Keep up the posts Whirly, if you have the time.
I found my FI course very, very intense - expect brain fade!
The BB/MG puzzle is meant to make us think of all the possible ways ways of losing height with a stuck collective. Part of it can be done by losing height by doing steepish turns, which is fairly controlled; changing air speed can work too. You still have to sort out the bottom end though.
You raise some interesting thoughts about learning to instruct and level of detail in briefs.
It is only when you start to think about instructing that you begin to realise what sort of instructor you had for your initial training. I was very lucky in having an experienced instructor for my PPL(H)who also taught instructors. I am/was an engineer, so he tended to go into lots of detail, which was good for me. Don't be too hard on junior instructors though - we all have to start somewhere and lots of PPL students want or can only cope with the basics!
Once you are instructing you will find that one of the skills you develop is to change your brief to suit the student. There is a certain basic level of knowledge that any PPL needs. The student/customer may just want or need the bare minimum or be a full-blown aerodynamic nutcase and you need to be able to cope with both.
You will be in the commercial instruction world, not the military one. The depth a brief should be determined firstly by the minimum required by the syllabus, but also by WHAT THE CUSTOMER WANTS/NEEDS.
When I did my FI training (and during subsequent FI re-testing) I always found it difficult to "play the game" that was required. Real briefing of a real student is much easier and more enjoyable. You need to remember that you are playing a game and act accordingly during your FI training. It is a false situation to try to tell some n-zillion hour helicopter guru about the basics of P of F. Try to act; try to play the game of getting the student "involved" by making them answer questions (even though you know they know the answers better then you do). Pretend that you briefed them about the previous exercise last week and get them to recap on some of those aspects.
The question of level of detail and depth of briefing is always a matter of judgment. Leaving the "real world" alone for now, in your current world you may care to consider 2 things:
i) Mike G (and whoever will test you) are inevitably P of F "nuts" so they will like to talk about P of F and all that stuff.
ii) You are required to cover what the syllabus says you should cover.
I would make sure that you do the minimum required in your initial brief, but not a lot more than that. Then be prepared to talk in more detail, when your "student" comes back with all sorts of other questions and issues.
Don't despair ! Think of all that flying you will be paid for, once you are an FI, and all the things you will learn from your future students!
P.S. Thinking about this, I am quite jealous because my current flight duty commitments prevent me from doing instruction
