Look Outside

[Colonel Sanders]

Student at the FTU wanted to go flying. His
regular instructor is away, and he hadn't flown
in a month, so I really couldn't send him solo.

So I tell him, the theme of today's flight is to
LOOK OUTSIDE.

We started by cleaning the bugs off the FTU
airplane windshield. Pet peeve of mine. Used
a towel - I suggest Hampton's - and some spray
on wax.

I carried a folder with my paperwork and my
headset into the airplane. My paperwork consisted
of several blank 8.5x11 pieces of paper, which I
used to entirely cover up the instrument panel on
the left side. All the flight instruments, gone.

We started up and did the run-up - he still had
the tach, underneath - and I told him he had 4
inches of fluffy snow on the runway.

He correctly configured the 172 with 10 degrees
of flaps, and did a nice soft field takeoff. Didn't
climb out of ground effect, but levelled off a tad
high for my taste. Maybe a 3 or 4. Climbed out.

He did pretty well, really, considering he had
absolutely no flight instruments. It forced him
to LOOK OUTSIDE.

We flew off to the south, levelled off at 3500 feet
(I told him when we were there) and had him set
the aircraft up in slow flight.

Drove around in slow flight, stall warn blaring,
still no flight instruments. Didn't need them.

Time for some stalls. Finished with the falling
leaf - elevator full back, walking it down with
the rudder, still no flight instruments.

Recovered, back to the airport, did a very nice
landing with no flight instruments. Approached
slightly fast - nose low attitude - but held it off
and used a bit more runway than normal. Good
performance.

I'm sure the Flight Training Establishment will
attack me for using this technique, but gosh,
does it ever force the student to LOOK OUTSIDE.

That is all. Back to the plastic nosewheel trainers
with a square yard of coloured glass in the panel.

[akoch]

All make sense and fun. I thoroughly enjoyed doing the same with my instructor.

But man you have an issue with the plastic trainers with colour glass. Get yourself one, or grow up!

[Colonel Sanders]

you have an issue with the plastic trainers with colour glass

Sure do. They're horrible ab initio training aircraft, because
they teach the student pilot that he doesn't have to use
the rudder pedals, and he doesn't have to look outside.

Blasphemy!

All I want a student pilot to do - at least until he is solo - is
use the frikken rudder pedals, and to LOOK OUTSIDE.

IMHO a Piper Cub with no gyros whatsoever - just airspeed,
altimeter and ball - is a far better primary training aircraft.

Carry on,

[akoch]

Can't argue that the Cub is and excellent training aircraft. And I don't have a problem looking outside. I don't think it has to do with the type of instrumentation, but the instruction.

But since it seems the the notion of no rudder necessary for the "plastic" airplanes keeps popping up, I am just curious which one are you referring to? I flue only a small fraction of airplanes, so I am naturally curious. My observations, out of those I did fly:
- 152 - needs some rudder
- 172 needs almost no rudder in both take off and in-flight coordination. You keep asking yourself "is that all???"
- RV7 - needs virtually no rudder, especially once up to speed - a steep turn can be done practically perfectly coordinated with feet on the floor
- DA40 - needs some rudder, same as 172
- DA20 - needs rudder both take off, landing and maneuvers
- Cubcrafter Top Cub- needs some rudder for coordination, and quick rudder on landings
- Yak 18T - needs rudder, but not particularly challenging

So my experience so far was that those "plastic" ones I flue did not stand out for the rudder use (DA40), or actually needed more than the other none-plastic ones I have experience with. Arguably I flue a few types that were the easiest to come across around here, your milage may vary.

[TopperHarley]

That kind of stuff should be standard exercises for training. Actually sounds kind of fun too!

[Diadem]

When I was instructing I took up another guy's student who had about 15 hours and was close to soloing. As we were clearing the zone, he asked me for a heading to the practice area. I thought he wanted to do some kind of navigation exercise, which I hadn't planned, so I told him to go directly to the practice area. He had no idea where that was, even though it was visible from 20 miles away. It turned out that the other instructor had taught him, from the beginning, to fly on his instruments, and he couldn't maintain an attitude without the AI or turn without being able to see his angle of bank. More disconcerting still, the instructor's idea of navigating was giving the student headings and altitudes, and telling him when they arrived at their destination. The student had no idea how to get to the practice area on his own, he had no idea there was a control zone between there and the airport at which we were based, and he had no idea where the limits of our airport's zone were because he never looked outside while he was flying. More appalling still, the instructor had told him to keep his head inside and focus on flying while the instructor looked for traffic; the student had no idea how to properly scan for conflicts and hadn't trained his eyes how to see other aircraft, even when I pointed them out. Needless to say, we abandoned the upper air work and spent the lesson going over attitudes and movements, basic map navigation and scanning for traffic.

[akoch]

But look at the bright side - at 15 hours TT he was high-way through his IFR rating dual requirements

[Colonel Sanders]

instructor had taught him, from the beginning, to fly on his instruments

[KK7]

Back when I instructed, we once got a student who had been told by two experienced, reputable flight instructors from the region at another school that there was no hope that she would learn to fly. She had done some 20 hours of flight instruction and she felt so disappointed and hopeless about her dream of flying an airplane.

Fortunately, she had a friend that knew the CFI at our school and he urged her to give it one last shot, but try flying with an instructor from our school. We had already received a phone call from this student's past instructor warning us that she just couldn't fly an airplane. After chatting with the student, we all decided let's at least try one flight to see what we can do.

As soon as we got airborne, it was apparent that she was rough, all over the sky, and very unsure about what to do, despite the fact that she had 20 hours of flight instruction under her belt. It didn't take long to realize that the whole time we flew, she was staring at the instruments. Surely, I thought, these well known instructors she's had must have noticed?

In my headset bag I always kept 6 of those round rubber soap dish things with suction cups on them that I got from Canadian tire. I pulled them out and covered up each of the flight instruments. These soap dishes are the perfect diameter to cover an instrument, and the suction cups make it super easy to slap them on any instrument. She couldn't believe I was covering everything up, how are we supposed to fly with no instruments???

LOOK OUTSIDE!

As she already had the concept on what she was supposed to do when flying, as soon as she used the real horizon for reference, her flying suddenly became nice, smooth, planned... We flew around the area for a while with everything covered, flew several circuits with everything covered. Shockingly, we never fell out of the sky, and this student suddenly had no problem flying, taking off, landing, because she was looking outside.

The next week she went solo, got her PPL and proceeded to work on her CPL. All after being told by two instructors that she could never fly an aircraft.

[akoch]

I guess it is hard to comprehend unless you come across such cases as an instructor. Wow.

[old_man]

We started by cleaning the bugs off the FTU
airplane windshield. Pet peeve of mine. Used
a towel - I suggest Hampton's - and some spray
on wax.

I suggest getting the bugs off with a soft cloth and just water. Then, if you really want a nice look finish it off with this stuff. Aviation disposable clothes are nice to use as well but can start costing money if you use them a lot. (I think these are the ones I have used in the past)

[Rookie50]

you have an issue with the plastic trainers with colour glass

Sure do. They're horrible ab initio training aircraft, because
they teach the student pilot that he doesn't have to use
the rudder pedals, and he doesn't have to look outside.

Blasphemy!

All I want a student pilot to do - at least until he is solo - is
use the frikken rudder pedals, and to LOOK OUTSIDE.

IMHO a Piper Cub with no gyros whatsoever - just airspeed,
altimeter and ball - is a far better primary training aircraft.

Carry on,

++1 Gotta agree; my primary instructor way back didn't do this but did force my eyes outside, first bunch of hours. He was right.

That is cover up all the instruments.

[Old Dog Flying]

You know that there is trouble in Lotus Land when during an extremely close encounter of the undesireable kind , you can see both instructor and student looking a the centre of the panel during their return to ZBB...
instead of out the bloody window.

We no longer trust radar positions as given by people wearing digital watches...they can't tell time.

I agree with CS, covering up the instruments is something that I've done many times and it does make a big difference.

Barney

[gaamin]

Edit

[akoch]

would disconnecting the stall warning thing be legal?

[Colonel Sanders]

No. But they rarely fail, at least in comparison to the ASI.

[akoch]

I meant it will make it more fun for the final approach. Just picturing it - night rating solo, instruments are blanked out, stall horn disconnected. Man, that's life!

It's just to consider an idea fully you need to extreme.

[Trematode]

Great post. Wish more instructors would do this more often, and throughout the training to keep reinforcing the necessity of attitude flying in every single exercise. If someone learns it from the start -- with a heavy focus on it in their pre-solo training (and I mean HEAVY) -- they're usually pretty good. They might require a reminder or two as they progress, but the simple reminder will suffice.

The ones who started with the bad habbit of flying with instruments from the get-go are especially tough to deal with. My experience has been that even if one of these students figures it out (if you force them to, by covering up the panel), they quickly devolve if not watched like a hawk on every subsequent flight. I became quite the eyes-outside nazi.

Forced approaches in particular are a good example. If they're having trouble, 9 times out of 10 they just weren't looking outside to set their glide attitude, pick their field, and watch for the visual cues that help them assess their glide performance. Forget about all the other mumbo jumbo and make sure you're going to make it to your intended touchdown point before you start getting all fancy. The exercise goes from one of the most challenging, to one of the easiest.

But I mean, flying with exterior visual reference should be emphasized as a major component of EVERY exercise. I think you're doing it right if they start to forget to look at the flight instruments at all. That's a much better place to start from... eg. "You're doing such a great job, just remember to glance at the altimeter every minute or so, just to make sure."

[Trematode]

Related to this:

From my experience with students who have started their training in the states -- not to name names, but the school rhymed with "pembry-diddle" -- I've always wondered if the flight training culture down there puts more emphasis on instruments at the expense of VFR attitude flying. With more radar coverage there, are pilots encouraged to keep their eyes inside and depend more on advisories to keep them from hitting eachother or the ground?

As others have mentioned, I've had students begging me for headings in lieu of visual landmarks, students abused into maintaining a paranoid watch of their ASI on the approach, and even one that was commercially licensed and asking incredulously how he was supposed to land without VASI lights.

[Instructor_Mike]

... even one that was commercially licensed and asking incredulously how he was supposed to land without VASI lights.

This is why I'm glad to teach at a small ATF airport with 1 paved and 1 grass strip. The grass strip also has 30 ft trees near the threshold so it's good practical obstacle clearance practice for T/O or LND depending on wind

As far as covering up the instruments, I've never gone so far to cover them on T/O or approach, but I'll pull out the map for climbs, descents, turns and level flight.

[Colonel Sanders]

covering up the instruments, I've never gone so far to cover them on T/O or approach

It's actually great practice:

Attitude + Power = Performance

Especially the approach. I've had pitot and static failures on
various aircraft over the years, and what I've found is that if
it looks good, it probably is.

[Old Dog Flying]

I was given Look-Out enforcement training right from the beginning. My first instructor was a Spitfire pilot and he knew what it was like to keep a watch outside the cockpit. He frequently gave me a little reinforcement with a rap on the head and I never forgot that. But then again the old Fleet Canuck only had a primary panel.

Barney

[Colonel Sanders]

One thing I want to make perfectly clear:

This is NOT a crap-on session on the kids.

Kids: You have been taught badly. It's not
your fault. You have paid an awful lot of money
for some pretty crappy training which has taught
you some bad habits, and left gaping holes in
your knowledge and skills, which you need to be
aware of. Now, it's up to you, to fix it.

[Colonel Sanders]

I think you're doing it right if they start to forget to look at the flight instruments at all. That's a much better place to start from... eg. "You're doing such a great job, just remember to glance at the altimeter every minute or so, just to make sure."

Exactly! The stuff on the panel is just a crappy substitute
for what's really happening outside the aircraft.

When I see a kid staring at the flight instruments instead of
looking outside, imagine if the same kid had told me that he
was turning down a hookup with a good-looking Hot Pants (tm)
and instead he was going to stay at home at look at
Internet Pr0n.

Words fail me, but I know that something is horribly wrong.

[coreydotcom]

I'm not sure how many hours I have but it's somewhere between 15 - 20 (I've soloed).

I guess I am one of the lucky few who has an instructor who has always taught me to look outside all the time. In French we call it "l'assiette". I am sure there is an equivalent term in English but it basically refers to what you see when you look out the window.... Keep it the same and the plane will do the same thing (if you are level, keep that picture, no use looking at the instruments, the plane will stay level). Works amazing!

However, I like having my ball. I look outside when doing turns and everything else but I am always glancing at the ball to keep it centered. I haven't fully developed the "feel" for centering the ball... I am getting better but still need that instrument.

Pretty much the only thing that would make me nervous about not having my instruments would be for the landing (and final approach). I look outside and stuff but I keep glancing at the airspeed to keep things safe - I am not sure how I would do that without the instrument... I mean... I can "feel" when we are approaching/entering a stall but I wouldn't want to get very close to that point at say 200' AGL.

Since the Colonel said ASI malfunction is not super rare (I think I read that), I think I will ask my instructor to do some circuits with no ASI.