This thred is proving to be a great example of why instructing standards are on a steady decline in many places.
One person says;
Its rare because in virtually all light aircraft the flaps are controlled off a straight rod which links both flaps to one point of control.
Clearly that person has failed to notice that a large proportion of the GA fleet are of the Cessna variety - Right flap driven direct from the flap motor in the right wing and the left flap via cable and pulleys - cables that have broken in the past.
Never mind the fact that extending flap reduces lateral stability and changes the airflow over the taiplane.
However, since I can not see how the probability of the left flap in a C152 is increased simply because the aircraft is not at zero angle of bank - what about airspeed, pitch attitude etc etc etc.
But. While I don't subscribe to the "no flaps in the turn in case we get an asymetric flap extension" I do subscribe to the workload management and the - "Fly the Aircraft" and the "Turns are for turning and looking" way of doing things.
If one was to completely comply with the "no flap in the turn" rule then in many places, flap would never be extended because students rarely fly straight and level for long - there is always a tendency to wander in direction i.e. turn!!
Seems that everyone has forgotten that exercises 12 and 13 are not in any way designed to teach the student how to fly circuits. They are designed to teach take-off, approach and landing with revision of the exercises 1 through 10a while putting the lessons learned from 10b and 11 (stall/spin avoidance) into practice i.e avoidance!
The circuit is simply an efficient method of doing the above in minimum time.
But like the "never extend flap in the turn", many people these days teach circuits or make other secondary issues primary ones.
Eg. On the IR I teach over the holding fix actions of Time Turn i.e. start the watch then enter the turn. If you forget the watch don't start it during the turn - turns are for turning - complete the turn and thern start the watch but remember that you have spend x seconds (3deg per second) turning.
Same for the heading bug - Check new heading, Move the bug, start the turn. Again don't move the bug during the turn - if you forget, complete the turn and then set the bug.
However, most importantly, I don't teach "never start the watch in the turn".......I do teach "If you start the watch in the turn will you remember how far into the turn you started it and what amount of time is missing from the indicated time.......not easy.......what about doing a 180 degree turn and then starting the watch but adding 1 minute to the indicated time to see how long since the fix?
Getting back to the flap question - all those that talk of asymetery - how many simulate the situation involved and get the student to cope?
How many teach the flapless approach and landing but never later simulate a flap failure i.e. say nothing until the student goes for the flap and then "fail" the flap?
How many "fail" the flap during the departure.
The failure to properly teach many of the posibilities starts wityh a total failure to properly teach exercises 1 and 2 where most of the systems, SOPs, Checklists and procedures are covered.
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Is HASELL a check / checklist or is it simply an easy way of remembering some very important things that we should do before an exercise.
I would hope that every instructor on every exercise runs through some form of personal HASELL before getting into the exercise. Most good instructors will be doing it without even realising it.
It therefore is unbelieveable that we could have the situation where an instructor tells a student not to complete a HASELL check before completing an exercise - especially an exercise where it is a very good idea to ensure that there is a good clear area to operate in and a safe height. The student will eventually get their licence and hopefully they will from time to time practice the steep turn exercise.
Never criticise safety. Never. If a student (or instructor) wants to do 5 HASELL checks before exercise 7 then good for them. Could point out that 5 checks may be a bit over the top and that with experience they will probably reduce that but good for taking a safety concious start.
The only argument here against HASELL is that the Steep turn is "an avoidance manoeuvre" and it appears that some think that it should have no warning. Are we not getting a bit ahead of ourselves? Why not teach how to complete a steep turn - level climbing and descending and then when they can do the manoeuvre, use what they know to acheive the objective of avoiding something i.e. simulate avoiding an aircraft / turnback in a valley.
After all, few here seem to have realised that the tighest turn (the one that uses the minimum horizontal airspace) is not going to be level and therefore best way to turn round in a valley is to make a descending turn of minimum radius (climbing turn if you can't descend) - what has that got to do with steep turns????
Who in their right mind is going to avoid an aircraft at the same level by executing a level turn?
If we apply the rationalle of not doing the HASELL check consistently then we should not do them before the stalling exercise. After all, we are training for recovery at the first signs in the worst case - low level. Will that situation come with advance warning and time to compete HASELL????
Instructing standards indeed.
Is anything going to change?
Not as long as we have people with the following opinions;
MJ wanders off thinking well thats you not getting used again.
i.e. Instructor does not agree with Examiner (more experienced individual???) and rather than learning, does what is nessary to avoid changing one's habits.
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What about Navigation - an area where it is clear that filures are happening and most if not all are attributable to basic training at PPL and CPL level.
Yes we do have to teach DR. No we do not have to exclusively navigate by DR. VFR flights use Visual Navigation and this is not the same as DR.
No training system is perfect. TRTOs teaching Airline pilots are relatively overall no better than the Basic RTF and have the same issues regarding how things are taught and the quality of the instruction. It is an industry wide problem.
When it is an industry wide problem where do you think that that failings lie - with the instructors? with the Organisations (RTF / FTO / TRTO) or with the regulator ?
The answer to that is very clear and 100 instructors / examiners talking about various standards and falling safety levels is going to acheive nothing untilo the regulator wakes up.