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Old 10th September 2021 | 00:26
  #25 (permalink)  
43Inches
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Joined: Oct 2007
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From: Aus
I have not had one instructor consistently but, instead, my school keeps giving me a different one every time and also changing them in the last minute (happened just this morning). There has been no master plan for the practical training, no one sat with me to tell me what I should achieve by when, there is no guidance on how much I should fly. I keep trying to figure this all out on my own.
This comment has warning signs all over it.

I was an Instructor for many years with a few thousands hours ab-initio training, which is all the early stuff. Chopping and changing instructors is not good for the student in any way, this could work possibly in the military where they have extreme standardisation and clear progress guidelines and expectations. In civilian training you need to have at least one dedicated instructor who you trust and get along with, they can be senior or junior, it's about whether you gel with them. If they are junior it would be good to have them overseen by a competent senior instructor who flies with you occasionally to assess progress, impart knowledge and help mentor the junior. Unfortunately, not many schools practice these training mentalities.

In your case where you are obviously struggling with some concept the school should have seen your hours by now and come up with some sort of plan involving flying with a senior instructor with more tricks in their bag to deploy in your training.

My biggest advice is not to over complicate the landing, thinking about it too much will lead to fixation and mental gymnastics when you just have to perform a relatively simple exercise.

1st Get the approach right 90% of the landing is arriving in a consistent position to start with. Arrive over the threshold at the right attitude, speed and alignment, trim is essential.

2nd Transition your eyesight slowly down the runway to where you would normally look say when driving at high speed on a freeway and smoothly reduce power. From this position you will be able to see the runway alignment and assess the aircraft sinking onto the runway with peripheral vision.

3rd As the aircraft wants to sink raise the nose until it reaches landing attitude, then let it sink onto the runway, use rudder (yaw) to keep the aircraft pointed down the runway and counter any drift sideways with aileron (roll).

(4th after landing) Keep flying using rudder to stay straight, avoid wheel-barrowing by maintaining some backwards force above neutral and aileron into wind, apply brakes if needed, until you are back to taxi speed. Taxi in, shut down, tie down, now landing is complete.

If any of this gets out of control or feels wrong, hit the power, set climb attitude and go around.

I would suggest if the CFI is still following this mantra that 'many' is better after a chat that you seriously look for a change in flying school.

PS, don't let instructors take you flying in poor conditions when you are obviously struggling with something, turbulence, crosswind and wind-shear just complicate the training objective. I used to get pre solo students to come in first thing in the morning with calm winds and atmosphere, then you could just focus on the essentials. Plus the traffic pattern was generally emptier.
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