Five Areas of Failure
Failure Area # 1
The student and instructor must enter into the program realizing that learning to fly has certain parameters that can make the process either easier or harder. Obviously, the more time, money and resources available the better. A weakness in any of these areas is going to affect instruction, communication, and learning. Over half of all flight students never complete their flight training. The student would be well advised never to start with any of these parts showing deficiency. The instructor performs a disservice to the student and flying by starting a someone who is ill prepared and qualified to finish.

Failure Area # 2
Flying is learned best by total immersion. Practical limits prevent most people from this process. The result is a compromise by doing what is possible. Less time, less money, and less communication results in less progress. At some point the student and instructor will recognize that the process is breaking down. Lessons decrease in frequency. Repetition creates a sense of no progress. Frustration affects both the student and instructor. The instructor starts pushing, the student feels even more pressured. Unhappiness.

Failure Area # 3
In the beginning the instructor will accept as normal a wide variation in performance. Everything seems to be progressing fine. Then, little by little the tolerance levels are narrowed. Altitude, headings, airspeeds, trim, and attitudes are going through changes leading to landings. Mistakes happen, are created, and are resolved in the process so that safety is not compromised. Student radio exposure increases. During this period student overload often occurs. The failure of a basic skill can bring progress to a halt.

Almost any basic skill can be responsible for requiring a basics refresher flight or two. Airspeed awareness in climb, turns, cruise, and descent have parameters that are essential to safety. Banking limits along with heading interceptions must be performed within relatively narrow limits. Anticipation takes the place of reaction. The time of performance is important many aspects of flight cannot be unduly delayed in the airport pattern know what to do, when and do it. Hesitation, delay, uncertainty, or mistakes must become a non-factor. Any lack of progress requires going back to basic procedures at altitude.

Failure Area # 4
The instructor is beginning to feel the responsibility that goes with student solo. There are relatively few situations where responsibility for life and safety exposure exceeds that of a flight instructor. The student, too, is feeling this pressure from the instructor and is having mental and emotional qualms as the solo day nears. The flying culture has attached far too much emphasis on the solo. While it is indeed a significant step, it really means a change in the number of instructors. The solo student is his own instructor. Where the student fails to plan, take responsibility, practice, and study he fails as an instructor. Progress will plateau just at the time it should accelerate.

Failure Area # 5
When a student is not making expected progress it is up to the instructor to come up with a plan. More frequent flights, more elaborate ground instruction, a revised procedure, a different airport, and partial panel to change visual focus. Don't keep beating the same process when it's not working. Get some variety into the lessons. The instructor may suggest experiments to find how the mental process may be misdirecting the physical performance. Maybe the instructor should demonstrate more frequently. Just perhaps, there is no solution for the existing problem between the student and instructor. Take a week off to concentrate on book work instead of flying. Get the written out of the way. The progress may be revitalized by contradictory actions. Taking a week off from flying and study can act as a refresher. Flying three days in a row has been known to get things going again. Just go together for an airplane ride. Every instructor will have his share of failures. Learn to live with this probability.

Preflight Instruction
The first few flight lessons usually include longer preflights. I use these preflights to explain how the systems in the cockpit work, how the control surfaces are designed and affect the aircraft performance, how the engine is externally inspected, and how the landing gear is checked. Nomenclature of the parts and components are mentioned and pointed out. All of this is totally overwhelming to a first time student. It must be reviewed, checked and reinforced to become a part of the student's aeronautical vocabulary.

This ground instructional time is far more efficient that attempting the same while in the air. I have always over-educated my student above the private pilot level. By teaching to the commercial level in my groundwork I feel that I am providing a valuable cushion of knowledge to cover that is bound to be forgotten.

Thoughts
Flying your own airplane is a pleasure and delight.
The best way to make non-stop flights is to buy a different airplane.
The weather has contempt for your best laid plans.
The level of your flying is related to the level of your thinking.
Anger has no place in the cockpit.
While you can upgrade your performance, don't expect as much of an existing aircraft.
Be pleased when you fly well, be more careful when you think you fly well.

Standard Operational Procedures (SOP) (AC 120-71
SOPs are the way you do things to operate an airplane. The way you do things with an airplane are best if they…
…are appropriate to the situation
…are practical to use and do
…can be understood and be reasonable to the doer
…clearly delineate who is to do what
…reinforce the process when done correctly

SOPs cannot be done one way in training and another way in 'real life'. When SOP are understood by the crew and supported by feedback the result is safety, efficiency and higher morale. SOPs are best when they are derived from healthy collaboration. 

Spending Makes the Cost of Flying Lower (Duplicate)
--The more you fly the lower per hour your fixed costs
--Use home equity to reduce interest costs of airplane
--Spend the money to buy the best aircraft you can.
--Don't buy a plane that needs upgrades. Installed upgrades lose 50 percent
--Buy a popular model
--Cosmetics are as important to price as mechanics
--Never over-price an airplane
--Outside labor costs are beyond affordability
--Cosmetics are easiest to fix
--Parts cost triple what you want to pay and twice what you will pay
--New paint (good job) gives fastest price boost
--Don't buy into internal corrosion
--Radios only get half value back.

With a Little-bit, with a Little-bit of Bloomin' Luck (Duplicate)
There is an old pilot superstition accepted by my wife that all things bad happen in threes. When we work in the pattern the three areas where mistakes accumulate are altitude, airspeed and rate/angle of descent. These factors individually can be adjusted or ignored. Adjustment is the most likely instructional option. Instructors do not want students to develop a tolerance for inaccuracy. Aircraft flight manuals provide little guidance for precision except for gross weight performance parameters. Shortly after takeoff these aircraft recommendations no longer apply because the aircraft is below gross. In my analysis of techniques and procedures for VFR and IFR, I do not mean that my way is the only way. Rather my way is a way that has worked for me.

Pattern altitude can be any one of three things, high, right on, or low. One of my first instructional mantras is that it is just as possible and EASY to fly precise altitudes, as it is to fly a few feet high or low. I teach level flight with the setting of a constant power (rpm), a set trim position and release of the yoke. Very small changes can be achieved by head position and more by use of the hands and arms. Rudder keeps the wings level and hands are best kept off the yoke.

In recent times, I have had to initiate IFR training with several different pilots. The one that I taught basic level flight using the above system was able to proceed directly into instrument approaches and in less than ten hours was performing at the 35 hour IFR training level. The others had an intense emotional transition from various yoke grips into recognition that a well-trimmed aircraft allows the use of two hands for things other than flying the airplane. Just last week I had a former student fly her first hands-off ILS to landing and this as a part of a flight review two years after getting the IFR ticket. A proficient pilot does not need an autopilot to hold altitude.

Now back on course, slight errors in altitude are not to be ignored. The pilot must develop a sensitivity for precise altitude. The sound of the engine and wind in the cockpit can be recognized for at least three power settings and three airspeeds. These are the minimums required for IFR or VFR. With the altitude tolerances required/allowed of private pilots it is no wonder that most pilots are less than proficient in acquiring and holding a selected altitude hands-on or -off.

Airspeeds are trimmed speeds. Trim an aircraft for a pre-selected level flight speed and additions and decreases in the power setting will give a climb or descent rate quite close to the trimmed level flight speed. With the fixed pitch propeller rpm is the measure of power. The aircraft will fly the trimmed flight speed in climb or descent with power changes and a bit of pilot controlled damping of initial oscillations.

The difficulties of changing from one speed to another lies in anticipation the throttle and trim setting required. The smoothness of any transition is the criteria of excellence. Fixed pitch aircraft are supposed to climb at full throttle because excess fuel is used to cool the engine. This means that prior to takeoff your trim should be set for the best rate given in the POH and adjusted for density altitude. Anticipation of the takeoff settings is as easy as it gets. Leveling off at cruise and low cruise requires different techniques. For cruise you begin to level off at 10 percent of your climb rate. Make your initial trim adjustment which is usually one full turn of nose down trim, hold pressure to maintain altitude during the acceleration to cruise and then immediately reduce power to predetermined rpm and then make any fine trim/power adjustments required. Check with hands off.

To level off for low-cruise from a climb, you would again begin to level off before reaching the altitude but you reduce the power to the predetermined setting for low cruise and make the trim adjustment required. This is a trim movement you should keep track of and practice until you get is very close, quickly. Practice reversing the process to get a quick smooth transition from low cruise into a climb. Going from low-cruise to full cruise by anticipating the required trim change while holding altitude with yoke pressure while using full power. This will require holding forward yoke pressure which would be zero if you reduce to cruise power setting the moment you reach cruise speed. You should also practice the transition from cruise to low-cruise by reducing power so that it will bleed to the low cruise setting or become proficient in taking off extra power and adding it the moment low-cruise speed is reached. Again, anticipation is the name of the game.

Descents can be either cruise or low-cruise speeds. You should practice specific feet-per-minute descents at cruise and low-cruise. You will find that the lower rates of descent are more difficult to maintain and that the increased air density during descent requires very fine power and trim adjustments to maintain airspeed and rate of descent. Even VFR training should introduce the 500 fpm descent while making a 180 degree turn. Training should be given in changing airspeed during descent through the use of power and again with power and flaps. The procedures are different and require practice.

These airspeed transitions are an integral part of both VFR pattern flying and IFR procedures. Learning them in two-place VFR trainer will make the transition to a more powerful IFR trainer logical even though requiring quicker anticipation of trim and power changes required. What I am getting at is that VFR training can and should be a logical progression into IFR training. I feel that setting achievement levels for private pilots too low is doing a disservice to the abilities and expectations possible.

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