What was the most unpleasant part of training for you?

Jim Case

Jim Case

Pre-takeoff checklist
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AceDolphinFlyer
alrifht I've had the day off work today and am not flying untill tonight, so here goes thread #3.
As the tittle suggests, what made you the most uncomfortable, or even annoyed(in my case, it's not based on the instruction that was given) when learning. For me, I live in an inner city, I was asked, by at least 3 different students i attended ground school with, "do they drug test you for a private license" seriously!!:mad: If you are going to do an Illegal DRUG, durnig your training for one of the most Intellectually taxing and federally regulated fields of work, then I'd say that's demonstrating an insufficient level of reasoning skills. And you may want to rethink a commercial piloting career. That's my rant, how about you guys, I think it will be interesting to see how it differs according to generation and location.
 
Getting into a spin on my first power on stall attempt. I learned early in my training how to recover from a spin. Hated power on stalls after that but now they are no problem. More right rudder.
 
Anymouse said:
Paying the bill.
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Haha! I knew that would be the first Comment! I hear you though, is working two jobs and every cent is going towards food, gas, flying.
 
I had a great CFI-I for my instrument training -- one of the best I've ever had, really. That said, I could not stand being under the hood all the time. We were able to get some actual IMC during my training, which I liked (and still do like) a lot more.
 
When I was a primary student? Weather cancellations. Especially for "excessive wind" that wasn't really excessive.
 
MAKG1 said:
When I was a primary student? Weather cancellations. Especially for "excessive wind" that wasn't really excessive.
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Only had one weather cancellation durning my training for my private, and they Said they couldn't put the money I paid towards my next lesson.effectively just taking near $300 dollars of my money for nothing. Called the head instructor of the flight school up and we sorted that out Lickety split.
 
I also didn't care so much for the idea of carborator icing, though I never had any serious issues with that.
 
Jim Case said:
Only had one weather cancellation durning my training for my private, and they Said they couldn't put the money I paid towards my next lesson.effectively just taking near $300 dollars of my money for nothing. Called the head instructor of the flight school up and we sorted that out Lickety split.
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Ooh, that sucks. I never had to pay for a weather cancellation. Or pretty much any cancellation as long as I was reasonable about it. Even if there was some Hobbs time involved (e.g., the latest cancellation I did was a rejected takeoff when a 172 wouldn't make more than 2200 RPM at the start of the takeoff roll -- so I taxied it back in and grounded it, and was not charged for the 0.2 hours Hobbs time for a full length taxi and run-up.).

IMO, it's a bad idea to charge pilots for good ADM.
 
MAKG1 said:
Ooh, that sucks. I never had to pay for a weather cancellation. Or pretty much any cancellation as long as I was reasonable about it. Even if there was some Hobbs time involved (e.g., the latest cancellation I did was a rejected takeoff when a 172 wouldn't make more than 2200 RPM at the start of the takeoff roll -- so I taxied it back in and grounded it, and was not charged for the 0.2 hours Hobbs time for a full length taxi and run-up.).

IMO, it's a bad idea to charge pilots for good ADM.
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I agree, and I didn't have pay for it either, some dingus at the airport mearly suggested that i would have to, I called up my CFI and he sorted it all out.
 
MAKG1 said:
Ooh, that sucks. I never had to pay for a weather cancellation. Or pretty much any cancellation as long as I was reasonable about it. Even if there was some Hobbs time involved (e.g., the latest cancellation I did was a rejected takeoff when a 172 wouldn't make more than 2200 RPM at the start of the takeoff roll -- so I taxied it back in and grounded it, and was not charged for the 0.2 hours Hobbs time for a full length taxi and run-up.).

IMO, it's a bad idea to charge pilots for good ADM.
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I actually should ask real quick, you are referring to "AERONAUTICAL DECISION MAKING" when you refer to "ADM" correct? Or might that be another Acronym I've not heard?
 
OEI procedures during ME training. Completely shutting down the engine for the first time was a little freaky.
 
I learned so long ago but it was probably having to go when it was freezing cold and use the unheated outhouse, a 16 minute walk (or run) each way. :eek:

is
 
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MAKG1 said:
Yes. A safety decision to cancel a flight should never be penalized, IMO.
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Yeah I agree, especially in the case of aircraft issues, what are you gonna do? I wouldn't go 20,000 feet in the air in a plane if I knew something wasn't right.
 
SkyDog58 said:
What was most unpleasant? Hard to say what was most unpleasant when none of it was really unpleasant.
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Great attitude man! I love it, flying wise my first couple power on stalls were rough, just as Romeo mentioned. My dad is a freighter pilot however, and he had prepared me for everything I'd be facing and still critics me when we fly together, which we do a lot. So it was mostly just a few of the other students, some of which had no chance of ever being trustworthy pilots( not being rude, but really there were some really bad students) that made me unhappy.
 
Hood for me, not that it was unpleasant. I just felt jipped that I didn't get to see the view on those flights
 
Doing unusual attitudes for the first time.... my instructor enjoyed doing them WAYYYYY too much lol.
 
farmerbrake said:
Doing unusual attitudes for the first time.... my instructor enjoyed doing them WAYYYYY too much lol.
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Yeah, I remember this, and likewise my CFI had a good time seeing just how I would react when he told me to do something that made me a little nervous! He was a great instructor though, never asked me to do anything he knew i wasn't ready for, boosted my confidence by going just as in depth about what i did right,and criticed my mistakes very fairly. Took me till my third instructor though. The first moved away, second never let me touch the controls, I'd get like 10 minutes of hands on instructor per 2 hour flight that I payed for!
 
Scheduling has ALWAYS been the downer for me. Whether it was my own work/fun schedule, aircraft going down for maintenance, rentals that other people had booked, instructor gets sick or has a student that has to "go first" because they have a checkride in the next couple of days, waiting on the FSDO to assign a DPE to my CFI ride, scheduling difficulties with DPEs...

Just a long list of totally annoying scheduling conflicts and problems... and no matter which rating or training I've done, there's always been SOMETHING outside of everyone's control that screwed the "plan" all up.

Out of all of it, scheduling going wrong was always the thing that just totally annoyed the holy hell out of me. Still does.

I'm smart enough to know it's inevitable, but I privately seethe whenever it happens. I never take it out on instructors or flight clubs or DPEs or anyone who is involved, because you can see how hard they all work to NOT have it happen.

"The whatcha-ma-dingus broke on the airplane yesterday, and we'll have to reschedule..." just makes my blood privately boil. But as an aircraft owner I know *exactly* how often and why that happens. It just does. Weather? Never really bothered me much -- a little but not like the menial "on the ground" stuff that grounds airplanes and humans. Gah!

I also just have particularly bad luck in this regard and I think it surprises CFIs when I just sigh and say, "No worries. **** happens."

Private, it was aircraft scheduling and then my CFI came down with cancer. He recovered fully. But that was a big break.

Instrument it was insane winds on the day of the checkride and work schedule that literally postponed the checkride from December until May.

Multi Commerical, it was the ^+^%?|£ Sandel HSI. Plus CFI got sick for a week or so, I had to travel a bit, other students got in the way on the schedule after I fell out of my allotted slot(s), and other stuff.

CFI it was the Sandel a little, then FSDO scheduling at first, re-ride scheduling second, (each took an extra month), and amazingly only a little weather.

Who knows what schedule buster is next, but if it's out there, I'll certainly run into it.
 
Learning crosswind correction for landings was most frustrating. Once I got it, I loved it. Problem was I was using both crab and bank methods at the same time! By the 3rd lesson I figured it out (instructor said "I don't know how to fix what you're doing"...he was frustrated too).

Stalls were the other thing. Getting out of a stall was super easy...what I could not hammer into my skull were the proper steps to set up the stall in preparation for the recovery demonstration. They should have instructors stall the plane by surprise and ask the student to recover (just like the engine out drill, surprise!).
 
Coffee helps a bit In the morning, if only for a few hours
 
455 Bravo Uniform said:
Stalls were the other thing. Getting out of a stall was super easy...what I could not hammer into my skull were the proper steps to set up the stall in preparation for the recovery demonstration. They should have instructors stall the plane by surprise and ask the student to recover (just like the engine out drill, surprise!).
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I think too many people turn maneuver setup into a PhD thesis.

Would it have worked better for you if the instructor said "set the airplane up in a landing configuration with flaps" for the power off stalls, and "set the airplane up in takeoff configuration" for the power on stalls? And then ran the usual pre-landing flow or the pre-takeoff flow?

After that it's just entry airspeed that should be thought about. For landing configuration just start from a typical approach speed. For takeoff, start at Vy or Vx. (And for power on in higher performance aircraft thinking about not using full power just to keep the deck angle somewhat reasonable if the student isn't ready for that yet.)

Have any trouble remembering those configurations? Would that have been a smarter way to describe it for you?
 
Marginally competent instructors
Incompetent instructors
Instructors merely booking hours until they can get a better flying job
Really good instructors who leave too soon because they got a really good flying job
Really good instructors who leave for a different career because flying doesn't pay enough
 
What was the most unpleasant part of training for you?
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Flight Planning.

Stalls, VORs, Radio Communications all of that was easy peasy for me but Flight Planning has been rough. I think it is the bringing together of a lot of different concepts that makes it difficult...for me anyway.
 
Autorotations to the ground. Bit unpleasant at first but after a dozen or so, they become routine.
 
RobertSubnet said:
Flight Planning.

Stalls, VORs, Radio Communications all of that was easy peasy for me but Flight Planning has been rough. I think it is the bringing together of a lot of different concepts that makes it difficult...for me anyway.
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Hmm.. I love flight planning. I always change it up when I practice fly. Different for everyone I guess
 
Velocity173 said:
Autorotations to the ground. Bit unpleasant at first but after a dozen or so, they become routine.
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You a helicopter guy? I have a huge respect for heli cats but have always been an airplane guy myself.
 
Jim Case said:
You a helicopter guy? I have a huge respect for heli cats but have always been an airplane guy myself.
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I am but I'm an airplane owner also. Helicopters are good for sheer fun and functionality but for traveling purposes, they suck.:D
 
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