Stalling Brief and Demonstration

[S-Works]

I am interviewing the next two days as well as a CAA audit. Word of advice for anyone coming. I am old school, I don't do death by power point lessons. I am rather fond of whiteboard briefs for lessons from the Ontrack manual.......

[Genghis the Engineer]

Does anybody really believe that powerpoints are a good idea for most 1:1 briefs? Surely they should primarily be a dialogue between the instructor and their student, and as such the interaction of a developing image on the whiteboard is far more powerful than the relatively unchangeable nature of powerpoint slides is much more powerful as a teaching tool.

(Personally I like using an A2 artpad and fibre class pens - then my student can keep the sheets if they wish, but the principle doesn't change).

G

[Whopity]

I have seen many briefs on stalling given on various devices from Powerpoint to the back of a fag packet. In the main, the more slick the device the less the candidate actually understands about what they are doing or why they are doing it!

[Cows getting bigger]

There's a really good set of pre-flight briefs that is readily circulated amongst FIs/FICs - it is formatted as a set of powerpoint slides.

That said, anyone who uses this brief as a powerpoint presentation is mad; whiteboard, pens and audience participation is essential. You cannot engage with the student if you are constrained by an electronic slide. The CFS model works because you are dealing with enthusiastic professionals-to-be who have spent 6 hours the previous evening revising and the brief is far more focussed around being a check of understanding.

PS. I think the stall is a pretty lame subject for an FI interview. I would prefer to be taught Ex 6(ii) - straight and level at various speeds/configurations - as this this takes far more skill to teach correctly.

[Treadstone1]

This is a difficult one.

I understand the old school, but i also appreciate the younger end. Power-point is good tool for the diagrams and graphics that possibly not all of us can draw properly, this must be backed up by the "knowledge" that we hope we possess as FI's to be able to answer questions that our students may ask.

We also have to appreciate that not all instructors like writing on white boards any more.. we ALL have to move with the times.

And before i get a load of flak, i speak from experience of a very recent CAA inspection that was carried out at my ATO where i did a PFB on a nominated lesson, i had old and new methods ready to go, i chose power-point for this particular briefing and it was received with a breath of fresh air by all..

Me, personally i think, adapt..overcome..succeed..

[BigEndBob]

I hate turning my back on a student whilst writing on a board, so i just sit face to face and write the brief out on a piece of A4 paper.

The front has the brief and the back the inevitable drift off to other connected topics.

Then the student can take the brief home to study.

[Genghis the Engineer]

I absolutely agree Treadstone about the need for adaptability, and that's where PP needs to be treated with massive care.

I give quite a few public lectures on various aviation topics, and I usually use PP. However, I'm very clear in my mind that PP is a backdrop, people have come to hear me - as I could have just emailed my slides, and I keep the information very minimal or people will just be reading my slides and not listening to me.

When I'm university lecturing or delivering specialist groundschool on flight testing, I often use PP, but I virtually never lecture without a black/whiteboard or huge-sheet-of-paper-and-coloured-pens available to me (yes, some universities still have blackboards - and I never remember to take chalk so have to scrounge some or rely upon what's left behind in the lecture theatre), as I need to interact with the class, pick up on what they don't understand, and interactively develop additional material on the board to clarify what we're talking about.

When I'm teaching flying, any brief starts with discussion with the student, as I need to start from what they know already, and that's a very variable feast. I also need to make sure that they *do* understand the key points before we fly - and using a standard form of presentation is seldom matched to that well.

Perhaps an instructor test is an oddball in that regard, as invariably the examiner knows as much as, or more than the "instructor". So, it really is about the delivery and knowledge, and the interaction will be of quite a different nature to a real lesson, where any misunderstanding on the part of the student isn't an act - it's real, and their rate of learning is seldom going to be as linear as with an FIE.


So, I'm not discounting PP as I'm a big user of it in some teaching environments. But, I still think that the 1:1 flight-briefing environment is a place where it should be used with a lot of caution, and NEVER in a linear "this is the order we're talking about it and will not vary" fashion.

G

[Big Pistons Forever]

Re teaching the stall exercise with PP vs white board.

I only teach with white board and do not allow my FI students to use PP.

Why ? because for the last three PPL what I taught on the ground exercise was significantly different because what worked for the guy with an engineering degree would have been useless to the guy who ran a landscaping business, and what would have worked for him would not have been the right lesson for the professional motor mechanic....

The white board format allows an infinite number of ways to present while the use of PP encourages rote repetition at the expensive of understanding.

Just because it is new and on a computer does not mean it is better.....

[BEagle]

Before PowerPoint came along, some briefs were given on the dreaded OHP slide....

We were taught to turn the projector lamp off between slides, rather than change slides with the projector on. This ensured that students turned themselves off in sympathy and any with a knowledge of electrickery winced at the damage we caused to the projector bulbs.

Then there were the briefing slides themselves - covered in strips of card hinged with tape, which we were required to flip over with a knitting needle or similar. Of course if this was in response to the answer elicited from the student, there was always the risk that he/she would provide a logical alternative which wasn't on the slide.....

I hated the wretched things. A white board (and 4 colour dri-markers) was so much easier and less distracting.

At one RAF base, the grumpy station commander growled at one briefer for using his finger rather than a pointer to highlight the topic to which he was referring on the slide. So he made himself a large arrow from cardboard. The next day he started his brief and placed the arrow on the slide. The whole place erupted, because his skill with scissors and cardboard wasn't too good and it looked for all the world as though he'd just flopped his....male appendage onto the slide. The station commander was even less amused.....

I once had to give a met brief using an OHP slide. As the audience included a certain rather unpleasant station commander, I took a lot of time and lovingly coloured the cold front in blue and the warm in red, with black isobars. It looked very smart indeed. Then I switched the projector on and was aghast to see no trace of colour on the screen. "Sorry, sir - I should have checked first. It's an old RAF black and white projector", I announced. The station commander's eyes narrowed to slits.

I learned about chingraphs from that - their wax is opaque.

At a different base, the met man was just about to kick off his briefing when a rather more jovial station commander called "Morning, MetO - have some actual!" and lobbed a snowball at the met man. Which hit him on the chest, then fell onto his slides.....which he'd prepared with water-based lumocolour pens - and the whole picture turned into a multi-coloured splodge. That didn't put him off though, as he announced "As you can see, we have a very confused synoptic situation - with low cloud and snow all day".

PowerPoint has its place for certain applications (e.g. the theory of stalling - perhaps), but I agree that it is quite inappropriate for pre-flight student briefs on how the stalling exercise itself will be conducted.

[fireflybob]

PowerPoint has its place for certain applications (e.g. the theory of stalling - perhaps), but I agree that it is quite inappropriate for pre-flight student briefs on how the stalling exercise itself will be conducted.

Beagle, here, here!

Nothing seems to put me in a state of slumber quicker than Powerpoint.

[xrayalpha]

BEagle,

After I was given the "blackboard" talk, I started calling the non-chalk board the "Honkey Board".

We went back to black and white boards very quickly!

[BEagle]

The worst people for such daft politically-correct terminology are the USAF. When I was at a combined forces briefing, the F-15 mob kept referring to a 'fighter box' as a 'fighter container' and 'head-to-head' intercepts as 'inter cranial'.

When I queried this weirdness, they told me that they'd been banned from using the words 'box' and 'head' as their wimmin found them offensive... I kid you not!

So after a few days of this tosh, I told them that they had to stop using another word which our female personnel considered offensive for the same reason.

"Which word?", they queried.

"Bush!"

[foxmoth]

PP is fine for the brief, but to use it in isolation is where people fall down - most briefs follow a format suited to PP, but you then get questions where you need to get out something you can write/draw on, any instuctor who cannot change media when appropriate should not be in the job.

[PerAsperaAdAstra]

Rather surprised no one has mentioned the use of a model, such a good teaching aid. No not the "Victoria's Secret" kind of model either, but a model aircraft! PPT is ok, but yes you should be able to whiteboard talk/draw also. Using a model I think, is good to point out relative airflow/AOA measured on wing chord line, all easily shown with pointer and model, explain root to tip stall, the model is great to show how the root stall causes a useful warning of a light buffet over the elevators and can be used to 3 D illustrate increasing AOA, to critical angle. So as I feel like rambling on......


Start with defining a S+L power off basic stall, then going onto the very important fact that critical angle can be achieved at much higher speeds, and the aircraft safely flown at speeds below basic stall (below crit AOA). So to me, in the air, basic stall and recovery demo, followed by the vital demo of when there's heavy buffet - you're stalled, regardless of speed or flight attitude. I was shown this and shown a sortie flight profile by my ex RAF mates whilst instructing with RAFOman on Masirah Island. I thought it was a very good method, especially the demonstration of heavy buffet (a G stall at above basic stall) you're stalled, no buffet (a gentle bunt from a steep climb, to show flight at below basic stall) you're not. Unload - till buffet goes away, not stalled.

[Heston]

Powerpoint is the devils spawn - avoid if at all possible.


I recall an interview I heard on the radio with a senior army officer talking about his experience in Bosnia. Every morning there would be a briefing of the multinational teams he was part of. PP was universally used. They stopped using it after a while when they realised that everybody was planning ops on the basis of the need to get all the detail onto PP. This meant that everything was on the basis of four to six bullet points per slide. Anything more detailed just wasn't covered and important info wasn't being briefed. Worse, plans were being made to fit the ease of putting them on a PP presentation, not operational reality.


The use of PP willy-nilly can serious warp your mind when planning a presentation. Its a bit like gps really - a great tool if used well, but too easily used to gloss over sloppy thinking and lack of planning.

[DCThumb]

CFS moved to PowerPoint after my tenure thank goodness!!

As a teaching or briefing aid for EFT, it is too linear - you have to reveal,what is next on the slide.

Picture the scene.

'OK Bloggs, what is a characteristic of a suitable PFL field?'

'Shape Sir!'

'That's a good answer Bloggs, but it isn't the first on the list, have another go'

'surrounds Sir!'

'Again, a good answer, but still not the first on the list here....'

'surface???'

'Slope?????'

'size?'

'well done Bloggs, you got the first correct answer'. Courtenay now reveals list in order 'Size, Shape, Surface, Surrounds, Slope.....

Whereas with 4 pens and a board

[foxmoth]

This is exactly why you need to be able change from one medium to the next - get to this slide and you move to a white/black/flip board and write on it until you have the full list, then move (briefly) to the next PP slide with them all listed and then continue with the presentation - with ALL visual aids you need to remember they are exactly that AIDS!

[Big Pistons Forever]

Originally Posted by DCThumb

'OK Bloggs, what is a characteristic of a suitable PFL field?'


'well done Bloggs, you got the first correct answer'. Courtenay now reveals list in order 'Size, Shape, Surface, Surrounds, Slope.....

A bit off topic but the most important consideration for field selection is being able to make it. A field that is close but not perfect is always better than the perfect field that is farther away.

I would also suggest that the best way to deal with an engine failure is to not have the engine fail in the first place. Since about 80 % of engine failures that result in a forced landing by an SEP are directly caused by the actions or inactions of the pilots my personal opinion is that flight training should spend a lot more time in teaching students how to avoid loosing power, rather than what to do after the engine fails

Sorry for the thread drift , but how flight schools teach forced landings is a personal pet peeve....

[foxmoth]

A bit off topic but the most important consideration for field selection is being able to make it. A field that is close but not perfect is always better than the perfect field that is farther away

Should be part of the brief - I always point out after discussing the 5 'S's that any field will be a compromise, it needs to be close enough and it needs picking quickly, amazing how many checkouts I do where the pilot spends so long picking his field he has lost most of the decent ones anyway!

[DCThumb]

Suffice it to say, immediately prior to the 5 S's, the brief discusses which fields are in range!!!!!!