Contents

Items:
Real pilots respect piloting ability and skill regardless of gender.

Item
Woflgang Langewiesche said, "Flying is done largely with the imagination."

Item:
Make black and white image of aircraft and place it on dash so that it reflects on windshield. You now have a 'heads-up' display.

Item:
If the moisture is snow, descend since the warmer air is below.
If the moisture is ice, climb since the warm air is above you.

Item
When striving to get the best glide distance from your airplane, remember that making the mistake of going faster is better than going slower. In a headwind add 1/2 the headwind to the best glide to get the best penetration. For tail winds just fly Vg.

CFI PTS
CFI applicants must exhibit instructional knowledge of task elements through descriptions, explanations, simulations and common errors.

Flight Checklist for the Instructor
1. Preview the flight before getting into the plane.
2. Tape record everything.
3. Stay off the controls
4. Know and teach all the checkpoints
5. Teach only pilotage until cross-country time.
6. Know the specialists at tower, Approach, and FSS
7. Don't let student set standards of performance
8. Make flying as efficient and economical as possible.
9. It is the satisfaction of success that makes flying fun.
10. Teach 'trim' from flight # one.
11. Teach the 'Dutch roll from flight # 2
12. No surprises but expect the unexpected.
13. Fly upwind while doing airwork.
14. Make every departure and arrival different
15. Don't answer a question when you don't know the answer.
16. Be HONEST in your student evaluations
17. Teach delay as an always expected factor in flying.
18. Teach multiple options for every situation.
19. Teach hands-off and rudder flying
20. Introduce turbulence gradually
21. Gradually work on cockpit organization
22. Teach radio from lesson # 1
23. The learning law of primacy, rules.
24. If a planned lesson is not possible, have an alternative.
25. Review tomorrow's lesson the night before with student.
26. A part of all ground preparation of a flight SHOULD include a review of the checklists to be used throughout the flight.

Flight Checklist for the Student
1. Stay off the brakes; stay on the line.
2. Two fingers on the yoke even when using radio.
3. Practice changing frequencies
4. Practice aloud your communications before using radio.
5. Learn the area and reference points
6. Accept fact that learning to fly is expensive.
7. Let instructor set performance standards.
8. Make opportunities to visit ATC facilities.
9. Read and then study the POH. Take notes.
10. Trim is the cruise control of flight.
11. It will take five sessions to learn the Dutch roll.
12. Taxiing is the last thing you learn to do right.
13. A properly trimmed aircraft will fly better without you.
14. Even the best plan may not work as planned.
15. Unlearning is the form of learning most likely to fail.
16. Arrive knowing what to expect from a prepared lesson.

Evaluating a Partially Trained Student
The situation for the new instructor is to separate the wheat from the chaff. Every student has both weak and strong areas of performance. It is most unlikely that these areas will coincide with those of the instructor's teaching skills. This means that every student can expect to get some benefit from a different instructor even if it consists of improved perception as to what constitutes better instruction. The problem for the new instructor is not to raise stress fractures in the learning process.

There is no 'one' way to do most every procedure in flying. Classic of this is pitch vs power. Most of flying is a collection of compromises just as is the teaching of flying. The student must be allowed to get far enough into a 'failure' situation to recognize it. The instructor must not intervene too soon nor must intervention be too late. Intervention is an art of decision making by the instructor. Too soon, the student does not learn the lesson. Too late, the instructor had failed to teach the lesson. Often it is best to let the student determine his own level of tolerance. I do believe that some students have learned to judge the landing flare by sensing the body language of the instructor.

Accentuating the Positive
A motivated student is a joy to teach. Nothing motivates like a sense of success and achievement. Were I able to find just what it is that gives positive motivation I would bottle and sell it. A student's success is my success. In school the enjoyment of a particular subject is usually directly associated with feelings and attitudes toward the teacher. A flying student is already motivated to the subject but the kind of instruction can quickly erase or add to this original motivation.

The flight instructor will add to the motivation by making certain that the student knows what to expect from a lesson. Surprises in flight instruction create stress, concern, and insecurity. Some students need more 'hand-holding' than others do. This is not bad of itself if the instruction is directed to making the student independent and self-assured down the line. The idea is not to give the student a succession of 'fish'; rather, the intent must be to teach the student how to 'fish'. We are training the student toward independence of planning and flying the plan.

FAA Instructional Format
FAA instruction is based on early 1900 educational theory and practice. Most learning is visual but requires repetition and reinforcement for adequate retention. Only 8% of what you hear is retained unless it is accompanied by various kinds of repetitive exercises. Reading aloud is a common way of aural learning. More effective aural learning can be achieved by having student record information in his own words. Tactile learning can be helped by using the fingers to trace over material to be learned. Physical examples of instruments are best supplied to tactile learners.

Teaching the FAA Way
I have never seen the 60-14 textbook. I assume it is the revised Flight Instructor Handbook. I once made a complete summary of the old edition and became more and more frustrated in its pedantic presentations and terminology. As may be implied, the FAA preaches all the developmental theories and resorts to catechization and rote learning.

I must tell a 'war' story to explain how I got into teaching. I was taking aircraft radio at Truax Field, Madison Wisconsin during mid 1943. The better your grades the longer you got to stay in tech schools. The alternative was to become a B-17 machine gunner. Your 60-14 would call it motivation. I was fresh out of high school but found that I had acquired ability to regurgitate material back to my fellow students when we returned to the barracks. "He who teaches, learns twice." I took a good-sized group with me to Boca Raton, Florida for Radar training because of our collective good grades. I did the same teaching at Boca Raton and took nearly every course they had while continuing to help/teach my buddies.

Fifty radar men were sent to India to join the newly activated 58th (B-29) Bomb Wing. When Saipan and Tinian were captured, we all went by plane or ship to the Pacific. I was almost immediately assigned to the Wing Training School to teach LORAN. Two months later I was given the job of assembling and operating the training program for the Supersonic Trainer. This was a bombing simulator that made it possible to see on a radar scope a very realistic radar picture as it would actually appear when in combat over Japan. In setting up target flights for the simulator I had to learn how to use the E-6-B and plotter. Twenty-five years later this experience gave me a leg-up in learning to fly. I have never liked to use the 'formal' lesson plan. Never used them when teaching children. I always prepared myself with the subject matter along with an ample supply of peripheral/related information, stories, and life applications.

Continue To Next Page