Centaurus:
Thanks for your reply. As I and others have said so far in this thread, we all have different methods of achieving the goal of teaching people to become pilots. You have yours and it works for you, and I have mine which works as well, and believe me does not 'dumb-down' the process.
My personal opinion is that your idea of sticking people in the sim first is flawed, as it will encourage them to rely on the instruments far too much at an early stage, and you will have trouble weaning them off using the AH instead of the natural horizon for their attitude flying. The primary effect of rudder is far more obvious with a bootful of rudder and crossed ailerons to counteract secondary roll, for example, than it ever will be by watching the display on the average GA sim. However, that is my opinion, and you say it works for you, so that's your business.
Chuck:
I'm sorry if my analogy offended you. You seem, as has been mentioned by others so far, very angry for no apparent reason. Most contributors here have been agreeing that there is a risk of dumbing down which must be resisted, so I don't understand your row of angry faces.
My maligned phrase was trying to convey that I use all the skills I have learnt in my 1200 hours flying to try to teach others to become pilots as well. The exact method varies depending upon the student, but the end result is usually the same. That is what I meant by the toolbox analogy.
While you are having a go at the present state of affairs and the lack of understanding of rudder, for example, you better mention the likes of Cessna and Piper. After all, they are the worst culprits as they designed training aircraft wih Frise or Differential ailerons to overcome Adverse Aileron Yaw and make them easy to put into a balanced turn with minimal rudder. Or does the fact that Cessas are a non-event at the stall and nigh on impossible to spin unintentionally make them a bad training aircraft or one where less low-hours people are likely to kill themselves?
The aircraft you learnt on in 1953 probably didn't have that, did it? Does that necessarily make today's students less competent than you? We used to send 18 year old boys off to shoot at the Luftwaffe with 6 hours in a Spitfire (not the most forgiving of aircraft), and many of them killed themselves taking off or landing. I suppose those that didn't were by definition good pilots. Strange way of weeding out the weak, though!
