G'day Chuck,
I’ve been flying too long to mate. I’m only twenty-one but I’m trapped in this old body and can’t get out! Intolerant – I guess so but I try to suppress it. Things I have noticed about young instructors who are not trapped in old bodies:
Always in a hurry to log the next hour therefore the pre-flight and post flight briefs suffer. But they are closer to the student than we are because they were in the hot seat just a year or so ago and can often relate better.
Don’t have our experience but are often able to improvise. Not always the right solution but some improvisations are novel and worth developing.
Reluctant to seek advice from their ‘old bodied’ colleagues but if closely and unobtrusively supervised can be redirected by the auto-suggestion method.
Rules are often a hinderence to the next hour in the log book so they will circumvent the offending rule. ‘Old bodied’ instructors should therefore set high standards to make rule following ‘cool’.
As for what is the right spot to look during landing I guess we all teach differently with the demarcation line dividing the tail-draggers and the non-conventional types (baby boomers). I don’t always try to change a student if someone else has taught him differently and it is working for him. I do however like to know where he is looking so I can also perceive the information that he is processing and teach accordingly. If it isn’t working for him then he needs to change his ‘sight guage’. For the ladies replace he/him with she/her!
Mate, reserve me a spot up there on that beautiful island of yours. Somewhere I can fashion timber into wood shavings and occasionally walk out of the shop to glance skywards in the direction of a radial engine or some such. And maybe drink the odd ale with some other old intolerant aviators.