Since You Asked

Try the entrepreneurial approach

Dear Rod,
I'm a senior in high school and looking for a way to help pay for my flight training. What would you do to make money if you were in the same position?

Sincerely,
Daniel

Greetings Daniel:
Almost anything. Be an entrepreneur. Look for a need, and then fill it. Here's one moneymaking idea that I don't see others doing that may work. Everyone's car goes into the shop occasionally (some on more occasions than others, of course). Most of the time it's inconvenient for people to take their car in for service because of a pesky little thing known as "having to go to work." What if you charged folks $35 to pick up their car at their work location, take it in for servicing, and return it before they're ready to leave for home? I know many people who'd gladly pay for this service. I'll leave it to you to determine how to accomplish this.

And yes, yes, yes, I know all the reasons why this won't work. It's the entrepreneur, however, who can make it work-profitably. All that's needed is an existing need. One certainly exists here. So use your imagination to service this need. Even if you had to spend a few hours after or before school sitting at the dealer waiting for the car, you could use the time to study. Do five cars a week and you have enough for two flight lessons. On the other hand, if you sell the car, you've got your ATP. However, the cell phone you'll be using from then on really will be a "cell" phone.

Instrument proficiency knowledge

Dear Rod:
When it comes to a student's not knowing the necessary material for an instrument proficiency check (IPC), when is enough knowledge enough, and when is too little, too little? What's the minimum knowledge I should expect when I sit down to examine someone for the IPC?

Sincerely,
Mike

Greetings Mike:
The federal aviation regulations state that an IPC must consist of a representative number of tasks required by the instrument rating practical test (both the ground and flight portions). The language is deliberately vague here to give the instructor a lot of leeway in conducting this check.

The less someone knows during an IPC, the more I would expect him to know. In other words, if someone shows up and knows very little about IFR regulations, chart interpretation, weather, and so on, then I'm more inclined to insist that he has knowledge equal to that required for the IFR checkride before I put my name in his logbook.

On the other hand, if someone's knowledge is current and fairly complete, then I'm less likely to be worried about gaps in that knowledge, because there are probably few gaps to begin with. In some instances, you can quickly and easily refresh the pilot on these gaps, too. In those instances where the gaps are really gorges because the pilot has forgotten too much, you might be better off sending this person home with the instructions to study until he or she feels prepared to pass the knowledge test again (not take the test, of course). The same concept applies to flight skills, except that I'd recommend flight or simulator training, too.

You also need to be practical in making this assessment. Suppose an instrument-rated pilot doesn't have an ADF in his airplane and can't tell you how to track an NDB bearing. I'm not going to lose sleep over this. The person in question is probably not going to see an ADF again unless it's in a museum somewhere. Yet, if someone has a GPS in their airplane, they'd better be able to explain its usage as well as know how to use it to fly GPS approaches. It's hard to give you a quantitative answer to your question, but I hope this helps you approach the problem in an effective way.

A student with the shakes

Dear Rod:
I have a student in his forties who is a military combat officer. He has about 23 hours and flies extremely well. Every time he is in a high-focus phase of flight (i.e., takeoff, landing, maneuvering, even talking to the tower), his hands shake uncontrollably. He seems to be nervous, even though he is focused and accomplishing the task set before him quite well. His thinking is clear, too. I do not know if his problem is physical, neurological, or fear-induced. I don't know if it is appropriate to ask him. Do you have any thoughts to share here?

Regards,
S.T.

Greetings S.T.:
Is there a Starbucks near the airport? OK, that probably isn't the source of his problem. Then again, since he's the person with the symptom, he might also be the one with a good explanation for it. Long ago I learned that the person who knows most about his or her own behavior is the person who's demonstrating that behavior. So ask your student about his shakiness. There's nothing to be embarrassed about here, nor is there anything wrong with asking. You're the instructor, and you have a right to know about these things.

Make sure you ask him if he thinks that his shaking will present a problem flying the airplane. More than likely your student will tell you it's just his "natural" reaction to the stress of flying. Or you might learn that he has a physical condition that causes the tremor. Or he might say that he's never experienced this sort of problem before. If so, then you should try to find out a little more about the origins of this behavior. In the end, you're the person who must decide if his shakiness presents a safety problem. I've flown with several older folks who had a similar problem with their hands shaking. These weren't necessarily abnormal experiences, given the age of these students. Their shaking didn't present a problem with aircraft control. It did, however, make one of them sound like he was flying a helicopter when he checked in with ATC.

GPS use on cross-countries

Dear Rod:
I have a primary student with his own airplane containing a Garmin 530 GPS. The moving map is awesome. We're preparing for his dual cross-country training, and I'm not sure whether or not I should let him use the GPS. Any thoughts?

Thank you,
Ken

Dear Ken:
Your student should know how to use all the equipment in his airplane. The order in which he learns to use it, however, should be given some careful thought. My preference would be to teach him the basics of pilotage and dead reckoning first, but I wouldn't keep the moving map off during the entire lesson. I'd use it sparingly to help him better understand concepts like the difference between the actual track and the desired track, and cross track error (the distance he's actually off course)-something that's easily seen on a GPS moving map.

In this instance, it's important that the moving map assist the student in understanding the basics of navigation, not detract from it. Use it as a tool to aid his understanding of navigational basics. After this introduction, I'd start on VOR and basic ADF navigation, followed by use of the GPS. The additional equipment means additional time must be spent on learning navigation. If, during the lesson, your student begs you to let him use the moving map at an inappropriate time, give him a sectional chart and have him move it around a bit. After all, this was the original moving map display, wasn't it?

What's the best control technique?

Dear Rod:
I frequently overhear flight instructors at my school discussing, even arguing, about the proper way to control airspeed and glidepath with elevator and throttle. Which is the best way to use these controls? Which way will keep me safe as a pilot? I get conflicting answers on the subject. I'd appreciate some help here.

Sincerely,
Susan

Greetings Susan:
I've never seen any "scientific" evidence that indicates you're a safer general aviation pilot because you use one technique for airspeed and glidepath control over another. Sure, I've heard many anecdotal stories about the superiority of different techniques, but nothing scientific. That's why when a pilot takes a fundamental position on how to control an airplane, it's often based on how he or she was originally taught, not because one technique is demonstrably safer than another. As you've probably noticed, there are plenty of pilots on both sides of this argument who haven't crashed airplanes. It's not much of a stretch to conclude that using one technique over the other probably doesn't offer a significant difference in survival value.

Isn't it interesting that we never hear the FAA discussing the safety value of a pilot's glidepath/airspeed flight control technique? If we did, we might expect to find something about it on the FAA's private pilot knowledge test. In more than 30 years of working with these tests, I've never known the FAA to ask a question about this piloting technique.

In the Airplane Flying Handbook (Page 7-3) the FAA says, "Since on a normal approach the power setting is not fixed as in a power-off approach, the power should be adjusted, as necessary, to control the airspeed, and the pitch attitude adjusted simultaneously to control the descent angle or to attain the desired altitudes along the approach path."

Furthermore, the FAA and the U.S. Air Force use the glidepath/airspeed flight control technique mentioned above, while the U.S. Navy teaches the opposite technique to its pilots. The logical conclusion to be drawn here is that your proficiency with either technique has a greater impact on your safety than which technique you choose.

It's second nature for a pilot to want one absolute answer to everything. But in this case, more is really better. Having more than one solution to a particular airplane-flying equation shouldn't come as a shock to anyone. After all, we have two basic techniques for landing in a crosswind, don't we?

What does all this mean? Find a technique that works for you and perfect it. Then, learn another variation of the technique just to become a well-rounded pilot. I know many pilots who use a different airspeed and glidepath control technique for different types of maneuvers. If you feel comfortable doing so, why not do the same?

As a final note, if anyone has some difficulty with the way the FAA, the Air Force, or the Navy flies their airplanes, please write to them directly.

Rod Machado is a flight instructor, author, educator, and speaker. A pilot for 34 years and a CFI for 30, he has flown more than 8,000 hours and owns a Beech A36 Bonanza. Visit his Web site.