"FTU'isms"

[flyinthebug]

Agreed costermonger. I realize it would be a small percentage of people that see instructing as a career, but off the top of my head I can think of about 5 people that made it their career (and have no regrets) even at today`s current rate of pay. If we make it a more attractive career choice, it could work well for people like me that prefer(ed) to be home every night. Besides, some of these new singles are alot of fun to fly (i.e. DA20) and if you throw some multi ratings in a decent little twin, im sure instructing could be a fun career.

As you said though... if you have the desire for the "big tin" in your blood, instructing, regardless of the amount you are paid wont fufill you in any way.

[Instructor_Mike]

As you said though... if you have the desire for the "big tin" in your blood, instructing, regardless of the amount you are paid wont fufill you in any way.

Yes and No.

I'll admit that I'm using instructing as a stepping stone, but I do enjoy it too. I'm still a young pup with only 900 hours but I could see myself retiring to being a part time instructor or if I lose my medical a sim/ground school instructor. That said, I do want to move on to bigger birds and something different.

For me, I can judge out how my day is going to be based on my schedule. When I'm with students that study and will put in the effort, instructing is fun (minus hands off the controls). When I have slow students that either have language troubles, lots of mental blocks etc, it becomes dreadful. I'm not saying other types of flying can't be like if say you have a annoying customer, crappy aircraft or shotty runway to land on but I've not experienced that so maybe I'm having a bit of "grass is greener"

[Colonel Sanders]

I'm using instructing as a stepping stone

Probably 90% (maybe more) of instructors do it
to build time, and move on as fast as they can.
That's reality, and it's ok, as long as you do a
good job of it.

[Shiny Side Up]

I'm using instructing as a stepping stone

Probably 90% (maybe more) of instructors do it
to build time, and move on as fast as they can.
That's reality, and it's ok, as long as you do a
good job of it.

The funny thing is though, no one else maligns other pilots from doing the same thing in other positions. I hate to say it but there are guys doing crappy jobs flying beavers, navajos, and filling lots of right seats, who aren't doing a stellar job and are using their current position as a stepping stone, but we don't heap shit on them. If anything, they will be maligned as a bad instructor their whole career rather than a bad float driver or a bad navajo driver. "Instructor" is part of that insult. This is somewhat of a unique trend to Canada. I have run into guys who were instructors overseas who have remarked upon this, and one only needs to take a trip south of the border to see a different world in this regard.

As you said though... if you have the desire for the "big tin" in your blood, instructing, regardless of the amount you are paid wont fufill you in any way.

This is part of reason we'll never be able to have a large ammount of experienced pilots instructing. Many pilots you couldn't pay them enough to do it. Part of that though is that in general, instructing is a pretty crappy job, even if the issues of pay could be sorted out. Ab initio especially, even career instructors try to move away from this as it wears out all but the most dedicated individuals. You can't really expect many to do this for any real length of time, by necessity it requires fresh meat on a constant basis.

When I have slow students that either have language troubles, lots of mental blocks etc, it becomes dreadful.

Having students that present a challenge is can be a good thing or a bad thing, Depending on what the challenge is. Budd illustrates well with this article what too often happens and its a shame that we (as the aviation whole) too often spend the good instructors this way.

[LousyFisherman]

Back to FTUisms

The SYTs (Sweet Young Things) and young bucks who can't accept that their older students may actually know more about engines, science and weather than they do.

Being "taught" aviation navigation after doing sailing navigation since age 10 was especially painful.

This was at the school lurch refered to.

LF

[Taco Joe]

Back to FTUisms

The SYTs (Sweet Young Things) and young bucks who can't accept that their older students may actually know more about engines, science and weather than they do.

Being "taught" aviation navigation after doing sailing navigation since age 10 was especially painful.

This was at the school lurch refered to.

LF

On the flip side, you also get older students that know jack and will dismiss the young bucks and SYTs (happens occassionally with employers too).

[Cessna driver]

Back to FTUisms

The SYTs (Sweet Young Things) and young bucks who can't accept that their older students may actually know more about engines, science and weather than they do.

Being "taught" aviation navigation after doing sailing navigation since age 10 was especially painful.

This was at the school lurch refered to.

LF

On the flip side, you also get older students that know jack and will dismiss the young bucks and SYTs (happens occassionally with employers too).

True that. I had a student that I was always wrong because he was a professor....finally one day he gave up and said I was right and started listening to me.

[dr.aero]

The funny thing is though, no one else maligns other pilots from doing the same thing in other positions. I hate to say it but there are guys doing crappy jobs flying beavers, navajos, and filling lots of right seats, who aren't doing a stellar job and are using their current position as a stepping stone, but we don't heap shit on them. If anything, they will be maligned as a bad instructor their whole career rather than a bad float driver or a bad navajo driver. "Instructor" is part of that insult. This is somewhat of a unique trend to Canada. I have run into guys who were instructors overseas who have remarked upon this, and one only needs to take a trip south of the border to see a different world in this regard.

Spot on, IMO. There are lots of pilots who fly as FOs and Captains that are shitty at their job, not just instructors.

As for FTU'isms: I really don't consider calling 'airspeed alive' an FTU'ism. When all the airlines I know of are doing it, shouldn't it be called an airline'ism? What's so wrong with calling 'airspeed alive'? If your head is inside watching the airspeed indicator wind up I think that would be a problem but you don't need to do that. Hopefully you're not struggling so much to control the airplane that you don't have enough brain power left to glance inside once at your airspeed indicator!

[niss]

[Son_of_dad]

"Watch the Flash" - when asking for sqwak codes
"dropping the anchor" - when asked to slow down

Stupid

[Tim]

The vast majority of "SOPs" at FTUs arent true SOPs at all, they are a list of things you aren't allowed to do. The list gets bigger and bigger over time. Every time there is an incident the thing that was deemed to contribute to that incident is banned. Instead of teaching people the "WHY" part of an incident, the FTUs generally just say "if we ban that, we won't have any more cases of that incident." IMO that makes for a less skilled and less knowledgeable pilot.

An example that comes to mind: when I instructed I would often waive wake turbulence provided I could get an early turn-out. I would talk to the student about it, making sure to point out that where the other aircraft rotated is the key factor. IMO that made my students think more and, to me anyways, that made them better pilots. The result was someone in management heard me do it one day and decided to have the safety officer call me into his office for a meeting.

[CpnCrunch]

An example that comes to mind: when I instructed I would often waive wake turbulence provided I could get an early turn-out. I would talk to the student about it, making sure to point out that where the other aircraft rotated is the key factor. IMO that made my students think more and, to me anyways, that made them better pilots. The result was someone in management heard me do it one day and decided to have the safety officer call me into his office for a meeting.

Would it not be a problem if you had to go around?

[Tim]

An example that comes to mind: when I instructed I would often waive wake turbulence provided I could get an early turn-out. I would talk to the student about it, making sure to point out that where the other aircraft rotated is the key factor. IMO that made my students think more and, to me anyways, that made them better pilots. The result was someone in management heard me do it one day and decided to have the safety officer call me into his office for a meeting.

Would it not be a problem if you had to go around?

I'm not sure exactly what you mean?

[trey kule]

.....sounds like the talk with the Safety officer did not get the message across..to bad, as now your students might try this with me on board on a check ride..Fail the ride, and be subject to a little chat about why ATC has wake turbulence advisories....and they would , it seems, truthfully say...."my instructor told me it was oK...it was all about where the departing aircraft rotated..he did not say anything about how the wind might blow the vortices back a bit further'

It seems you might be a good candidate for an upset recovery course. I always wondered about those who had to take this course rather than just understand wake vortices and avoid them like a case of herpes..

[Koalemos]

An example that comes to mind: when I instructed I would often waive wake turbulence provided I could get an early turn-out. I would talk to the student about it, making sure to point out that where the other aircraft rotated is the key factor. IMO that made my students think more and, to me anyways, that made them better pilots. The result was someone in management heard me do it one day and decided to have the safety officer call me into his office for a meeting.

Would it not be a problem if you had to go around?

I believe that Tim was referring to taking off and the wake turbulence from a departed aircraft. Rotating prior to that a/c and turning out early would keep him above the wake turbulence.

Its definitely something that students should be taught and made aware of. A lot of times ATC will clear a light to take off behind a medium, and give them a wake turbulence caution from a departed aircraft. I'm sure a lot of students hear the clearance to depart and don't really hear/process the rest, or apply the current weather conditions to the situation.

[Jack In The Box]

Nice picture Niss!!

For those arguing that you do a cross check to ensure a pilot's not incapacitated during the takeoff roll...I guarantee you, you will not be rejecting a fully loaded Ho' or King Air in Pukatawagan just because your copilot is not responding

unless you also wish to die....

[costermonger]

This is part of reason we'll never be able to have a large ammount of experienced pilots instructing. Many pilots you couldn't pay them enough to do it. Part of that though is that in general, instructing is a pretty crappy job, even if the issues of pay could be sorted out. Ab initio especially, even career instructors try to move away from this as it wears out all but the most dedicated individuals. You can't really expect many to do this for any real length of time, by necessity it requires fresh meat on a constant basis.

Ab initio instructing manages to be simultaneously the most rewarding and most soul-sucking type of teaching out there. It could be enjoyable if you have the opportunity to be very selective about the students you're working with, but most instructors don't have that luxury. No question whatsoever that I'd leave instructing if that's what I had to do all day, every day.

[Shiny Side Up]

Ab initio instructing manages to be simultaneously the most rewarding and most soul-sucking type of teaching out there. It could be enjoyable if you have the opportunity to be very selective about the students you're working with, but most instructors don't have that luxury. No question whatsoever that I'd leave instructing if that's what I had to do all day, every day.

For some reason this is a taboo subject. You'll never see a magazine article that adresses it, you'll never see anything about it when it comes to improving training, FTUs or flight instruction. Even when you do have the luxury of selecting your students its still not a guaranteed help.

[costermonger]

For some reason this is a taboo subject. You'll never see a magazine article that adresses it, you'll never see anything about it when it comes to improving training, FTUs or flight instruction. Even when you do have the luxury of selecting your students its still not a guaranteed help.

That's all true; I guess the question is whether or not it's an implicit part of teaching people something they may (or may not) struggle to learn.

[Tim]

.....sounds like the talk with the Safety officer did not get the message across..to bad, as now your students might try this with me on board on a check ride..Fail the ride, and be subject to a little chat about why ATC has wake turbulence advisories....and they would , it seems, truthfully say...."my instructor told me it was oK...it was all about where the departing aircraft rotated..he did not say anything about how the wind might blow the vortices back a bit further'

It seems you might be a good candidate for an upset recovery course. I always wondered about those who had to take this course rather than just understand wake vortices and avoid them like a case of herpes..

I've had upset recovery training, but that has nothing to do with what I'm talking about.

I always found avoiding wake turbulence to be very easy. When a 737 rotates 5000 farther down the runway than my light single it's pretty hard to hit, unless you're alleging that vortices will drift almost a mile.. . By the same logic I wouldn't do an intersection departure behind that 737.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. Instead of teaching the right way and wrong way to do something, you just say "never ever ever do that!"

[Meatservo]

Back to FTUisms

The SYTs (Sweet Young Things) and young bucks who can't accept that their older students may actually know more about engines, science and weather than they do.

Being "taught" aviation navigation after doing sailing navigation since age 10 was especially painful.

This was at the school lurch refered to.

LF

I know what you mean, but just imagine BEING an instructor, with, as you understand, a pretty structured and Transport-Canada mandated curriculum to cover, and having some know-it-all come in for flying lessons and say something like, "OK, look, you can skip navigation, OK, because I'm a sailor, and you can also skip engines because believe me, there isn't anything I don't know about engines, as a former mechanic, oh and by the way, you can skip the corny explanation about how the wings work, because I'm awesome at science and already know that too".

Anyway, after being a sailor for years, you may be really good at taking the noon sight for latitude and triangulating coastal bearings and steering in a straight line at five knots, but you may not have anticipated all the differences between that and pilotage over land at a hundred knots. It might be easy, but you never know if the aviation world offers any useful tips until you've eaten some humble pie and listened to what they have to say, even if it is mostly boring, easy stuff for you.

If I was an instructor I wouldn't know what to make of someone like this. Transport Canada requires that I have, on your training record, covered all these areas. I guess my advice to a person like this, if I was in a diplomatic mood, would be to try and suffer through it and look forward to how awesome your test scores will be, if you indeed already know it all.

It's not like the flying school is allowed to let you write the test beforehand and skip all the pedantic and expensive groundschool. You just have to do it anyway. If I was instructor I would LOVE to skip teaching groundschool, but that's not permitted no matter how clever your "students" are.

[photofly]

If I was instructor I would LOVE to skip teaching groundschool, but that's not permitted no matter how clever your "students" are.

I'm with the Talmud on this one:

Who is wise? He who learns from all people.

The student has to take ground school, but there's no stipulation, as far as I can see, who has to do the teaching and who the learning.

[CpnCrunch]

I never did any ground school, but I learned to fly in the UK. There (or at least where I learned), the student just buys a few books and studies them. Perhaps there is a ground school option if you need it.

The Canadian system seems to be overkill with its ground school, PGI, pre-briefing, post-briefing, etc. With most of my flights I just got a short briefing before and after (which I didn't pay extra for), and the rest of the training was in the aircraft.

If I was learning to fly in Canada I would just do online groundschool.

[costermonger]

Am I the only instructor who enjoys teaching ground school? I don't mean PGI, I mean in a group-setting, visual aid heavy, 'tonight we're gonna talk about engines' ground school?

[Meatservo]

Well, when I said I'd love to skip groundschool, I meant I'd love to skip having to teach it to a bunch of guys who figured they already knew it all.

...and the last time I took any initial-type of groundschool, there was no such thing as "online", at least in the computer sense. I had to take private-pilot ground school no fewer than five times: once to prepare for the air cadet glider scholarship application exams; again for the cadet scholarship "power" application exams, once in high school (you could get some "aviation" credits at my old high school), again during actual private pilot groundschool, and yet again in college. I probably could have done a pretty credible job teaching the thing after the first three times, but I kept my mouth shut because nobody likes a know-it-all.