fifty reasons to find a new instructor

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Zaibatsu
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Re: fifty reasons to find a new instructor

Post by Zaibatsu »

Most of these so called reasons are a lack of communication between student and instructors. Either the instructor not stating it clearly or more likely the student not listening.

Approach and landing. The instructor will say that 1500 RPM is a good place to start for setting up the approach from downwind. The student hears that the instructor wants nothing other than 1500 RPM and starts complaining to everyone else except the person who didn’t even say that.

Another one is looking to the end of the runway on landing. The instructor will say to look for the stationary part of the runway, and when that runway begins rushing out at you shift your gaze to the far end of the runway and begin the round out. Then some old fart says that new instructors teach students to judge height above the runway by looking at the far end of it based on 2nd hand information from a student who wasn’t listening in the first place.

The other side is instructors who don’t realize what they are saying. That’s why a good Class 1 will take being literal to the Nth degree. I kept on saying increase back pressure and my Class 1 sat taller and pushed back in his seat. Then I said raise the nose and he started looking up. Just a small preparation for what students would throw at me when I started instructing if my instructions weren’t absolutely clear.
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photofly
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Re: fifty reasons to find a new instructor

Post by photofly »

If you tell your Class 1 instructor to increase back pressure and he "sits taller and pushes back in his seat"... maybe it's time to find a new Class 1 instructor? :D
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Squaretail
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Re: fifty reasons to find a new instructor

Post by Squaretail »

photofly wrote: Mon Oct 21, 2019 1:19 pm If you tell your Class 1 instructor to increase back pressure and he "sits taller and pushes back in his seat"... maybe it's time to find a new Class 1 instructor? :D
Possibly my favorite part of doing class 1 work. ;) Of note one of the more challenging things to do is purposefully screw stuff up, in a specific manner, when I'm playing "stupid student".
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photofly
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Re: fifty reasons to find a new instructor

Post by photofly »

It's not hard to fly badly, but it's really hard to fly badly in the style of someone who never learned to fly. It's just like driving.
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youhavecontrol
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Re: fifty reasons to find a new instructor

Post by youhavecontrol »

photofly wrote: Sun Oct 20, 2019 12:36 pm
youhavecontrol wrote: Sun Oct 20, 2019 6:43 am -cannot explain properly why you need rudder when rolling
Going to guess that's about 99.4% of instructors; the rest have a graduate level qualification in aerodynamics. Why is the "proper" explanation so important, anyway?
teaches you a fixed power setting for the entire base/final phase of approach
Well I guess that's . out of the window then; he likes throttle fixed at idle.
digits_ wrote: Sun Oct 20, 2019 11:24 am What's wrong with flying around a known landmark while you set up for a diversion on a PPL level?
I think the objection is to calling it a "holding pattern". I'm not sure why that's a sacking offence, though.
The proper explanation of why you need rudder when rolling helps the student to understand that the stronger the roll, the more rudder they typically need. Also, then you finish rolling to the attitude you desire, the rudder usually can now relax because the aileron inputs are decreased. Without explaining that to the student, you'll find some absolutely awful rudder use during steeper turns.

Obviously the power-off approach has its place, but getting a student to fixate on a 'standard' power setting can be seriously weaken their ability to judge what is an appropriate power setting to use based on wind, traffic, configuration, etc... I've often seen students default to a 'standard' power setting when they haven't been taught how to judge an approach. "This landmark, This power setting, Turn here, This flaps..." can create a frustrating template to break in a dynamic environment.

Lastly, a holding pattern around a fixed object during a diversion is a bad idea even at a beginner level because of several reasons: Real diversions are typically done in a timely matter and flying in circles is a waste of time. Flying low in a circular pattern (sometimes at a low energy state) with your head in the cockpit doing calculations is plain dangerous. If you know where you are, and you know roughly where you want to go, pick a landmark ahead of you in that direction and do all your planning based on it. You can do most of the planning on the way to it and the radio calls and whatnot en-route. Lastly, the flight test guide itself has been amended both PPL and CPL to say, "The candidate is expected to initiate the diversion without undue delay by quickly determining a track to follow, an approximate heading and an approximate time enroute to avoid the need to loiter in a holding pattern."

I wrote what I did, mostly as a joke (none of them are really worth firing if they can be corrected, and I've helped a lot of instructors I've supervised with these issues). My writing was a reflection of what I've encountered in the past during my 4 years as a Class 2 and Nav Prog examiner. I've had to coach my fair share of instructors
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Re: fifty reasons to find a new instructor

Post by trey kule »

Possibly my favorite part of doing class 1 work. ;) Of note one of the more challenging things to do is purposefully screw stuff up, in a specific manner, when I'm playing "stupid student".
Playing ‘stupid student’. Or......stupid silly class 1.

Sometimes the perception is not the same as the students perception...
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Re: fifty reasons to find a new instructor

Post by Squaretail »

Sometimes the perception is not the same as the students perception...
Uh, sure thing Trey.

Personally I like to prepare the instructors I train with how to deal with less than ideal students. In the worst case scenario, it means I have to make sure they know when something has gone wrong, or to know that they have made an error and correct it. Instructors will be human and make mistakes, I like to try and prepare them as best as possible to survive those instances.

For instance, students can be incredibly literal minded. They will do exactly as you as the instructor say, so choose your words carefully when demonstrating, or coaching. Its better they learn from some of my "silliness" than their future student's seriousness, if you catch my meaning.
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lownslow
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Re: fifty reasons to find a new instructor

Post by lownslow »

I had managed to block it from my memory until this thread, but, flat turns. The idea was that in a banked turn you were wasting lift to the inside of the turn so for best performance you want to keep the wings level, especially at low speeds. I’m told it took a fair bit of opposite aileron to keep the wings flat on the mighty 150 but this was supposedly the best way to do tight turns for sightseeing especially at low altitude. I flew with someone else after hearing that nugget.
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Big Pistons Forever
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Re: fifty reasons to find a new instructor

Post by Big Pistons Forever »

photofly wrote: Tue Oct 22, 2019 11:07 am It's not hard to fly badly, but it's really hard to fly badly in the style of someone who never learned to fly. It's just like driving.
This is indeed the challenge for Class 1’s. The point is not to fly badly it is to demonstrate common errors. This requires planning and should be part of the inflight lesson plan for each instructor training flight. For example when pretending to be a student practicing straight and level I will put too much down trim. I will do an good job of holding the cruise attitude except when the “Instructor” is talking to me which is when I relax my hands on the wheel allowing the nose to pitch down. I will then challenge the instructor student to analyze what is happening

I have a recipe of standard student errors for every air exercise

However I think the “sitting taller in the seat” thing is just being a dick. In 30 years of instructing I have never seen a PPL that clueless.
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Last edited by Big Pistons Forever on Wed Oct 23, 2019 7:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: fifty reasons to find a new instructor

Post by Squaretail »

Big Pistons Forever wrote: Wed Oct 23, 2019 7:45 pm However I think the “sitting taller in the seat” thing is just being a dick.
I assumed photofly was making an attempt at humor to illustrate a point. The point being that wording is important when it comes to giving demonstrations. For example, I find the most common error the instructor/student will make will mistaken use of the words push or pull. As an instructor, you can't say "push the nose up". While most students may figure it out, not all of them will, because when they hear push, guess what they are going to do. And that's just one of a multitude of possible instructions the prospective student may find ambiguous.
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trey kule
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Re: fifty reasons to find a new instructor

Post by trey kule »

In 50 plus years of flying I have never ever heard anyone, (while flying, ) say, push the nose up.
Can’t even fathom why someone would say that.
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Re: fifty reasons to find a new instructor

Post by Squaretail »

trey kule wrote: Wed Oct 23, 2019 9:03 pm In 50 plus years of flying I have never ever heard anyone, (while flying, ) say, push the nose up.
Can’t even fathom why someone would say that.
Who knows why anyone says anything Trey? How many class 4 instructors have you trained in all that flying?

Personally I've come to learn in this world that if things are possible, they're also probable if you have enough samples. I also don't know why people say "any conflicting please advise". But they do.
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Re: fifty reasons to find a new instructor

Post by trey kule »

I have trained zero class 4s. But have flown with hundreds of pilots in my career, including student pilots....
How many times have you actually heard someone say “ push the nose up”. .?
Be honest now.


I do know why people say “ conflicting please advise. It is a carry over from the past, but I can sense that if I went further, it would derail the thread....not that any previous avcanada thread ever drifted off topic.
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Re: fifty reasons to find a new instructor

Post by Squaretail »

trey kule wrote: Thu Oct 24, 2019 8:03 am
Be honest now.
First, its good we're finally clear that you think I'm just full of shit. But say a dozen times or so? I didn't keep track. It was meant to illustrate that when someone is first learning how to demonstrate or coach, which aren't easy things to do, they say things they perhaps didn't mean to or didn't think through. Its one thing being able to fly the airplane well, its more difficult to give a play by play of what you're doing while you're doing it. Do you need a list of all the weird things student/instructors have said over the years?
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Re: fifty reasons to find a new instructor

Post by Beefitarian »

Here's one. "Any conflicting traffic please advise." Is being taught as proper radio proceedure by real life instructors. I am not joking.

Some of these instructors are excellent in my opinion.

The phrase makes sense to them as a way to get other pilots to fess up that they were planning to sneak up on them.
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Re: fifty reasons to find a new instructor

Post by 5x5 »

Beefitarian wrote: Thu Oct 24, 2019 10:38 am Here's one. "Any conflicting traffic please advise." Is being taught as proper radio procedure by real life instructors. I am not joking.

Some of these instructors are excellent in my opinion.
An Instructor that actively teaches students to say that simply cannot be considered as excellent.
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Re: fifty reasons to find a new instructor

Post by Beefitarian »

Meh. I suppose they might be kind of terrible if all you wanted is talking on the radio lessons.

It's a procedure they are told to follow.

I suspect that school is not the only one.
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Re: fifty reasons to find a new instructor

Post by C.W.E. »

It's a procedure they are told to follow.
Told to follow by who?
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Re: fifty reasons to find a new instructor

Post by Beefitarian »

I didn't ask.
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photofly
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Re: fifty reasons to find a new instructor

Post by photofly »

5x5 wrote: Thu Oct 24, 2019 1:24 pm
An Instructor that actively teaches students to say that simply cannot be considered as excellent.
Wow.

We need a new thread: "an instructor cannot be considered excellent if they manifest this one single flaw..."
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