Opinions please,

Is this decent enough or what would you recommend something else for the CPL ground school reading?
Keep in mind that I am going towards the instructor rating.

Flying beyond - Link

Everything you would ever need to know for the instructor rating is contained in From The Ground Up and the Flight Instructors Manual.

It's wonderful that you want to go further but that's really all you need. The real meat and potatoes of the of the Instructor rating is the KISS principal.

If you want to be a better instructor start learning more about instructional techniques and improve there. Like most pilot jobs, it is assumed that you can fly; what else can you do?

I own the book 'Flying beyond' myself, while it is a great book it is not a whole lot different than From the Ground Up. In offers some more in depth information on basically the same subjects. It's probably not necessary for the CPAER or your instructor rating but a good book if you want to gain some extra knowledge.

If you want to be a better instructor start learning more about instructional techniques and improve there. Like most pilot jobs, it is assumed that you can fly; what else can you do?

+1

That is one of the best pieces of advice I have seen posted on the training forum, though I am not sure the underlying assumption is all that correct

Flying is more than a bit like playing a musical
instrument. You can sure read a lot about it,
but to get good at it, sooner or later you need
to spend some time practicing. The more, the
better.

What skills does an experienced pilots have, that
low-time pilots should try to gain? Good question.

Here are some suggestions:

1) precise control of your airspeed on final. It goes
without saying that you precisely control the position
of the aircraft as well.





Learning to do this under less-than perfect conditions
is necessary. Most low-time pilots need to spend more
time wrestling with crosswinds during landing.

2) cross-country flight. Most low-time pilots haven't
done enough of this to be comfortable at it. You should
be able to happily jump into an airplane and fly someplace
1000 miles away. That's what airplanes do, after all. To
get comfortable flying x/c you need to

a) develop a very good sense of your fuel quantity and consumption.

Don't ever run out of fuel. Sounds simple, doesn't it?

b) hold a heading and altitude and develop a good sense of time.

I recently flew a biplane across the Gulf of Mexico to
Key West. I held a heading of 050 for 3 hours, and
sure enough, when I looked down, there was Key
West. I don't even own a watch. I didn't even have
any gyros, which would have been nice when the GPS
went offline. I just used a shadow to hold heading,
because the Sun wasn't going anywhere quickly. I
use the sun a lot as a heading indicator. It pretty
reliably rises in the east and sets in the west, at
least on most days that I fly.

c) learn a lot more about the weather.

After a while, you will be able to forecast weather better
than the so-called professionals, at least if you want to
stay alive. You will smile when you see AMD in the TAF,
because you knew the original was bogus.

d) learn a lot more about your aircraft.

Stuff won't always work, and systems knowledge lets you
understand what's going on when stuff isn't working. It's
important to know what's going on, because sometimes
you need to land RIGHT NOW and sometimes you don't.

Good stuff CS. I wish more instructors would catch on the basic but important stuff.

Flight instructing is like formation flying. You can
quickly and easily do it quite badly. It takes a lot
of practice before you can do it well.

I will warn you that after you put the effort (and
years) into it, frankly nobody cares much, so I
hope you are doing it for internal reasons.

Colonel Sanders wrote:Flight instructing is like formation flying. You can
quickly and easily do it quite badly. It takes a lot
of practice before you can do it well.

I will warn you that after you put the effort (and
years) into it, frankly nobody cares much, so I
hope you are doing it for internal reasons.

I agree and thanks for the music instrument playing analogy. It makes sense to me done it lived it...

As far as practice, I am still working on getting the bird for a task and I will fly the shiiite out of it. Most options for my current TT revolve around c-172 or p-28, however I want to go with something else. Will see in the Spring what comes up.

tired of the ground wrote:Everything you would ever need to know for the instructor rating is contained in From The Ground Up and the Flight Instructors Manual.

It's wonderful that you want to go further but that's really all you need. The real meat and potatoes of the of the Instructor rating is the KISS principal.

If you want to be a better instructor start learning more about instructional techniques and improve there. Like most pilot jobs, it is assumed that you can fly; what else can you do?

Ohh, I can do a lot more, however too long of a story. Thank you for the suggestion on the book.
KISS method is what I can write a doctorate about. I read FTGU about three times front to back. Its interesting how, on subsequent reading, there is always another aahhhaa moment on something.

PS My apologies to Chris Hobbs - we used to work
at the same company. He is a really nice guy, a long
time instructor, considered the IFR guru around here,
and if he wrote it, it's should be pretty good.

I'm in the same boat as your are (finished my CPAER though) and I love Flying Beyond. I find that it's actually a rather entertaining read which makes studying easier. I also like the exam tips and anecdotes that are sprinkled throughout. Then again I am a big reader and like having reference books.