A world of pain

Basic briefing over (I had already studied the POH for the aircraft before the planned lesson) we went to fly the aircraft.

There was no asking my background or experience. There was no request to fill out a form with my name and address. At this stage he had not asked my surname.

We did a walk around and went flying. The glass panel was different, so some time was spent explaining it.

Into the stalls, and as soon as there was a “burble” my instructor pushed the stick forward. That was it?

I asked to do a stall. I raised the nose higher than my instructor. As we approached a real stall my instructor shrieked ‘No, no, we are not going to do a spin’.

Spin? I had said nothing about a spin, nor had I planned anything more than a wings level stall and recovery.

The flight continued, then back to base.

The next lesson was circuits. At the end of that flight we taxied the aircraft back to its parking spot and sat and waited, and waited. I asked the reason for the delay in the shut down. My instructor replied that it was to allow the engine to cool. Really? It had water-cooled heads and, in theory, could be shut down quicker than a car with a water-cooled block. The water keeps the heat around the heads, thus preventing cracked heads.

I asked a second time why were we waiting. Again the reply was to allow the engine to cool. At this stage I told the instructor that we were waiting for the turbo charger to cool and thus prevent coking of the turbo.

At long last he acknowledged that the engine was turbocharged. This was the first mention from him that we had a turbo-charged engine.

At the front counter I was asked for my full name and address. Heaven only knows what would have happened if we had spun in and become “crispy critters”. How would they have known who the student was?

The second flight was in Ireland. I had rung a local flying school and they managed to get me an aircraft and an instructor. I had wanted to go for a drive in their Super Cub, but the best they could do was a 1977 Cessna 172N. I have flown a lot of time in that aircraft model.

My allocated instructor called to me from the door of the waiting room.

“Dave is it? Ready to go?”

I asked who he was and he gave me his Christian name. No briefing and it was outside to walk to our aircraft.

“Done any flying”? He asked.

“Some”, was the reply.

We did a very detailed pre-flight inspection and then my three bar instructor did the start and pre takeoff checks. They were sharp, perhaps representative of his ex-air force background. I formed the opinion that he may have been bumped before graduation and was now building time to get a seat with a local airline.

He instructed me to not touch the controls, and away we went for the flight. I saw lots of patchwork fields. He allowed me to take the controls and do a 360 turn. It was perfect and so it should have been.

We returned to the base airport, parked, shut down and walked back in. My instructor walked me to the front desk and the girl there billed me for a fistful of Euros.

There was no post flight de-briefing or mention of the flight time which I figured was 0.8 hours.

Half a world apart and two flights much the same. Sub-standard.

‘Heaven only knows what would have happened if we had spun in’

If I had been the instructor in either case I would have introduced myself by my full name. I would have made sure that the name and address of the student was recorded before the flight. If we had speared in, the school would know where the body came from. I would have talked with the student and asked what they were about, what they wanted to do and the expected outcome, and done a proper pre-flight briefing.

I would certainly have dug deeper and found out the student’s previous flying experience. In both cases I had talked the talk and it should have been obvious that I had previous experience.

For the takeoff I would have had even a zero experience student on the controls with my hands ready to take control. ‘This is the control wheel. Push the throttle in gently and slowly pull back on the wheel, simple’. Giving a student confidence to fly an aircraft starts with their first flight, not with a little bit of hands on during the third flight as I have heard some instructors do.

The two cases above deliver lessons for all instructors, not just newly minted Grade 3s but also G2 and G1s. There is a laid out pattern for teaching students to fly and that starts with gaining their confidence and building that confidence right from the first flight. There are better ways to do things.

Instructors: do them!

Instructor tip of the month

What are the basics of a flight bag? Perhaps a soft skin bag so that it can be fitted into any aircraft space. A headset is a must, as well as current charts of all the required varieties. Deliver a small torch and a fuel tester. Carry a mobile phone with the company number stored as well as the tower, ATIS and maybe the maintenance shop. A VHF portable radio is a nice-to-have item. A knee pad. An EFB or iPad with maps in it. Some flight plan blanks. A sharp knife like a Swiss Army pocket knife. A sheet with the basic info on the aircraft to be flown. A spare pen. Some note paper. Your pilots licence. Your ASIC card. Did I forget anything?