Dear Rod: I’m a student pilot with 42.9 hours and have just recently soloed in a Cessna 172. I’m having one heck of a time during my rollout after landing. The plane is all over the runway. The major issue here is that after touching down perfectly, the airplane goes to the right. Then when I correct it slightly, it goes to the left. From the cockpit I feel that the airplane is going to tumble. Please help me with this problem.
No Name, Please
[I wrote the writer to obtain more information because there just wasn’t enough to go on here. He wrote back and told me he has a shoe size of 13�! Here’s my response.
Greetings Mr. Bigfoot: That’s a large shoe. My guess is that you’re having difficulty properly placing your feet on the cockpit floorboard. Consider the following. Cessnas typically have rudder pedals with an extended pad on the lower portion of the pedal for the instep of your foot. People with larger feet (usually accompanied by longer legs, too) typically find it easier to rest their instep on the extended lower part of the rudder pedal while the very bottom of their shoe rests on the floorboard. This allows them to push with their instep to activate the rudder pedals and pivot forward about their instep to activate the brakes. People with tiny or regular feet typically rest their heels on the floorboard and use the balls of their feet to push on the lower part of the rudder. They raise their heels off the ground to push on the top part of the pedals to activate the brakes. In your case, I believe your feet are so big that you’re either activating one brake pedal without knowing it or you’re unable to accurately gauge the amount of pressure being applied to one or more pedals.
The solution? I had one student with a similar problem many years ago. We solved it by letting him fly barefoot (OK, he wore his socks). The difference was amazing. Flying barefoot gave him greater tactile sensitivity on the rudder pedals. Not surprisingly, after he finally mastered rudder control, he had no problem flying while wearing his shoes.
Dear Rod: Once every few lessons, at the conclusion of a lesson my instructor requests the controls and makes a lap around the pattern himself. His takeoff and landing typically include no narrative and have little if any instructional value. Sometimes he remarks that he is “stealing a landing.”
Aircraft rental and instruction is expensive. I find it offensive that he charges me for his time and makes me pay the aircraft rental while he apparently flies for fun. Granted we are only talking about five to 10 minutes every few lessons, but it seems very inconsiderate. Is this a common practice among CFIs to meet some currency requirement? Should I chalk it up to just another cost of flight training? I enjoy taking lessons from this instructor and want to maintain a good relationship with him.
No Name, Please
Greetings Anonymous: No, this isn’t common practice. No, you shouldn’t chalk this behavior up to the typical costs of flight training. It’s clear to me that your instructor thinks this is normal behavior, perhaps because his instructor did the same thing to him as a student. What’s also clear is that none of his previous students have said anything about his behavior, thus reinforcing that behavior. Ultimately, people behave toward us the way we teach them to behave toward us. So I suggest you teach him how to behave toward you by gently informing him that he’s welcome to fly the airplane as long as he’s using it in a way that’s educational for you. You can, after all, learn a lot by watching your instructor demonstrate a maneuver while simultaneously offering commentary. Then let him know that you enjoy seeing him have fun with the airplane, but that you would enjoy it more if both he and the airplane are not on your tab when this happens. I can’t imagine a reasonable person not understanding this message. If worse comes to worst and he attempts to steal a landing from you, inform him that you’re stealing it back.
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