Most FAA pilot certificates are good for life, including the private, commercial, and airline transport pilot - of course, there are medical and currency requirements, but they are generally easily accomplished.
The one exception is the FAA teaching certificate held by your certificated flight instructor (CFI), who must renew his or her certificate every two years. The FAA set it up that way in 1965 to ensure that flight instructors stay up to date on rules, procedures, and the latest teaching techniques.
So who teaches the teachers, keeping them current for your benefit? Many of the most experienced instructors choose to revalidate their certificates by attending one of 91 two-day Flight Instructor Refresher Clinics (FIRCs) conducted each year by the AOPA Air Safety Foundation. ASF pioneered industry-sponsored weekend FIRCs, taking them over from the FAA in the mid-1970s. With a full 16 hours of updates and refresher units back-to-back in just two days, an ASF FIRC is a worthwhile weekend for any instructor.
The benefit of sharing teaching techniques at these FIRCs is undeniable. In fact, ASF's seminar leaders make it a point in each session to ask FIRC participants to share solutions to sticky instructional situations. With the permission of a few of those attendees, I'd like to share with you some solutions offered recently.
"Set the altimeter to exactly 1,000 feet above or below field elevation while the student is preflighting, and see if he or she catches it". Surreptitiously move the fuel selector to "off" before engine start. A 172 usually runs for about one minute after that, forcing the student to think through what might be wrong. I sometimes ask, "You did check the fuel level, didn't you?" (This instructor also reported that this trick didn't work one time - the tank selector handle wasn't even connected to the fuel valve!)
When a student overcontrols the aircraft, "Have students fly a complete pattern and landing using only elevator trim and rudder. Since there is a built-in delay using elevator trim, it promotes planning and smoothness. I allow this technique only during dual instruction." Another veteran instructor teaches proper rudder use by having students hold an aircraft in a stall (at altitude, of course) and keep the wings level with rudder as the aircraft descends. "It teaches rudder control, slow-flight skills, stall behavior, and proper control use on recovery," he related.
Several instructors report helping students to develop a "feel" for aircraft control by varying flap settings while a student is flying in slow flight; gentle turns in slow flight, requiring slight extra power to maintain altitude; and maintaining the aircraft's nose in one spot on the horizon with rudder while banking left and right.
During the landing phase, one instructor has his students fly the airplane down a runway centerline, then slip the airplane first to one side of the runway, then the other, holding it briefly on each side before returning to the center. That technique, he said, does wonders for eye-hand coordination. "One of my favorite tricks is to take these students to a really little airport, a runway shorter than 2,000 feet and narrower than 40 feet - 20 feet is even better. This doesn't sound like a big deal, but it's always an eye-opener for the student."
"I had a student who refused to use rudder, so crosswind landings were naturally impossible. So we climbed to 9,000 feet, and I told him to write his name in the sky, using the horizon as the baseline. He said, "Cool," and started writing Andy ...[Soon] he noticed the only way to make the nose write cursive script was to use rudder. His landings [also] improved."
"While landing, most students look at the center of the engine cowling since they don't know where to look to line up with the runway centerline. So I put a tape on the cowling straight out from the student, paralleling the longitudinal axis of the airplane."
Almost two years ago, ASF and another leader in aviation education, Jeppesen, partnered to offer those CFIs with time constraints a high-tech way to revalidate their flight instructor certificates: an online FIRC www.cfirenewalonline.com . It offers the 16 modules in a unique and award-winning interactive Internet course; additional, value-added links provide easy pathways to far greater insight on many of the subjects. Test-drive the first module for free, and if you decide to take the course, you'll get credit for that section.
Although ASF flight instructor revalidation clinics were designed to keep instructors up to date, there is no rule preventing other pilots (including CFI-hopefuls) from attending. Both the clinics and online courses offer a discount for non-instructors, allowing them an up-close and unvarnished view of life in the right seat.
Interested? All the details and schedules are available online www.aopa.org/asf . Truly, a good pilot (or good instructor) is always learning.
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