Right Seat: High Expectations

It’s also a relationship of expectations. Students expect certain things from their instructors, and instructors expect certain behavior and actions from their students. Like any relationship, these expectations could become toxic, especially if they aren’t brought out into the open.

I was thinking about this recently after reading this month’s article, “10 Things Student Pilots Do Wrong” by Alton K. Marsh, which begins on p. 44. For the story Marsh interviews a flight school representative who created a popular online video describing mistakes student pilots often make. They are mainly minor mistakes, and things instructors like to harp on. How many times has your instructor reminded you to maintain the runway centerline on takeoff, for example?

The story does a great job of establishing common instructor expectations: Get a good weather briefing, control the airplane in the flare, use a checklist, and so on. As the person doing most of the talking, an instructor’s expectations are rarely a mystery. We want you to study a little, show up on time, and ask lots of questions.

Take some time and think about why you’re doing this, what you hope to get out of it, and where you hope to take your flying.What the story doesn’t address, and what’s often never addressed in training, is that the inverse isn’t necessarily true. Students rarely voice expectations. Maybe that’s because aviation is such a foreign land to most students that they don’t even have expectations. But I suspect that’s not it. Even if you don’t know how the training will progress or what you plan to do after you finish, you have a good idea of why you’re there. You didn’t just stumble into the flight school on a whim. No, you sought out the flight school, you dreamed what it would be like to fly, and you probably have a good idea why you are learning.

Most students, even if they’re not aware, also have an expectation for how much the training will cost, how long it will take, and how difficult it will be. Unfortunately, most never say a word about any of this to their instructors.

Research shows that nearly 80 percent of student pilots don’t finish training. I don’t say that to scare you. I mention it because many of those unrealized dreams may have been easily realized had it not been for expectations—especially those left unsaid. Look through the research and it’s clear that students expect flying to cost a certain amount, they expect a flight school to provide certain materials, and they expect their instructor knows how to teach. All reasonable stuff.

As a student, you are in control of your training. Sure, the instructor can fly a great power-off stall, but that doesn’t make him your superior. Take some time and think about why you’re doing this, what you hope to get out of it, and where you hope to take your flying. And then have a conversation with your instructor. Because if you walk away, or get frustrated, or take a month off because you’re angry, it could be because your expectations were known only to you.

One thing the instructor may not expect from you—and something you may not expect from yourself—is that this should be fun. Learning to fly is an incredible, life-expanding experience. Without fun there’s virtually no point in doing the work. So make sure the first thing you tell your instructor is that you expect fun.

Just don’t be surprised if he tells you he expects you to study.