PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Did you ever dread lessons?
View Single Post
Old 28th August 2002 | 12:59
  #17 (permalink)  
SlowRoll
 
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 19
Likes: 0
From: Switzerland
i think many of us have been there....do not give up!!!!!!

i had a similar experience on my 4th PPL lesson, during slow flight exercises.
my instructor was the Bud Spencer type of guy....a man of few words. During the preflight briefing he would explain the lesson's basics and set my objectives. Once in the air he would demonstrate how it had to be done and then let me do it. Needless to say, i didn't always get it right either the first time or the second or the third time.....by then he would start getting impatient and even pissed off at my slow progress and grab the controls to make some really harsh "corrective" input, followed by loud exclamation like "ATTITUDE!!!!!!!!!!!!" or "POWER!!!!!!!!!".

this really got on my confidence and by lesson 4 i was one inch away from giving up flying, as i thought i would never learn it.

i had a chat about it with a good friend, that was also doing his PPL, who managed to convince me not to quit but to change instructor instead. so i did. i never told him my reasons for changing, but i guess someone else at the club did.

some 6 months later i was a proud holder of a shiny new PPL.
at that point i had regained my confidence and even accepted to make various type ratings with that instructor, including my aerobatic endorsement.
eventually, i got to know him better and now i litterally love flying with him. i appreciate his honest and direct way of telling things.

of the couple instructors i have had lessons with, he definitely is the one with the worst communication skills (by now he knows that too) but his flying skills are superior to anyone else i have flown with by such a large margin, that he is the only one i am willing to spend my money on.

from a couple of discussions i had with him on the subject of his teaching i realised that he was aware of coming across the wrong way, especially to low houred students, however he genuinely never meant to put off anyone. He has improved a lot since then....

i guess he simply needed someone to tell him and some time to accept and adapt.
SlowRoll is offline