that would have made me give it up for quite awhile as well.
 
bullwinkle said:
"Cock your arm back, pull the pin out, count to five, and throw over the berm."
Click to expand...
This is not how I was taught to throw a hand grenade. It was in Russian army, but grenades were very similar as I understand. Two differences jump out:

#1 - We were not told to count anything. And why would you? It just makes no sense. Procedure was: identify the target, fetch the grenade, pull the safety pin, throw, take cover. No counting at any time. BTW, Russian grenades are fused for 3 seconds, not 5.

#2 - We practiced with fuse-only grenades first. The fuse is a pretty good explosion, so they also had a hole in the body. The hole allows the fuse to detonate without rupturing the body and making dangerous shrapnel. Otherwise they were stock grenades. Those who qualified throwing fuse-only grenades went on to fully normal grenades. Grenades were dangerous: the shrapnel kills at up to 100 m (yards), meaning that nobody is strong enough to throw outside of the kill area. So safety wrt your squad and taking cover was the major part of the excercise, with throwing secondary.
 
IMO instructors do a HORRIBLE job practicing positive transfer of controls, both standard and "emergency". I think that transfer should be drilled into students earlier than and more often than emergency flow (at least for the first few lessons). I believe that the real problem is that the first time a student hears a request for immediate transfer of control it is the instructor screaming "LET GO" and the student has already started to lock up.

The best way to overcome freezing is by providing the brain something simple to fall back on during repetitive and early-reinforced training. For example, "MY AIRPLANE MY AIRPLANE MY AIRPLANE" (3x) could cause a student to go feet-on-floor-hands-in-lap without having to expend any thought. Train it until it is a reaction, like stall recovery or a go-around.
 
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