Accelerate your training and save $$$

[Colonel Sanders]

This is a simple technique to accelerate
your training and it will save you $$$
because you will spend less very expensive
time in the airplane reviewing stuff.

After every flight, sit down at your laptop
or pad and type in a summary note of
the lesson:

- what you did
- how you did it (airspeed, flap, RPM, etc)
- flight test tolerances
- your errors
- how to fix your errors

then email it off to your astounded instructor,
ask him to review it for correctness and send
it back to you, for you to review it again.

I might suggest that after you type in your
notes for a lesson, you re-read the chapter
in the FTM for that exercise.

I know that there are people that think that
it's just a fact of life that you need to spend
80TT on a PPL, but that's just not true. All
too often, I see people struggling with their
mistakes - they spend hours, flying steep
turns badly. All they need is 5 minutes
of good instruction to correct it.

I was reading a pilot on redditt a few months
back, did his flight test. Couldn't center the
ball. This is completely wrong, but in 5 minutes
his examiner (a highly experienced instructor)
taught him how to keep the ball centered.

Figure out what you are doing.

Figure out what you are doing wrong.

Figure out how to fix this.

The above is not rocket science, you would think,
but regardless, don't spend 80 hours practicing
your mistakes. I see people doing that all the
time. Going around and around in the circuit
and making the same mistakes each time.

They don't learn from their experience. Try
hard to.

[PilotDAR]

there are people that think that
it's just a fact of life that you need to spend
80TT on a PPL, but that's just not true

Ah, but it is true, though as CS points out, some of this time could be a student's devoted post flight review, instead of actual flying time. We are not trying to avoid learning, we're trying to make the learning effective and comprehensive. Flight training, can, in some cases, be effective on the ground too.

[Pop n Fresh]

- what you did
Reviewed stuff I knew but should do every week or month instead of every year.
- how you did it (airspeed, flap, RPM, etc)
Sloppy side of close to right.
- flight test tolerances
Almost.
- your errors
Got married. Trying to hard figure out what the instructor wants to see instead of just flying the plane.
- how to fix your errors
Fly more. ( open a new non-joint bank account. )

[jump154]

+1, although mine was hand written in a book. Slacked off on that after getting license, but need to restart it. Learn something new every flight - and need more dicipline with standards (+- 50' etc.)

[Shiny Side Up]

That's crazy Colonel. When's a student supposed to find time for that in their busy schedule? Taking notes? What for? If I'm paying an instructor and school as much as I am, I expect that it should be of such quality that I shouldn't need to spend extra time on lessons of my own. At a good school you should be able to show up, get into the plane as quickly as possible and when you're done, get back to your life. The most important thing about finding a good school or instructor to fly with is how well they mesh with your own schedule. Get with the times.

[Colonel Sanders]

[Ki-ll]

Training?
I still do it after every day at work.

[davecessna]

Or, instead of all that horse hooey that probably took all of 45 minutes to type:

1) Pretend you are a Chinese national student.
2) Go to Cargair at St-Hubert airport.
3) Embark on a night VFR cross-country from St-Hubert, to Rockcliffe, to Peterborough.
4) On the Rockcliffe/Peterborough leg, make calls every 15 seconds on 126.7. Announce you are "GERF-CHURLIE-COCO-URN-FIRM" and you are urty miles south of Smith Falls. Ensure that everyone in a 200 mile radius thinks you are simultaneously south of smith falls, east of Montreal and overhead Kingston @ every altitude below FL600.
5) Right seat on a 747.

[white_knuckle_flyer]

One of the biggest factors in my PPL taking too long was that my instructor had a full-time job outside of instructing. I started in early May. I was home everyday at 3:30 and available every weekend. As a teacher, I was full-time ready to go from the end of June to the start of September. I thought I would be able to get my license that summer. But my instructor was really only available 3 days per week and weather cancelled us probably 20% of the time. Add to that the Air Cadets who pretty much kill off the month of July and early August and I was only halfway through my training by the time Sept rolled around.

For my night rating, I was with a young instructor whom I meshed with equally well and he was available pretty much 24/7. I have no doubt in my mind that I would have knocked at least 10 hours off if I had done my PPL with this second instructor.

[Shiny Side Up]

Sorry, what? I didn't get past how hot Penny is.

Either way, I forgot to add that you don't need to take notes if you've been dreaming of flying since before you were born, and its been your lifelong dream second only to being a golf pro and how you're going to be awesome at it since you had airplanes on your pajamas when you were three. Also the time you went for an airplane ride once before the pilot said you were a natural after only ten seconds of stick time but no rudders since you couldn't reach them. Did I mention that anyone who really, really, really wants it, just gets it because they will it to be? Besides I'm going to buy a PCAS, a GPS and a big watch so I'm going to be safe regardless of the instructor when I'm done, so lets get those hours in. Its just doing hours right? Since I'm going to be awesome, lets do like eight a day. Just break for fuel. Bang this off in a week.

[looproll]

Practice makes perfect? No. Correct practice makes perfect!

[Colonel Sanders]

PS If there's any doubt in your mind,
yes, they're store bought.

BTW I don't even own a watch, and I
use the GPS in my phone.

[JungianJugular]

Being aware of what mistakes you've made in any venture and understanding what to do or learning from others in order to prevent them from happening again is always a step in the right direction. Running it by your instructor, to whom you pay many dollars for his/her services, is a proactive practice. In my time building towards the CPL and flight training, I critique the hell out of myself after every flight. Don't give a shit about the positives. There's always room to improve, no matter how much you know or how good you are.

[Colonel Sanders]

Look at it this way:

You can log ten hours of enjoyable
flight time with your buddy the
flight instructor, spend a lot of
money sightseeing, and not learn
very much. This pretty much describes
most civilian flight training.

Or you can bust your @ss and
do ten one hour flights which you
prepare for and debrief intensely,
at the end of which you are a hell
of a lot better pilot.

Your choice.

I had a sharp young man come to
me - he had just bought a single
seat Pitts. Had only flown Citabria.

His insurance required 5 hours dual,
which most people might think was
pretty minimal, given how slack most
civilian flight training is.

After five one hour flights in the S-2B
I sent him solo in his S-1S and he did
just fine. I worked him pretty hard with
intense and detailed post-flight debriefing.

Your choice, with your time and money.

[MattW]

This is a simple technique to accelerate
your training and it will save you $$$
because you will spend less very expensive
time in the airplane reviewing stuff.

After every flight, sit down at your laptop
or pad and type in a summary note of
the lesson:

- what you did
- how you did it (airspeed, flap, RPM, etc)
- flight test tolerances
- your errors
- how to fix your errors

then email it off to your astounded instructor,
ask him to review it for correctness and send
it back to you, for you to review it again.

I might suggest that after you type in your
notes for a lesson, you re-read the chapter
in the FTM for that exercise.

I know that there are people that think that
it's just a fact of life that you need to spend
80TT on a PPL, but that's just not true. All
too often, I see people struggling with their
mistakes - they spend hours, flying steep
turns badly. All they need is 5 minutes
of good instruction to correct it.

I was reading a pilot on redditt a few months
back, did his flight test. Couldn't center the
ball. This is completely wrong, but in 5 minutes
his examiner (a highly experienced instructor)
taught him how to keep the ball centered.

Figure out what you are doing.

Figure out what you are doing wrong.

Figure out how to fix this.

The above is not rocket science, you would think,
but regardless, don't spend 80 hours practicing
your mistakes. I see people doing that all the
time. Going around and around in the circuit
and making the same mistakes each time.

They don't learn from their experience. Try
hard to.

Thank-you for this idea. I had been doing most of this but hadn't thought of typing it out and e-mailing it to my instructor.

[imac0960]

Reading and understanding the FTM will save you lots of money in the long run. You need correct practice. I dislike instructors who just say, " that's not it. Try it again" Tell people what they are doing wrong so they can correct it!!!

[davecessna]

Reading and understanding the FTM will save you lots of money in the long run. You need correct practice. I dislike instructors who just say, " that's not it. Try it again" Tell people what they are doing wrong so they can correct it!!!

You should know how to perform maneuvers before you take off to practice them. Not knowing what the mistake was means you either don't know the maneuver or you weren't paying attention.

[Colonel Sanders]

That sounds good, but sometimes there's
a bit of technique involved which takes some
practice to develop. At least for some exercises.

For example, if you give a pilot with 4 hours
of dual some PGI on landing, would he be able
to land an airplane during the ensuing flight
lesson?

[davecessna]

I don't follow you. I'm saying if you then go up and practice, post PGI, and you make the same mistakes you did on the next flight, the instructor should not have to say, "you're doing X wrong." Steep turns, for example. Rolling out on the correct heading in a right turn when you are seated on the left is generally tougher than a left turn. Maintaining altitude, controlling airspeed, coordinating the turn. All that stuff is in the happy purple book of learnding.

I like the "what did you do wrong" approach. That forces the gears to start cranking out better practices.

[PilotDAR]

You should know how to perform maneuvers before you take off to practice them. Not knowing what the mistake was means you either don't know the maneuver or you weren't paying attention.

Yes but, you might not know what it feels like, or looks like to perform the maneuver before you take off. You can "know" lots, but if you cannot equate it to the feel and sight picture, you need the practice.

Knowing the "mistake" could be just aligning your textbook knowledge with the feel and see of it. During those times, a good instructor will keep you safe, and inspire imprrved technique or performance, when you are capable of absorbing the additional information.

I can think of many occasions during my helicopter training when I knew what I should be doing, and how it should work out, but I was having trouble. I needed more practice doing it. Indeed, there were times when I told the instructor to just let me practice without comment, unless I was approaching danger unaware.