Contents


Item
A part of all ground preparation of a flight SHOULD include a review of the checklists to be used throughout the flight.

Tip: 
Make a pen/pencil that is of a known number of nautical miles on a sectional or has markings every ten nautical miles. You can use it to measure distance. Learn the nautical mile length of your hand span as you walk it across a chart.

Losing Altitude
You might try power off standard rate turns. You know your descent rate. 180 degrees at standard rate is one minute. It is that many feet of altitude burned off.

--Pilots should be trained in carefully graduated steps before flying high performance aircraft.

Making the Airplane Fit
--Proper seat adjustment is a basic essential for every flight.
--You must be able to reach every control, button and switch.
--You must be able to see just under a high-wing aircraft and over the cowling for any aircraft.
--Adjust the seat before you get in the aircraft if it has hand cranks. Avoid lifting your weight by cranking.
--An STC is required for any permanent modification of seats, controls or belts.
--Some extended shoes can give the necessary rudder and braking authority
--Booster seats are available that provide both lift and forward movement.
--Took an FAA checkride with a 5-foot FAA lady who had a seat/back booster with her flight materials inside.
Sources


The Economics of Flight Training
Economic considerations lead some operations and individuals to lower their training and achievement standards. Pilots have been licensed without adequate training or experience. Accidents of low-time pilots are usually a reflection of poor or inadequate instruction both in the skill area and application of judgment. I have flown with such pilots and feel a sense of shame for my vocation. Ignorance and incompetence can only be overcome by maintaining standards for instruction and training. Just as the educational system is bankrupt due to low pay for teachers, so is the flight training industry.

It Was A Good Lesson
A good lesson is one that gives you value for your study, time, and money. A good flight lesson prepares you for success before you take off. You are told what part will be review and what part will be new. The performance standards are decided before the flight so you can determine your own progress. You will be allowed to make mistakes. The best indicator of a good lesson is the attitude the student takes in preparing for the next lesson. Successful flying and learning are enjoyable and to be anticipated. Try for as many "Ah Ha's" as you can in each flight.

Presolo Lessons
Are these lessons and sequence for every student and instructor? No. Can the material be adapted into any program? Yes. Every instructor is expected to have a syllabus giving his plan for student instruction. For many years the FAA had published a small spiral notebook sized syllabus with some 30 lessons. I learned to fly and teach using the sequence from that syllabus. With experience (mistakes) I learned that some flexibility was required since one size did not fit all at least up to solo. All ground and flight work is taped for student playback at a later time. A first visit to the tower is made with the expectation that the student will make one visit for every three hours of flight time. Bring coffee.

This instructor will strive to be on time. He expects students to be on time and prepared for the lesson. Preparation includes doing suggested reading, having questions, and having plane fueled and ready. After ten minutes instructor will phone his home for messages prior to departing the area.

Every lesson begins with a complete on the ground review of what we will do and why. All departure and arrival checkpoints and radio work are reviewed since I try never to leave or arrive in the same way or direction twice during the pre-solo phase. A familiarization flight to cover the main nearby airports visual points, and departure/arrival points are used if the student is unfamiliar with the area. The preflight and airport procedures are limited if this flight is deemed necessary.

Lessons 1-3 Airwork
First Lesson Advice
Don't let more than one finger touch the back of the yoke. Use only the thumb to push with.

Use only one finger to move the trim wheel. Don't pinch. Keep track of how far you move it.

How you sit and where you sit must be always the same.

Use your index finger as an index to set the power and control all power changes.

Never turn without looking and talking about being clear.

Don't get into the plane until you know what the instructor's plan is for the lesson.

Try to leave and arrive from a different direction on every flight. Always take time to find out where you are and where everything else is. Learn the sounds of flying.

Don't leave the plane until you know what to prepare for the next lesson. Prepare by reading and asking questions.

Tape record every lesson on the ground and in the air. When you become an instructor the tapes will be a good way to determine how to or not to instruct.

Ask questions before you fly. Ask questions after you fly. Ask for answers to questions from the. (rec.aviation.student) newsgroup.

Learning to fly can be overwhelming. Any time you do not succeed in a lesson, the cause of difficulty does not lie with you if you came advised for and prepared for the lesson.

Write out (copy from tape) the radio procedures for each lesson. Practice aloud what you are going to say. Read what you have written without punctuation. Radio is 90% canned...always the same. You will soon learn to hear better by knowing what to expect over the radio.

You will never know all you are supposed to know. Don't fake it. If you don't know, say so. After the first three lessons the student is expected to do the preflight and to have a checklist developing through two revisions and three more to go. The first three flight lessons will cover the four basics of climb, level, descent, turns, all slow flights and stalls. These will be done separately, in transition, at varying speeds, in different configuration, and in combination. You name it; we do it. The use of trim is basic to establishing hands-off flight as much as possible. We begin doing the Dutch roll on the second lesson during climb-out. I am not teaching how to fly a basic trainer. I am teaching how to fly any airplane. All banks are of 30 degrees except for all the steep turn lessons and hood work. Turns are 90 degrees or greater. At the end of the third lesson we go low and fly a river at 700' AGL for a mile or so. If any break in training occurs a 'required' review should take place of these basics.

Very frequently a student feels that the leveling off process must be done quickly. Until you learn to be smooth you will be better off to do a 10 count between each phase: pitch, power and trim. Doing this allows the plane to settle into the selected attitude that can be set with trim. Depending on the aircraft the ten-count must be varied until cruise speed is reached before reduction.

Lessons Four & Five Ground Reference
This introduces emergency procedures, spirals, turns about a point, rectangles, S-turns, and river flying preferably in calm wind conditions but always in both left and right directions. This lesson-5, ideally, is the same lesson using different references in the strongest wind available. In doing the previous lessons we have been building the basics for the maneuvers required in landing. A good pilot has a high degree of wind awareness. He is aware of the wind before getting into the plane; he watches the movements of the windsocks; he looks for wind indicators; and most of all he is aware of the influence the wind is having upon his airplane.

Lesson Six (expanded)
My plan is to fly to Napa and along the way go through simulation of the landing process and the go-around. We will not be doing any landings just go-arounds. The basic pattern consists of upwind, crosswind, downwind, base and final. The upwind and crosswind legs are usually climbs, the downwind is level, base and final are descents. This is actually the four-basics that we have been practicing. Prior to flying we will walk and talk through the pattern process several times to get it in your mind. You should talk your way through the process while flying as well. All other landings, some twenty of them, are built upon this foundation. We will practice these at altitude three or four times in both left and right turns. Each final leg will end in a go-around. A go-around is a transition from a landing configuration and speed to a climb.

At a pre-determined altitude we execute a go-around by applying full power (including C.H) bring up a count of four on the flaps (20-degrees) holding level until reaching 65 knots at which time all the flaps are taken off and a climb at 65 knots is held. We climb up and do it again. On the downwind leg we will do the prelanding check at cruise speed. Fuel, mixture, heading, altitude and traffic watch. Abeam the simulated runway numbers we will reduce the power to 1500 while holding a north heading and altitude. The speed will bleed to 60 knots as you trim down by fingertip three full turns. RPM bleeds to 1500 as you hold altitude. When you have everything stabilized at speed, altitude, power, trim and hands-off we put in 10 degrees of flap and take off one full trim just before turning base either left or right. On base we put in another ten degrees of flap and take off another turn of trim. Check for hands-off descent at 60 knots. We turn final and put in full flaps and take off the third full turn of trim.

We are now trimmed for level flight so in the C-150 we must trim again one more trim for our climb at 65 knots. Napa's main runways are north to south so the crosswind and base legs are east and west. When we practice the patterns aloft we will use these directions as well. We will do just as many patterns to the left as to the right at Napa. In each case the go-around will be done at four successive levels from 200' down to 25'.

On going to Napa and leaving the student will handle the radio. While in the pattern the instructor will handle radio and primary traffic watch. Radio frequencies are in California Airports and on sectional. Make a frequency card including ATIS, Tower and Ground. Our call-up point will be Benicia at 2300. We will report left downwind. Try writing out what you will say and email it to me. On departure we will ask for an on-course to Oakland. Plan the radio work leaving Oakland and the return to Oakland. Ask any questions you wish.

The purpose of this exercise is multiple. I want to show you how the Cessna aircraft engineering between power, flaps and trim are made compatible to the desirable stabilized approach. I want you to be able to think ahead of the situation from the, what do I do next, into the anticipating what is going to happen.

Should we be fortunate enough to have a crosswind or even strong winds we will be able to make our approaches with the required corrections on all legs of the pattern. Desert would be having to do half a Dutch roll on final.

Continue To Next Page