Originally Posted by
EGKB
- 6 hours logged
I have great flight sim experience, I was flying on VATSIM online with a microphone when I was 11, using SIDS/STARS and chart reading and cold starts in PMDG 747 and so on....
It's kind of a hinderence to the beginning of my learning because he was going through all flight controls, and wouldn't listen to me when I told him I knew what the rudder/ailerons where..
A word to the wise on the subject of teaching and learning. I have learned and taught three main subjects in my life. Flying, aeronautical engineering, and Jiu Jitsu. I have high level qualifications in each, and am qualified to teach each.
I've learned with all of these that there's not necessarily a single right or wrong, and that some adaptation is needed. But, any expert practitioner has a complete set of practice and understanding that work really well together.
So if I go and spend time with another martial artist, or pilot, or engineer, I take time to take and use their understanding of the core subjects. Some compartmentalisation is very necessary - so I do not talk about stability when I have my pilot hat on in the same way as I do with my engineer hat on. Equally I practice Aiki Kempo Jiu Jitsu, but if I'm away from home and say go and play with the local Shorinji Khan Jujitsu club, I'll put a white belt on, listen hard to their instructor's view on how to throw, punch, breakfall, etc - and I get far more from it if I take their entire package of knowledge as a whole, and not go in saying that I understand lots of it already. Because I don't, not within their frame of reference.
Plus, even if I do have the same frame of reference for the beginners stuff, I don't necessarily know at what point our paradigms diverge, so I listen from the beginning.
This is across the board. There are engineers with a full frame of reference to their subject that I am better taking from the start, not from my personal starting point. And if I am learning a new flying skill - as I seem to most years - I listen to everything, and take the complete set.
It really really works better that way.
So, in your case, you are best in my opinion taking the full picture as understood and explained by your flying instructor - even back to something as basic as how the flaps and ailerons work, and use that as part of the lead in to the completely new knowledge that he'll reach soon enough.
however what I've realised is that it's not a rush, and either way I'm going to need 45 hours minimum regardless of how fast I learn things.
Going flying this saturday, and then on the 20th
If you can get the learning process right, which I suspect you do need to work on, you do have the advantage of youth. At 17 you should learn faster than most of us are capable of - and as such you are a lucky bastard. So if you do do really well, consider for example than you can do night, tailwheel, possibly some basic aerobatics, within those 45 hours. Don't bank on it, although if you are reasonably sharp, a night qualification at-least should be achievable within the 45.
Right now work on the learning process - which is very much about absorbing the complete paradigm being used by your instructor, rather than trying to cherry pick it material and paste that into your autodidactic past.
G