Unusual Attitude: You talk too much

My student was an enthusiastic 15-year-old video game prodigy that I’d flown with a half-dozen times, and he was making excellent progress. It seemed a shame to back out on him, especially on such a fine spring day as this one—but the Cub’s tandem seating arrangement (the student sat in front) would make communicating without an intercom especially difficult.

The airplane was based at a tower-controlled airport, and the aircraft radio was working properly. I asked a more experienced instructor whether to scrub the flight due to the lack of a functioning intercom. He emphatically shook his head no.

“People learned to fly in Cubs for decades before intercoms were even invented,” he said. “There’s no way a faulty intercom should keep you on the ground. Come on.”

He had a point. A faulty intercom shouldn’t be a showstopper—and I’m glad he shamed me into continuing because the flight revealed some important ways I could improve as an instructor.

When my student arrived, we spent more time than usual in the preflight briefing. We discussed the geographic area in which we would fly and its landmarks, the maneuvers we’d practice, and the order in which we’d practice them. We reviewed how we’d transfer the controls in flight using the old “shake-to-take” method on the control stick, and the path we’d follow when we returned to the airfield. We also discussed ATC communications (I’d handle them) and traffic patterns.

The flight itself went extremely well, far better than I’d expected, but there were some trying moments. On the way to the practice area, I wanted to shout, “Center the ball!” when my student was flying uncoordinated.

But I kept silent, and eventually, he recognized his error and fixed it with light rudder pressure. Discovering and correcting his own mistake was far more meaningful to him than having his instructor nag him for the umpteenth time.

Steep turns and turns around a point were much the same. The student recognized flaws without his mute instructor pointing them out, and he fixed them on his own. That proved to both of us that he was seeing the big picture, recognizing mistakes, and responding correctly.

It also improved my pantomime skills. Hand gestures for climbs, descents, and turns were emphatic and intuitive, and when I held out two fingers and pointed to the altimeter, he instantly nodded. He knew I wanted him to fly at 2,000 feet.

I patted him on the shoulder when he did things well, and I could see the sweat on his neck when he struggled.

Once we returned to the airport traffic pattern, communication got even easier. At idle power on approach, the engine was quiet enough that we could talk, and be heard, in somewhat normal tones. And when I wanted to make a point, I cupped my hands like coxswain and shouted brilliant things at the back of his head such as, “60 miles an hour on final!”

If he bounced a landing or got too slow, I’d simply push the throttle forward and he’d take us around. Nothing had to be said at all. After landing and putting the Cub away, we debriefed as usual and went our separate ways.

That one flight without an intercom made me realize two big things: First, I’d been doing a poor job on preflight briefings. A few extra minutes on the ground explaining what we were going to do and answering questions is much more productive than trying to explain those things in the airplane with the engine running. Rushing into the air is counterproductive. And second, I talk too much in flight. I wrongly believed that if I wasn’t talking, I wasn’t teaching. In truth, being silent and letting the student think is far more helpful than a droning monologue that matches the Hobbs meter.

Now, even when the intercom works perfectly, I make a conscious effort to hush. And my students benefit because of it.