Student pilot soon to be PPL considering Flight Instruction

[ma11achy]

Hi there,

I'm a 40 hour student pilot hoping to complete his PPL soon. In the last few months, I've been contemplating what to actually do with my PPL once I get it. It's something I've wanted since I've been knee high to a terriers testicle - so I don't want to waste it bimbling around a circuit for the rest of my days (not that that's a bad thing!)

The one thing that keeps popping into my head is flight instruction. I've heard that the best way to really learn how to fly is to teach it, so if it benefits me and some future students of mine, great. My flight instructor is a top class pilot, great mentor and has a genuine interest in how his students progress. I could not find any fault with the guy, except maybe I do notice that he gets stressed at times, but then again that's probably my flying :)


My questions are:

1) What would be the best methods of perfecting my airmanship over the next year or so of hour building? I realise from driving a car that once I passed my test, my skills got sloppy. I would like to ensure the opposite with airmanship - I want to refine it. Lots of x-countries? Lots of circuits? Both? Fly passengers and try to make them feel at ease?


2) I'm thinking of starting out aiming for the Light Aircraft Flight Instuctor cert from the new regs at EASA. Is this a recommended method, or should I go the whole hog and go for a PPL FI cert?
Does having a LAFI cert make it easier to transition to a PPL FI?

Thanks in advance,
Martin.

[Whopity]

The Light Aircraft Flight Instructor proposal was shelved in October last year so that is no longer an option. The requirements to become an FI under EASA will remain largely as they are now. Thre other option will be a microlight instructor which is outside the EASA regulation.

[ma11achy]

Any takers?

[Big Pistons Forever]

RE your point one. I tell all the prospective students who ask me about pursuing the flying instructor rating, that the starting point is that they have to be able to demonstrate every air exercise with no significant errors. In other words the standard is to get perfect marks on every part of a PPL skills test. It is not IMO that difficult to do you just have to be very disciplined at practicing your flying skills.

A good start is aircraft altitude and speed control. You should be + - 50 feet of your chosen altitude and + - 2 knots of chosen airspeed 95% of the time. The other 5% of the time you should be correcting back to tolerance.

[mrmum]

Okay, here you go FWIW is my take on bieng a FI;

1) Whether you go the CPL or PPL route a instructor rating, the type of flying to do to build your experience and enhance your skills is probably similar. It should be a mixture of all the stuff you learn on a PPL course.

Cross countries and land-aways to a range of different types of airfields, are generally the more enjoyable and interesting things to do and are good experience. It is also important to keep improving your general handling, so plenty of circuits and airwork will be beneficial. I'm not sure that going out of your way to have a lot of passengers is that useful though.

As you have found from driving, it's very easy to get sloppy and let bad habits develop once you have a licence. Just flying around, putting hours in your logbook isn't the point, you will need to set yourself targets and limits and be hard on yourself. Ensure you fly accurately and try and develop good habits. Airmanship is a trickier one to teach yourself, push your boundaries gently, keep going up with your instructor from time to time to get some feedback on how you're doing. Why not add some further ratings to your PPL, such as a night qualification, seaplane, maybe some aero's I see you're in Ireland, so that would mean no IMCr, not sure what else is available in the republic. What you should be aiming to achieve is to be able to fly the aircraft through the exercises of the syllabus, with little or no conscious thought, you'll need all that to patter/teach what you're doing and monitor what your student is doing, notice and correct their errors

2) Nothing much more to say, than what Whopity put in post #2

Whatever you choose to do, be aware it will be expensive to do it and there's not much money to be made in being a FI. Having said that, I've not really got many regrets and do genuinely, hugely enjoy instructing, but it's not for everyone

[ma11achy]

Thanks Pistons and mrmum, much appreciate the insight.

[bingofuel]

Accuracy and discipline..........there are 2 types of pilot, those that fly a 1000ft circuit at 1000ft and those that fly it between 900 and 1100ft, decide which type of pilot you want to be?

[ma11achy]

Aye bingofuel, had that drummed into me at the very start as well. I always aim to be as perfect as possible, never straying within 50ft or 5kt if possible.

If its worth doin, its worth doin right.

[Whopity]

1) What would be the best methods of perfecting my airmanship over the next year or so of hour building?Bit of a contradiction there. Airmanship comes from experience; hour building is a way of cramming as much experience into as shorter time as possible to achieve an end result. More often that not it proves to be hour wasting because you gain the hours in your log book but learn little from them. It is exceedingly difficult to discipline yourself when you do not know what the required standard is, or how to achieve it. There is no substitute for good instruction; why not do an IR rather than bore holes in the sky? The end result will be a much higher standard and you could save money in the long term.

[ma11achy]

Hi Whopity,

I'd love to do an IR - (my instructor just completed his recently) - unfortunately
from what I've heard at the club is not the initial cost, but the huge amounts of cash needed to keep an IR current.

I'd do one in a heatbeat only for the fear of losing it again the following year due to not being able to afford to keep the rating.

[Tee Emm]

You should be + - 50 feet of your chosen altitude and + - 2 knots of chosen airspeed 95% of the time.

That would fail around 99.99 percent of all airline pilots....
Come on now - be realistic with those tolerances.

[Big Pistons Forever]

That would fail around 99.99 percent of all airline pilots....
Come on now - be realistic with those tolerances.

Take a C 172 for example on a normal reasonably smooth day.

Can't pitch up to the attitude required to hold 78 kts (Vy) = and maintain that + - 2 kts and maintain that to 1000 ft agl,then smoothly transition to a 85 kt cruise climb to then level off at your selected altitude + - 50 feet, then set the power to maintain the planned cruise speed + - 2 kts, descend to the airport and fly a circuit + - 50 ft with a base leg at 75 kts and a final of 65 kts + - 2 kts ?


Then you are probably a perfectly safe and competent private pilot but you are just not yet good enough to be an instructor. As an instructor you should be able to fly an essential perfect demonstration of any air exercise. To be able to do that you have to be able to fly accurately. To fly accurately you have to practice by working hard at nailing the required attitude every time, always having the aircraft in trim and immediately correct any deviations from the desired flight path. It is IMO perfectly doable for the average PPL, you just have to be willing to work at it.

[welliewanger]

That would fail around 99.99 percent of all airline pilots....
Come on now - be realistic with those tolerances.

Ummmm, not really. I went from flight school to instructing (for 18 months) to large biz jets. 8-9 months later I rented a warrior and passed these requirements straight away.

As for what to do to prepare for instructing... I can only repeat what mrmum said. I'll just add that it's good to continue in this vein after you've got the instructor rating. I remember the shock of finding a fellow instructor who wouldn't take students to new airfields because he was wary of unfamiliar situations. IMHO exposing yourself to unfamiliar situations prepares you for more unfamiliar situations which is 50% of airmanship (the other 50% is being well prepared for what you expected to happen) Oh yes, and doing this means you'll never lose your passion for flying. When every day's a school day it never gets boring.

[John Farley]

Golly - I wish I had the confidence to consider instructing prior to holding a PPL.

What I don't know now about flying today would fill a book - what I didn't know then is frightening to recollect.

[jez d]

John

If what you don't know about flying could fill a book then what I don't know about flying would fill the Bodleian !!

[John Farley]

Perhaps! But you and I must admit that without the arrogance of youth aviation (or the world) would hardly be where it is today - so good luck to ma11achy.

[Genghis the Engineer]

Perhaps! But you and I must admit that without the arrogance of youth aviation (or the world) would hardly be where it is today - so good luck to ma11achy.

The world is, I suppose, full of people who enjoyed the training environment so much, they want to stay in it. Teachers, Professors, flying instructors, outdoors sports instructors...

The risk is that you get a significant number of those who haven't in between times gone off and done a lot of "real" activity - whether it's flying of climbing mountains. Teacher training colleges nowadays, are rightly very reluctant to take straight graduates as trainee teachers - they want somebody who has spent significant time doing a different job, raising a family - the stuff that made us all grow up.

The problem clearly with flying, is that it's very hard as an inexperienced pilot, to get anybody else to pay for that "growing up flying" (I'm sure that somebody did for John, and to an extent for me too - but we're probably in a minority in that regard). Also, in flying you may have a single instructor from ab-initio to PPL, which is quite unique compared to most other areas of human activity, where you may well have multiple teachers/instructors through your education.

I'm not sure I see a solution to this, but it makes the idea of going rapidly from new-PPL to new-FI particularly problematic.

G

[ma11achy]

Genghis, John - thanks for these replies.

Aye, I agree with Genghis, it's not something I would do straight away (as in go straight to an FI). My ideal situation would be to fly for a few years as a PPL and gain enough experience to realise what my limitations are and what I don't know.

John made a very good comment earlier, regarding what he realised he *didn't* know about flying after gaining lots of experience. I can relate to that, from another field, engineering. Starting out as a graduate, I thought I knew everything - after many years of experience, I realised knowing what you *don't* know is much more important.

John, thanks for the mail and what looks to be a very interesting book. I already purchased and read a book called "Redefining Airmanship" by Tony Kern after a little mishap during my first few solo hours, to try and make sure it didn't happen again. (My instructor is reading it now). I'm going to order yours as well.

Cheers,
Martin.