I really like this discussion. I'm learning. Thanks Tony!
and that's what I said, but I do get the tone in certain threads that certain CFIs feel their students need much more of their infinite experience and profound guidance than perhaps they really do. This is discouraging to the student.
This is an easy trap to fall into. For the most part CFIs spend their time working with people learning new skills. It's easy to delude yourself that you know what you're doing.
I'm lucky being one of the few CFIs in SoCal with a T28 rating, I get to fly with people who have more experience and are better pilots than I'll ever be. They have done a lot to keep my opinion of my skills realistic.
Students teach me more that I teach them.
Ken wrote earlier "I saw an article recently in an old copy of Mentor by a then-current student. He was upset because he saw instructors as tailoring training to meet the "national average" thereby unnecessarily lengthening training." and dismissed the comment out-of-hand.
Frankly, I agree that cirricula should be developed for the "average" person. I don't see how that affects people who are faster or slower learners. I do one on one instruction with no time constraints. I brief at least one lesson ahead. If you can do 2 or 3 lessons in one flight, good for you. If you take 2 or 3 flights to do one lesson, so what
I've seen some come here and want to "fly everyday." We already know that's not a likely scenario so we pull them back to three times a week at most, especially in the beginning and if they have anything else at all taking up time in their life. My feeling is not to train "to meet requirements" but rather to train to proficiency that meets or exceeds standards.
I guess I'm a little confused. What's wrong with flying everyday? Perhaps you are talking about a primary student with a job.
I had a gentleman last summer who got his instrument rating in a month, including about 15 hrs required cross country. We scheduled 5 days a week. He broke the club record for biggest bill in a month (a bit less than $5000) but came out a very good instrument pilot at the checkride.
To me, though, it's like the old saying that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy: no structured curriculum should survive contact with the student. Trying to force everyone into the same mold leads to frustration.
Excellent, I will steal that line.
But again I do feel a structured curriculum is the best starting point.
My biggest wank over CFI's is you're taught the mininmum because they don't care,just building time. Two years later I have not seen what an accelerated stall is. How about behind the power curve?Why do flaps cause such drastic changes in pitch? How about the kick out method on crosswinds? I know all these things now but I learned them myself. I had a great flight instructor,best at the school. I just wish I was taught why insted of "do it this way always" I know getting a PP is the ticket to learning but I wish CFI's would put a little more into the understanding of flight.
This one deserves a much longer response but right now the point I'd like to discuss is "where to stop".
I am not a teach to the minimums kind of guy but as I gain more experience I find my expectations are being lowered rather than raised. I started a short 6 years ago with the idea that I would discuss everything with my primary students, boy was I naive.
I try to go into as much depth as the student wants/need/gets but a big part of my responsibility is to control (the student's) costs balanced with wanting to discuss everything.
Ted's list is something that I do discuss and demonstrate everything on it but the crab and kick. I do explain why I don't like it.
Here is part of the problem. All of my instructors have looked and saw a 'fat old woman who wants to fly out to see the grandchildren'. They should have realized this is a serious student who wants to be the best pilot around and who would have appreciated structure, CRM, and a deep understanding of aerodynamics. Discussions of how and why airplanes perform as they do are much more valuable than me defending my position on some old saw. I am capable of so much more than has been asked of me or taught to me. My grandchildren suffer from my ignorance.
My best instructor did not give me any of the above but at least he gave me the permission, and thus the confidence, to experiment and find out what I could do and what the plane could do. As a result, I can fly one airplane.
Peg,
This is a situation that is partly your responsibility.
My experience was that I accepted poor instruction in the beginning because I didn't know any better. I was learning, not having much fun, not getting what I wanted, but I thought it was my fault I just needed to work harder.
The more I flew with different instructors the more I realized the wide variation in quality of instruction and the importance of someone who communicates with me and the unimportance of what they can do with the plane when I'm not in it. Every instructor has taught me something, it's just that from some of them all I learned is how not to present a topic.
During the first lesson with every student I stress the importance of feedback. I do my best to read their minds and see what makes sense and what doesn't, to see what is a challenge and what is easy but I am just not a very good mentalist.
I look at each student each flight as being at a particular skill level. If todays lesson is way below that level they get bored. If it is way above that level they get frustrated. The way we learn a physical and mental skill like flying is work very close to edge. And that edge moves every day. What is easy on a good day is impossible on a bad day and vice versa.
Students need to have as much input into the curriculum as the instructors and control the lessons. Now this doesn't mean that I have to fly with the "don't touch or say anything, just sign my logbook when we're done" kind of guy.
Joe
That also is a good thing, because I'm not someone who necessarily goes in search of instruction all that often, but when it's offered or suggested, I usually jump at the chance.
