Student Issue for CFIs

Tristar said:
I cannot venture so far as to say he can't be a pilot just yet. He's definitely a slow learner and has some challenges. I have talked to him a couple times about the sequencing and the forgetting being a problem. He understands where I'm coming from. It's odd that the last time he fumbled through radios but did fine getting through the emergency procedures even if they were out of order. Today he did okay on the radios but couldn't get through the emergencies, got so caught up in lining up for a field he'd forget everything else. I would ask him if he'd forgotten anything and he was able to tell me but didn't seem to fix it the next try. Every student is going to have issues but it's unusual to have 3 lessons on emergencies.
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You do yourself, the aviation community, and your student a disservice if you close your eyes and go on "hoping" with a situation as obvious as the one you describe. Seeing as you aim to continue, I can only hope you exaggerated your description of the problem.
 
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Tristar said:
I cannot venture so far as to say he can't be a pilot just yet. He's definitely a slow learner and has some challenges. I have talked to him a couple times about the sequencing and the forgetting being a problem. He understands where I'm coming from. It's odd that the last time he fumbled through radios but did fine getting through the emergency procedures even if they were out of order. Today he did okay on the radios but couldn't get through the emergencies, got so caught up in lining up for a field he'd forget everything else. I would ask him if he'd forgotten anything and he was able to tell me but didn't seem to fix it the next try. Every student is going to have issues but it's unusual to have 3 lessons on emergencies.
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As I said above, the only thing you really have to do is not sign him for solo until you feel sure he can safely fly by himself. Sounds like you're a long way from that assurance. The rest is just how you explain that to him.
 
A CFI on my field asked me to ride along with him on a new students' first ride using my doctor brain - not my older-than-dirt' pilot brain that I am so proud of... "and keep your trap shut."

The student was a fella in his early 60's... Had some 104 hours of flight training and had still not been signed off for a check ride... He believed all his previous CFI(s) had been milking him (seems he made a point of making sure everyone knew he had "money")

Anyway, the guy was pleasant, seemed mentally capable, and so after an hour and a half of mini ground school where he was able to recite the usual stuff that makes up ground school (I said nothing) we went flying...
The CFI wanted to measure him up and with 104 hours in the log did not feel he needed to do the first flight show and tell routine... So he asks the student to demonstrate a soft field takeoff... The guy promptly puts on full flaps and starts to enter the runway - the CFI aborts that...
OK, so we make a 180, do a bit of show and tell on how you match the flap travel to the aileron travel, etc... Talked about trim setting - yadda, yadda, usual stuff...
(I of course said nothing - the CFI said to me later that he thought at that point that the guy was right, he had been fleeced)
So we do a somewhat drunken version of a soft field takeoff... Then we go out and do some slow flight, a stall, a couple of steep turns... He handles the plane marginally at best, sloppy turns, no altitude control at all, and doesn't seem up to the 104 hours of dual he logged...
The CFI sits there with his arms folded and says lets go back and shoot a couple of landings...
First the guy does not know how to find the field (well, OK it is a strange field but it is right there almost dead ahead 5 miles - no situational awareness)... So we go through how you look on the chart, find the NDB frequency and dial it in...
Then the guy goes screaming across the field 500 feet off the ground and turns steeply onto a right hand base for the downwind runway! No downwind pattern entry, no checking the sock, and he flushed two airplanes out of the pattern like startled chickadees...
The CFI says "my airplane" takes it and makes the corrections, uses the radio to sooth some ruffled feathers, and lands... He tells the student to put the plane in the hangar... While that is going on he looks at me...

I shrug and say basically the same as above; there is a cognitive defect... He is smart and can memorize and recite abstract ideas, but he is the guy who walks out of the store without paying, turns left in front of oncoming traffic, in a social situation cuts other people off in mid speech, and can never find his car keys... Putting him into a solo airplane is a death sentence - for someone...

Some people cannot be allowed to fly...
 
bbchien said:
Hooboy, Tris. With LSA only you are on your own. No AME can help you out.

This doesn't sound like dyslexia. It sounds more fundamentally in the visual processing -->executive function.

The clinical psychs would have an expen$ive ball with this one....

What did he do to make his way through the world? Does he work with his hands? Is he in an office?
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It sounds exactly like my dad started 30 years ago.:(
 
Ron Levy said:
Thanks, but can we get confirmation (and perhaps some expansion, including aeromedical impact, prognosis, and treatment) of that from a real medical professional?
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Ron, most of these processing errors are PERMANENT, INBORN and the only reason some perople become operational is that they deveolp personality overlays that allow themto function. But the underlying defect is still there.

The fact that this guy is in midlife bodes badly for a personality overlay. Worse yet, the processor speed will be retarded by one more level of "workaround" processing in an already slowed processor.

I am not going to say ANTYHING that might be taken optimistically. I have seen these guys. I do teach, too.....remember?
 
bbchien said:
Ron, most of these processing errors are PERMANENT, INBORN and the only reason some perople become operational is that they deveolp personality overlays that allow themto function. But the underlying defect is still there.

The fact that this guy is in midlife bodes badly for a personality overlay. Worse yet, the processor speed will be retarded by one more level of "workaround" processing in an already slowed processor.

I am not going to say ANTYHING that might be taken optimistically. I have seen these guys. I do teach, too.....remember?
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I do remember, and that's why I wanted to hear it from you, an instructor and MD, not just Henning.
 
Dr. O said:
A CFI on my field asked me to ride along with him on a new students' first ride using my doctor brain - not my older-than-dirt' pilot brain that I am so proud of... "and keep your trap shut."

The student was a fella in his early 60's... Had some 104 hours of flight training and had still not been signed off for a check ride... He believed all his previous CFI(s) had been milking him (seems he made a point of making sure everyone knew he had "money")

Anyway, the guy was pleasant, seemed mentally capable, and so after an hour and a half of mini ground school where he was able to recite the usual stuff that makes up ground school (I said nothing) we went flying...
The CFI wanted to measure him up and with 104 hours in the log did not feel he needed to do the first flight show and tell routine... So he asks the student to demonstrate a soft field takeoff... The guy promptly puts on full flaps and starts to enter the runway - the CFI aborts that...
OK, so we make a 180, do a bit of show and tell on how you match the flap travel to the aileron travel, etc... Talked about trim setting - yadda, yadda, usual stuff...
(I of course said nothing - the CFI said to me later that he thought at that point that the guy was right, he had been fleeced)
So we do a somewhat drunken version of a soft field takeoff... Then we go out and do some slow flight, a stall, a couple of steep turns... He handles the plane marginally at best, sloppy turns, no altitude control at all, and doesn't seem up to the 104 hours of dual he logged...
The CFI sits there with his arms folded and says lets go back and shoot a couple of landings...
First the guy does not know how to find the field (well, OK it is a strange field but it is right there almost dead ahead 5 miles - no situational awareness)... So we go through how you look on the chart, find the NDB frequency and dial it in...
Then the guy goes screaming across the field 500 feet off the ground and turns steeply onto a right hand base for the downwind runway! No downwind pattern entry, no checking the sock, and he flushed two airplanes out of the pattern like startled chickadees...
The CFI says "my airplane" takes it and makes the corrections, uses the radio to sooth some ruffled feathers, and lands... He tells the student to put the plane in the hangar... While that is going on he looks at me...

I shrug and say basically the same as above; there is a cognitive defect... He is smart and can memorize and recite abstract ideas, but he is the guy who walks out of the store without paying, turns left in front of oncoming traffic, in a social situation cuts other people off in mid speech, and can never find his car keys... Putting him into a solo airplane is a death sentence - for someone...

Some people cannot be allowed to fly...
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The flip side of this is that some people's issues in MY OPINION are indeed caused by previous instruction. I had a guy pass with 200 hours in his logbook. He'd had 13 different instructors before I flew with him, and I think at some point in the past probably was completely capable of learning in less time. By the time I got to him I was having to sort out the good and bad that he'd learned from other instructors and frankly he was confused in some areas. He was able to pass the checkride shortly thereafter, rapidly got his tailwheel endorsement, and is now flying high-performance and complex aircraft.

Ryan
 
bbchien said:
Ron, most of these processing errors are PERMANENT, INBORN and the only reason some perople become operational is that they deveolp personality overlays that allow themto function. But the underlying defect is still there.

The fact that this guy is in midlife bodes badly for a personality overlay. Worse yet, the processor speed will be retarded by one more level of "workaround" processing in an already slowed processor.

I am not going to say ANTYHING that might be taken optimistically. I have seen these guys. I do teach, too.....remember?
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Of course we all have to keep in mind that we've only heard a short description of Tristan's impressions of the guy. With no intended disservice to her, there's a significant possibility that in a direct interaction with the student, Dr Bruce might form a completely different impression, and one with a much better outcome than what we have now. When we "diagnose" a condition on the internet based on a few second hand observations there's a strong tendency to add a lot of our own personal experiences with other people to our perception of the case at hand. I'd put a lot of faith in Bruce's opinion after he's spent time with the student in and out of an airplane but in my lay opinion there is insufficient information in this thread to develop an accurate assessment.
 
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