Hyperactive excitable puppy-dog students

[chicken6]

Posted on behalf of a fellow instructor and the rest of our staff

We have one of those hyperactive, highly keen and excitable puppy-dog students who is always too keen to go flying at the expense of thinking. While this behaviour is understandable from the young, and is along the lines of the attitudes we all love to see, this is going too far as said student is incapable of taking important information in and retaining it.

Said student flies a family aeroplane, and pays for it, so has some idea of responsibility. However, the student has not absorbed properly a year of repeated warnings about the attitude of "push your limits because that's how you learn". We have tried to instil a mild fear of flying in the effort to curb the overwhelming urge to fly in any weather, but to no avail. Even our CFI letting the aeroplane go into cloud during a simple map-reading exercise has not dimmed the furnace of eagerness (forgive me if I wax lyrical, I'm in a wordy mood).

Matters are hopefully not going to come to a head with this student ploughing into a hill (or even flat land, which is conceivable). What we need is a way to impress the young buck with the importance of safety, and NOT going flying in 25G39 kts like the plan was today. We are currently thinking of crushing his eagerness by actually refusing to let him speak unless it is sensible. I know it sounds harsh but we've done everything else except take him to a crash scene.

Ideas please, before we go insane! http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/frown.gif

Read my sig. That;s how I feel about him - he's at stage 2.5.

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Confident, cocky, lazy, dead.

[Fokjok]

If you have all got together, and this is the way you feel, then you should feel duty bound to suggest that he gives up flying.

Bear in mind, that if you don't, and he then has a 'nasty', you will have to live with the feeling that you should have put a stop to his activities sooner.

By the way, have you expressed your concerns to the owner of the aircraft which he flies? How does he/she feel?

Atempting to teach someone a lesson as you describe is not likely to lead to a satisfactory outcome.

We could all make a list of people who are flying who shouldn't be.... don't let's add to the list.

[This message has been edited by Fokjok (edited 21 May 2000).]

[Oz_Pilot]

Sounds like you've done the "give him rope, and let him hang himself" thing to a degree... maybe some furthering of this then (if no success) following Fokjok's suggestion.

For example: where I fly (YSBK) there's another field (YHOX) that, with a strong south-easterly, becomes EXTREMLY turbulent on short finals (i.e. +/- 150' with a relatively experienced instructor flying). That wind is easy to handle on departure YSBK but can scare the crap out of you at YHOX... AND the ground is very close... just be ready to take over in case he decides to keep going!

[chicken6]

Student has already been told that neither our CFI (with Flight Testing privileges (sp?)) nor any other examiner or pilot in general would let anyone fly with him until he starts displaying a more mature decision making ability. I am fairly sure he will mellow with the experience age brings, maybe if one of his friends has a really bad car crash, that sort of thing.

Student once (not with me) tried to pull left on to finals on a FLWOP so hard it snap rolled through 90deg LEFT before the aerobatically inclined instructor caught it. At about 200'. Instructor came back a nervous bundle, took the rest of the day off. Student had no idea what happened, wanted to know how it happened, which is good, but also wanted to do it again (at altitude, I'll give him credit for that)!

I don't think "never get his licence" is appropriate given his inexperience of life in general, but definitely "not for a while".

Thanks for your comments, any other ideas?

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Confident, cocky, lazy, dead.

[Charlie Foxtrot India]

How old is this student? Has he had the kind of background where he has been given everything he wants with little or no effort? If so it's very difficult to get through to them that they are resposible for their own actions. Sometimes the only way to get through is to tell them that until they see things from a different perspective, you don't anticipate any progress being made towards their licence...

[chicken6]

Student is about 16-17

I know it's difficult to get through to him, that's why I brought the issue up in an international forum! He has already been told that he is not getting any closer to PPL level, and we are at the moment taking things very slowly while still moving through the syllabus and still managing to actually teach him something each lesson.



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Confident, cocky, lazy, dead.