Since you asked: Training mini-airline pilots?
Teach the basic principles to every student
Dear Rod:
I trained at a professional, career-oriented college and flight school. I am beginning my role as an instructor for a local flying club. I’ve been thinking about the advice you once offered about training primary students. You said, “We’re not training mini-airline pilots here.” After all, most primary students desire to fly for recreational reasons. I’d like to hear from you regarding how you would approach training these types of students.
Trevor
Greetings Trevor:
Here’s the best advice I can give you. Teach your students the basic principles of stick-and-rudder (attitude-flying) skills. In other words, teach your students to rely primarily on outside references, rather than instrument references, to fly an airplane. Teach them such things as attitude-flying skills, coordination skills, energy management, and to “fly the wing,” not the flight instruments. This is called “seat-of-the-pants” flying and is essential for all pilots to learn (irrespective of whether or not they wear pants when they fly—although they should wear something, especially during their checkrides). Your students will obviously receive instrument training, and they can supplement their visual, aural, and tactile sensory inputs with instrument references as appropriate in visual conditions. They shouldn’t, however, need to rely on instrument references to fly their airplanes in visual conditions.
Additionally, there’s nothing about flying big airplanes that pertains to flying small ones, while everything about flying small airplanes pertains to flying big ones. Translation? Don’t teach your students to fly a Cessna 172 as if it’s a Boeing 777. It’s not! Nothing is more important at the private pilot entry level than to teach basic stick-and-rudder (attitude-flying) skills.
Keep in mind that only 20 percent of the folks who want to earn a private pilot certificate are interested in becoming airline pilots. Even then, there’s absolutely no difference in the way you should train them at the primary level. None!
As a final thought, remember that you’re preparing your students to use a private pilot certificate as a “license to learn.” While you can’t teach them everything, you can certainly teach them enough so they can learn safely on their own.
Hello Rod:
When teaching primary students (from day one of their training) in a retractable-gear airplane, should you raise and lower the gear for each circuit of the pattern? Or, is it better to leave the gear down and locked until the student has more experience in that airplane? This is a matter of some debate in our flight school.
Thank you,
D.L.
Greetings D.L.:
If you’re going to teach a student pilot to fly in a retractable-gear airplane then the only wise choice to make is to, teach that person to raise and lower the gear on each pattern circuit. To do otherwise would be irresponsible, in my opinion. The habitual foundation necessary to raise and lower the gear (especially lower the gear) comes from repetition during the formative hours of flight training.
It’s one thing to teach an already-rated pilot to raise and lower the gear once that person knows how to fly. A private pilot learning to fly a retractable-gear airplane typically needs to spend four or five hours to learn to raise and lower the gear. A student pilot, however, is learning how to fly at the same time he or she is learning to raise and lower the gear. So it’s best to inculcate the gear habit from the very beginning of that student’s training.
As to the worry about gear cycling, if that was an issue (which it typically isn’t, as a practical matter), then that airplane shouldn’t be used for training.
Check out Rod's CFI affiliate program online.
