Are your primary students having trouble listening to ATC and making sense of their radio calls? If so, then they’re like thousands of students across the country with the same problem. What can you do to help them? Perhaps Southern California instructor and sport pilot examiner Jon Thornburgh can help.
On the floor of Jon’s flight-school office is a poster board measuring three feet by two feet (available almost anywhere that sells art or office supplies), sporting a drawing of his local airport and prominent reporting points. Near the board is a tiny pad of sticky notes. Here’s where the magic begins.
In preparation for pattern work, Jon has his students sit at the board and listen to the local tower frequency on a portable radio. When pilots call in and reveal their positions, Jon’s student writes the aircraft number on the sticky note and places it on the board at the appropriate reporting point. As aircraft enter the pattern and maneuver for landing, the student moves the notes around the board to represent the aircraft’s real-time position.
What’s the big payoff for the student? First, the student learns to understand air traffic control, where words are often spoken at 60 with peak gusts to 90. Second, the student learns to anticipate the instructions given to pattern traffic.
Best of all, students learn to see with their ears. This is one of the most important skills they’ll acquire. According to Jon, the truly proficient student doesn’t just listen to the call signs of incoming airplanes; he or she mentally plots and tracks their location—learning to see with their ears—until it’s possible to visually track an airplane.
For the price of a piece of poster board and a few packs of sticky notes, you can improve your students’ pattern awareness. So become a poster-board instructor for poster-board pattern work.
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Are your primary students having trouble listening to ATC and making sense of their radio calls? If so, then they’re like thousands of students across the country with the same problem. What can you do to help them? Perhaps Southern California instructor and sport pilot examiner Jon Thornburgh can help.
On the floor of Jon’s flight-school office is a poster board measuring three feet by two feet (available almost anywhere that sells art or office supplies), sporting a drawing of his local airport and prominent reporting points. Near the board is a tiny pad of sticky notes. Here’s where the magic begins.
In preparation for pattern work, Jon has his students sit at the board and listen to the local tower frequency on a portable radio. When pilots call in and reveal their positions, Jon’s student writes the aircraft number on the sticky note and places it on the board at the appropriate reporting point. As aircraft enter the pattern and maneuver for landing, the student moves the notes around the board to represent the aircraft’s real-time position.
What’s the big payoff for the student? First, the student learns to understand air traffic control, where words are often spoken at 60 with peak gusts to 90. Second, the student learns to anticipate the instructions given to pattern traffic.
Best of all, students learn to see with their ears. This is one of the most important skills they’ll acquire. According to Jon, the truly proficient student doesn’t just listen to the call signs of incoming airplanes; he or she mentally plots and tracks their location—learning to see with their ears—until it’s possible to visually track an airplane.
For the price of a piece of poster board and a few packs of sticky notes, you can improve your students’ pattern awareness. So become a poster-board instructor for poster-board pattern work.
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