Flight instructors can make good use of pizza in the cockpit. This is especially true for those of us who work with primary students. I’m not talking about an actual pizza. It’s the concept that’s most useful—this ubiquitous, inexpensive, delicious dinner option is a good training tool for pilots, if for no other reason than the fact that we all know it so well.
Consider the basic task of radio work. For those of us who have flown enough that a radio call is a reflexive response, pushing the button and rattling off a quick burst of aviation-centric jargon seems like nothing. But for our students who have rarely made a radio call, they have a slightly different, and decidedly more self-conscious, perspective on the issue.
To really excel as CFIs we need to provide students with a frame of reference that is so easy to relate to that a student can function well, and gain confidence in the process. Which brings us back to the pizza approach.
I base this lesson on my own early training flights, when the cockpit was still a swirling mass of spinning needles, flashing lights, and buzzing stall-warning horns. I was flying out of Sanford, Florida, in a Cessna 172, on an instrument training flight. I was cleared to go, so I advanced the throttle and
I went. My flight instructor, Todd, was doing his job like a true professional, which meant that he was sitting there doing nothing. At least it looked to me as if he was doing nothing—sometimes a good instructor lets the student experience the sublime reality of being overwhelmed by the situation.
As we accelerated down the runway, my mental environment was cluttered—I was conscious of a thousand tiny details as I rotated and felt the wheels get light. Suddenly, I was airborne, and my headset came alive, “Cessna Six-Five-Seven-Eight-Nine, contact Orlando Approach, 119.775.”
I went from being mentally maxed out to fully overloaded. “I need help,” was all I could say.
Coolly, Todd said, “I’ve got the radio.” His calm response did just enough to lower my workload that I regained the ability to function.
The rest of the flight went well, and I improved over time to be able to handle the workload required. Todd even made sure I could handle that exact situation, even with the addition of a system failure on takeoff. By the time I finished my training, the situation that had originally overloaded me didn’t feel particularly stressful at all. It’s amazing what we can adapt to given the proper instruction, a drive to succeed, and sufficient practice.
Sometime after that flight, Todd shared with me a perspective on radio work that I have carried with me ever since: “Think of using the radio as if you’re ordering pizza,” was Todd’s simple advice. “Announce who you are, where you are, and what you want—then let go of the button.”
Flight instruction doesn’t get easier, or more accurate, than that.
Whether I was trying to squeeze in a call to a busy New York Center controller, or self-announcing on a common traffic advisory frequency (CTAF) in the middle of nowhere, that simple approach to communication taught me to think and act differently. Rather than mentally running through a list of information in a frantic effort to identify what I had to report, all I had to do was think of ordering a pizza. I’d call out who I was, where I was, and what I wanted—then I’d let go of the button.
Having that easy-to-remember frame of reference available made my radio calls shorter, more concise, and highly specific.
CFIs can use pizza in the cockpit. It’s a great reference for simplifying a basic procedure, as well as a powerful tool for lowering a student's anxiety levels when he performs at least one important task.
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Flight instructors can make good use of pizza in the cockpit. This is especially true for those of us who work with primary students. I’m not talking about an actual pizza. It’s the concept that’s most useful—this ubiquitous, inexpensive, delicious dinner option is a good training tool for pilots, if for no other reason than the fact that we all know it so well.
Consider the basic task of radio work. For those of us who have flown enough that a radio call is a reflexive response, pushing the button and rattling off a quick burst of aviation-centric jargon seems like nothing. But for our students who have rarely made a radio call, they have a slightly different, and decidedly more self-conscious, perspective on the issue.
To really excel as CFIs we need to provide students with a frame of reference that is so easy to relate to that a student can function well, and gain confidence in the process. Which brings us back to the pizza approach.
I base this lesson on my own early training flights, when the cockpit was still a swirling mass of spinning needles, flashing lights, and buzzing stall-warning horns. I was flying out of Sanford, Florida, in a Cessna 172, on an instrument training flight. I was cleared to go, so I advanced the throttle and
I went. My flight instructor, Todd, was doing his job like a true professional, which meant that he was sitting there doing nothing. At least it looked to me as if he was doing nothing—sometimes a good instructor lets the student experience the sublime reality of being overwhelmed by the situation.
As we accelerated down the runway, my mental environment was cluttered—I was conscious of a thousand tiny details as I rotated and felt the wheels get light. Suddenly, I was airborne, and my headset came alive, “Cessna Six-Five-Seven-Eight-Nine, contact Orlando Approach, 119.775.”
I went from being mentally maxed out to fully overloaded. “I need help,” was all I could say.
Coolly, Todd said, “I’ve got the radio.” His calm response did just enough to lower my workload that I regained the ability to function.
The rest of the flight went well, and I improved over time to be able to handle the workload required. Todd even made sure I could handle that exact situation, even with the addition of a system failure on takeoff. By the time I finished my training, the situation that had originally overloaded me didn’t feel particularly stressful at all. It’s amazing what we can adapt to given the proper instruction, a drive to succeed, and sufficient practice.
Sometime after that flight, Todd shared with me a perspective on radio work that I have carried with me ever since: “Think of using the radio as if you’re ordering pizza,” was Todd’s simple advice. “Announce who you are, where you are, and what you want—then let go of the button.”
Flight instruction doesn’t get easier, or more accurate, than that.
Whether I was trying to squeeze in a call to a busy New York Center controller, or self-announcing on a common traffic advisory frequency (CTAF) in the middle of nowhere, that simple approach to communication taught me to think and act differently. Rather than mentally running through a list of information in a frantic effort to identify what I had to report, all I had to do was think of ordering a pizza. I’d call out who I was, where I was, and what I wanted—then I’d let go of the button.
Having that easy-to-remember frame of reference available made my radio calls shorter, more concise, and highly specific.
CFIs can use pizza in the cockpit. It’s a great reference for simplifying a basic procedure, as well as a powerful tool for lowering a student's anxiety levels when he performs at least one important task.
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