Flight lesson Length

Stevey30 said:
I am trying to do at least 2 lessons a week, but we have had crap weather and I have had to cancel at least one lesson per week. I got 2 in this week because I had 3 scheduled.
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Weather is always something you will battle. During my training I flew 3 times a week but my lessons were all much closer to the 1 hour mark of flight time. Sometimes it meant they seemed really short as things happen fast, other times I was happy as task saturation is a real thing. Granted, I was training in the middle of summer when weather was great here. The downside was that I was ready for my checkride as the weather went to crap and I ended up having to continually delay my checkride and it was another 5 months before I was able to complete it and get my certificate.
 
steingar said:
In general anything north of an hour and a half and cognitive skills start degenerating. That said, not all students are equal nor are all lessons (or instructors). The only one who can determine if a lesson is too long is the OP.
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There are a number of times when programming, it can take a half hour to an hour to build the mental construct to debug an issue. If cognitive skills start decreasing after an hour and half, myself and a lot of programmers are doing something wrong or we should expect a drop off in productivity after an hour and half.
I think cognitive skills like almost any skill or muscle respond to usage. the more you use it, the longer you can exercise it.

Tim
 
tspear said:
There are a number of times when programming, it can take a half hour to an hour to build the mental construct to debug an issue. If cognitive skills start decreasing after an hour and half, myself and a lot of programmers are doing something wrong or we should expect a drop off in productivity after an hour and half.
I think cognitive skills like almost any skill or muscle respond to usage. the more you use it, the longer you can exercise it.

Tim
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I was referring more to learning in an unstructured environment. Skill administration is a very different issue.
 
My in-air time was always at least an hour, up to 2.5 hours, usually a little shy of two hours. As a weekend-only student, it works very well for me to have a longer flight time, as then I can get comfortable in the plane again, and still have time to learn something. But I've never had a problem with concentration and remembering stuff, so the longer lesson wasn't an issue.
 
I did my first day xc w/CFI during the day, then came back that evening to do my night xc w/ him. That was definitely fine, as we were applying the learning, rather than doing learning.

Whatever works for you, do it! Enjoy!!
 
steingar said:
I was referring more to learning in an unstructured environment. Skill administration is a very different issue.
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Largely the same thing. Have you ever tried to debug what another developer has implemented? I have seen a lot of "unstructured code" over the years.
Actually, I spent this past year working on a project, where I have never seen code so bad. I could not write code that bad if I tried. So glad I quit.

Tim
 
bobmrg said:
Is there a lesson in the syllabus that incorporates all of this? Seems like a "what should we do next?" mixture of disparate things.

Bob Gardner
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I was just going to ask the same thing. Someone please show us a curriculum that has all of this happening in a single flight, let alone a pre-solo flight.
 
tspear said:
There are a number of times when programming, it can take a half hour to an hour to build the mental construct to debug an issue. If cognitive skills start decreasing after an hour and half, myself and a lot of programmers are doing something wrong or we should expect a drop off in productivity after an hour and half.
I think cognitive skills like almost any skill or muscle respond to usage. the more you use it, the longer you can exercise it.
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I have done both and debugging code and learning to fly are NOTHING alike. You might as well say putting together a jigsaw puzzle of a spaceship and flying a spaceship are comparable. :/
 
dmspilot said:
I have done both and debugging code and learning to fly are NOTHING alike. You might as well say putting together a jigsaw puzzle of a spaceship and flying a spaceship are comparable. :/
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@steingar and I were discussing the length of time someone's cognitive ability can be maintained before it degrades.
In that respect. They are similar.

Tim
 
tspear said:
@steingar and I were discussing the length of time someone's cognitive ability can be maintained before it degrades.
In that respect. They are similar.

Tim
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I know what you were discussing. They are not similar.
 
OP, I'm at the almost exact same place in my training as you and my CFI sounds super similar (retired guy - worked his way through college as a CFI and renewed it after his non-aviation career to have some fun). I'm based at a crazy busy GA airport where its not terribly uncommon for it to take 20 minutes to get a taxi clearance and arrive at the runup area, and of course the approach back in and taxi to the ramp takes time. Our lessons are typically 1.3-1.6 on the Hobbs, which equates to an hour in the air give or take. I mentioned in the debrief last week that I thought we could spend more time in the air without brushing up against the law of diminishing returns, so my CFI and I agreed to extend the aircraft reservation by .5 going forward. That way, we have some extra time to play with, but if we decide in the air that the additional time isn't needed or valuable, we can go home early.

All this to say, think about the great advice from some of the guys above and have an honest conversation with your CFI. Never forget - he works for you and this is expensive. If you're not getting 100% out of every second that Hobbs meter is clicking, shorten the lesson. If you can go longer and still be making progress, go longer.

Good luck with your training!
 
@dmspilot
Then we will disagree. The mental construct I utilize when tracing code is similar to the mental picture I develop to know how to fly an approach.
Knowing how changes to code in one section affect the program over there is the same as knowing if I should use a rudder to pick a wing (slow flight) or an aileron.
Flying is about input and output. Programming is all about input and output.

Tim
 
My instructor only charges Hobbs time, so all pre flight and post flight are basically free. He has been a CFI since he retired from his f/t job about 8 years ago. I’m not saying I’m getting over charged or anything, I just know it seems like I am always over the allotted time compared to the syllabus. I know most of them are an hour to hour and a half. I enjoy my lessons and my instructor, just trying to figure out if I need to scale back, should I do 2 lessons a week at 2 hours each or 3 lessons at 1.5? Is the .5 hr twice a week as good as and extra lesson would be? With an extra lesson I would get an extra pre flight inspection, taxi, run up, take off and landing, but might have to cram more into each lesson being a half hour shorter.
 
tspear said:
@dmspilot
Then we will disagree. The mental construct I utilize when tracing code is similar to the mental picture I develop to know how to fly an approach.
Knowing how changes to code in one section affect the program over there is the same as knowing if I should use a rudder to pick a wing (slow flight) or an aileron.
Flying is about input and output. Programming is all about input and output.

Tim
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I’ve been programming for 40 years and I’ve never been mentally over-saturated like I was in primary flight training. Not the same thing.
 
Stevey30 said:
My instructor only charges Hobbs time, so all pre flight and post flight are basically free. He has been a CFI since he retired from his f/t job about 8 years ago. I’m not saying I’m getting over charged or anything, I just know it seems like I am always over the allotted time compared to the syllabus. I know most of them are an hour to hour and a half. I enjoy my lessons and my instructor, just trying to figure out if I need to scale back, should I do 2 lessons a week at 2 hours each or 3 lessons at 1.5? Is the .5 hr twice a week as good as and extra lesson would be? With an extra lesson I would get an extra pre flight inspection, taxi, run up, take off and landing, but might have to cram more into each lesson being a half hour shorter.
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I still don't understand why you are messing with this. Is it money?
 
Salty said:
I’ve been programming for 40 years and I’ve never been mentally over-saturated like I was in primary flight training. Not the same thing.
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You have me by a few years. I an starting my 32 year this summer.
Then you need to work on bigger systems, chasing production bugs with 7 or more digits on the line. :) (I could not resist).
I was never task saturated in primary flight training; and my flight training was only 11 years ago. So it is still pretty fresh in memory.

Tim
 
tspear said:
You have me by a few years. I an starting my 32 year this summer.
Then you need to work on bigger systems, chasing production bugs with 7 or more digits on the line. :) (I could not resist).
I was never task saturated in primary flight training; and my flight training was only 11 years ago. So it is still pretty fresh in memory.

Tim
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You’re the first person I ever met that wasn’t saturated at points in primary training.
 
tspear said:
You have me by a few years. I an starting my 32 year this summer.
Then you need to work on bigger systems, chasing production bugs with 7 or more digits on the line. :) (I could not resist).
I was never task saturated in primary flight training; and my flight training was only 11 years ago. So it is still pretty fresh in memory.

Tim
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So your 32nd year of programming is like flying an airplane for the first time.
 
Salty said:
You’re the first person I ever met that wasn’t saturated at points in primary training.
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Preparation? I did not not into saturation issues until I was pushing the envelop on mentoring in the Aerostar; after flying for 8 hours in a day flying approaches from DC to NY and back. My brain could not handle it.

Tim
 
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