What do they teach flying instructors these days?

[FlyingOfficerKite]

What do they teach flying instructors these days during a FIC - and more importantly what instruction do they pass on to their students?

This might seem a frivolous comment, but judging by the discussions taking place on this and the Private Flying forums some of the 'basics' seem to have been forgotten.

Some interesting comments regarding PFLs, use of carb heat and selection of flaps in a turn, for example.

Now I fully appreciate there are variations in teaching method, but surely the fundamentals of the exercise remain 'cast in stone' so as to speak no matter where the instruction is given or by whom?

My own instruction, and instructing, has followed a seamless transition from private pilot to line pilot flying jets.

Now there may be 'more than one way to skin a cat', but I cannot recall any training being in contradiction to the basic flying techniques taught at PPL level. These techniques and exercises after all find their roots in military flying training which has been developed, tried and tested over many years.

Maybe I'm being naive, but some of the comments made bear no resemblence to the methods I was taught. Who for example would ever consider flap asymmetry as a reason for not selecting flap in a turn in a light single? Hardly the most important issue I should have thought and one to be resigned to the bar as a topic for discussion when flying was over. I have NEVER been taught that might be a problem during early training. The problem of flap asymmetry is a problem full stop, never mind whether you're in a turn or not - and one most likely taught during advanced flying training, particularly in airliners where there is both indication and procedure for dealing with such events?

The student has enough, and more important things, to think about in early training without bringing into the equation one-in-several-million-to-one events.

Maybe it's not a true reflection of flying instruction today those comments made on PPRuNE, but the impression is that there is too much 'interpretation' and not enough 'adherence' by flying instructors to the syllabus laid down for the training of pilots for the PPL today?

Concern has also been voiced elsewhere that pilots coming through the training system 'do not know the basics'. Whereas no doubt the approved schools comply with standard training techniques, no wonder such comments are made if the comments on PPRuNe reflect the level of knowledge and standard of training generally in the UK.

None of the schools and clubs I have attended have ever been wanting in this respect, so where do these ideas come from?

KR

FOK

[BillieBob]

Alister - When was the last time that a light single (or twin for that matter) suffered from flap asymmetry?

[mad_jock]

Its rare because in virtually all light aircraft the flaps are controlled off a straight rod which links both flaps to one point of control.

That point of control is on purpose designed to be the weakest link. So if there are any jams etc it will sheer leaving both flaps in a fail safe symetrical condition. In most cases the flight loads will run them to zero. I have had this when a pin sheared in a PA28 a big bang and all the flap went. And the reason it went was because 3 known dicks used to regularly stick the flaps out above the flap speed cause some spanish prat of an instructor told them it didn't do any harm. And they liked getting the leans when they did it.

The next point of failure are the rods which actually push the flap out and down. These should be checked on every pre flight and are checked and greased by the engineers every 50 hours. All wire locked and split pinned.

The next failure point is the guides and hinges again these are checked every 50 hours and all are wire locked and split pinned. Every so often as per the engineering schedual they are dye pen'd NDT for cracks.

Then there is the rod which is graded metal and if that goes I suspect your wings have come off cause the only way that will break is due to fatigue or corrosion issues and if it is in that bad nick I would hate to imagine what the main spar is like, and you have more problems than what your flaps are at.

Putting flaps out in a turn is not an issue its just folk law as FOK states.

If your student has been taught to fly by attitude the issues with airspeed etc are not a factor cause if they fly the attitude and set the power all they have to do is trim out the forces. And as been discussed on the other threads to do with approach speeds the attitude that will be required to stall the thing is that hurrendous they won't get to that stage. If you are at circuit speed and power setting and pull the whole lot of flap in one go with no control input you will not stall. The nose will go up the airspeed will go down the nose will drop and the aircraft will naturally come back to an airspeed which will be above stall and a decent rate. You will of course be totally off profile.

[Whopity]

What do they teach flying instructors these days during a FIC

The content of a FI Course hasn't changed much over the last 50 years. Ron Campbell via AOPA introduced the RAF method of instructing in the 1950s and then the JAA Course was based upon the same concept in the 1990s. In the late 80s the CAA introduced CPL level knowledge, an ICAO requirement that had been previously met by having a pre-entry examination. In 1999 the theoretical training increased from 55 to 125 hours and the Flight training by 2 hours though the mandated training less mutual remains at 25 hours.

The RAF have moved on since the 50s and there is now something of a split in the FIC World between the 1950s style training and the more up to date 1990s style training. In most cases an FIC Instructors view of the World is largely based upon his own training.

In theory the candidates should be better qualified than say 25 years ago however; as another thread reveals, you can start a FI course on the basis of an Integrated CPL with probably no more light aircraft experience than the average PPL graduate.

There is clearly a difference in the content of FI Courses from one JAA State to another.

Since the JAA came in, the former requirement for a test every 13 months prior to upgrade, has gone, reducing the level of standardisation at an informative period of a new instructors development; I came across one FI(H) who made it all the way from FI Restricted to FIC without any additional tests after the initial.

Some of the strangest ideas seem to come from some of the longer standing FIs who probably influence the newer FIs in the absence of traditional standardisation.

Alister. Flap Asymmetry occurs in systems where the flaps are driven by different mechanical devices, not a common torque tube! Not deploying them in the turn is to reduce workload at a critical time.
IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS THREAD!

[Cows getting bigger]

I don't not teach flaps in a turn - I try to teach pilots to plan ahead. By all means, feel free to lower the flaps in a turn if you have planned to do it and are aware of the potential pitfalls (personally I don't sign up to the assymetric argument as far as basic PPL training is concerned). However, IMHO there are too many pilots who do not plan ahead, they let the nose drop when reducing power, they then struggle to get to Vfe lowering the flap as soon as the airspeed enters the white arc. Sure, there are times when this is appropriate but in the early stages of learning to fly we should be teaching pilots to plan ahead. Only when they have that element sussed should we be honing/developing their skills.

There is a similar argument regarding AOB on base-to-final turn where student pilots are regularly admonished for using anything more than 15 deg AOB. Personally, I don't have a problem with a greater AOB as long as the pilot knows what he is doing and how to control the turn. I see it as my responsibility to take the student pilot into such situations. Consequently, if I fly with a chap who yanks on 30+ AOB on final without lowering the nose whilst also applying a bootfull of unbalanced rudder I will take him up to 4000ft agl and demonstrate exactly where that type of handling will ultimately take him.

Turning to the bigger picture, I would like to shy away from too much standardisation. I don't want the CAA (or even my CFI) telling me that we should do crosswind landings one particular way; I don't want to be forced to use Point-and-Power; I don't want SCA to be the prescribed VFR navigation technique. I want to be able to show my student pilots all the various tools in the box and let him/her decide which ones they are going to use.

[mad_jock]

Turning to the bigger picture, I would like to shy away from too much standardisation. I don't want the CAA (or even my CFI) telling me that we should do crosswind landings one particular way; I don't want to be forced to use Point-and-Power; I don't want SCA to be the prescribed VFR navigation technique. I want to be able to show my student pilots all the various tools in the box and let him/her decide which ones they are going to use.

I agree but we need standards about what the tool box consists of and also standards as well about whats acceptable. I think we both know what is in the tool box and are both happy if the pilot uses one of the accepted methods to do a paticular exercise. The problem that is an issue is that there are loads of instructors out there that don't have the complete toolbox of methods. The student has to change their method of operation to the particular instructors perversion and fad idea about what is the correct method.

There are regional fads around the country, some areas stick extra speed onto approach for gusts others don't. Some like this point, think putting flaps out in the turn is the height of bad airmanship. Others have bizarre checklists for every stage of flight. Some even do stalls differently but thankfully the CAA has actually done something about this in the instructor seminars to try and get it sorted. But I suspect that there will be some die hard CFI's out there that will not do the methods advocated in the seminars. They will stick to the method that they have done for the last 20 years. There mate that does thier FIE and FI renewals will never pick them up on it. There are schools out there that teach to power out of a fully developed stall holding attitude. How the students mange to get by a test I don't know I presume the CFI that dictates that method is the examiner or none of them manage it so the nose drops and the examiner thinks they are doing it properly.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

There are schools out there that teach to power out of a fully developed stall holding attitude. How the students mange to get by a test I don't know I presume the CFI that dictates that method is the examiner or none of them manage it so the nose drops and the examiner thinks they are doing it properly.

I seldom read this forum because reading some of this stuff is detrimental to my well being and very stressful if I get to thinking how dumbed down the flight training industry has become.

Truly scary.......

[mad_jock]

To be fair thats very rare.

A more common one is to shove the nose down when on the finals configuration on the stall warner activation.

The usual line during debrief is
I:Why did you apply forward control movement
P:I put the nose down to break the stall
I:But you wern't stalled.
P:But if I don't I will stall and spin in.
I:how can you spin in if you wern't stalled.
P!
I:What is this exercise meant to simulate?
P: Stalling on Finals.
I: Is it not meant to simulate approaching the stall on finals and reacting to the stall warner?
P: I don't know but thats what I was taught by xxxx and he has 10,000 hours of instructing.
Ik how much altitude did we loose?
P: err 150ft
I: So thats not very healthy if this happens at 100ft.

etc etc

It's the same with steep turns, folk are doing HASSEL checks before doing them. They then do the most beautiful coordinated turn into a just 45 deg turn you have ever laid eyes on, very slow roll in. Haven't a clue its an emergency avoidance exercise. When you demonstrate one properly they poo themselves which leads me to suspect they have never seen one demonstrated properly.

Same with examinors you get one that will come in and tell you "good to see a spirited well controlled steep turn" and another one will come up to you after the debrief and ask for a private word "The student was very vigorous rolling into there steep turn and said thats the way they were taught to do it. Is this correct." "yep and what was the roll out like?" "that was perfect and in future could you ensure that roll in is at the same rate" MJ wanders off thinking well thats you not getting used again.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

What is a HASSEL check?

I have kind of lost track of all the aviation talk in fact I can't even remember what the secret hand shake is any more so I'm sort of an outsider these days.

[BigEndBob]

Is a 45 steep turn a collision avoidance exercise?

I would would be going more like 60 or 70 degrees, max rate turn nibble at the stall (warner). ok a bit extreme for the student, but a life saver.

45/60 i always thought was a co-ordination exercise.
Demonstrate that you could turn around a spot without dropping into a spiral dive.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

HASELL stands for Height (sufficient to recover), Airframe (flaps/gear config), Security (seatbelts, baggage etc), Engine (P's and T's, carb heat, mixture), Location and Lookout.

You do all that just to teach a 45 degree bank angle turn?

Or are you just pullin my pecker?

[mad_jock]

Well there we go I was taught they were for avoidance and teach them with a sharpish coordinated turn in to 60deg AoB and a normal rate of roll out. The spiral dive recovery was for when they mucked it up and forgot to put the power on and/or let the nose drop in any turn. The rolling out on a heading was for avoiding action given by ATC. In further training on type ratings I have done them to 45 degrees as per FOM using similar techniques and have used it for real a couple of times. It just seems common sense to me that its a useful skill to have for any pilot. And if it isn't in the syllabus it should be. What are they emant to do use a 30deg AoB turn to get out of trouble?

The round a point thing I thought was a yank exercise?

And max rate on the nibble for getting out of trouble if you went up a Glen and had to turn back.

I only ever had that one examiner that moaned about students doing it.

I am quite happy to be proved wrong after all these years though and am quite happy to take Whopity's word for it.

Just shows though that there isn't much standardisation between FII's so what hope is there for Instructors being even remotely similar.

[sapperkenno]

And max rate on the nibble for getting out of trouble if you went up a Glen and had to turn back

I was taught that out in the States, as a "Canyon Turn"... but we rolled to about 60deg, dropped all the flaps if the speed allowed, nudged up the power and pulled. That was in a supercub, which didn't seem to mind all that much, and was one of the Chief Flight Instructor's party tricks, just to show what could be done. It may help one day, if you get it ingrained into muscle memory and carry out the maneuver if/when you need it... But, you shouldn't really have got yourself into such an awkward position in the first place should you??

I only ever had that one examiner that moaned about students doing it.

That's hardly surprising, as it's the kind of trick somebody is likely to do when showing off to their mates (if they are that way inclined). They learn at regular flight schools, doing all the usual boring stuff, then some high time hero (in their eyes) shows them this trick, so they go out with their mate and royally screw the whole thing up.


I'm all for teaching techniques above and beyond those required to pass a PPL skills test, and I think, for safety's sake, it would be better to develop these kinds of skills in pilot's in a well structured, well taught kind of a way. I was lucky to be taught by experienced, highly skilled aerobatic people, in aircraft suitable for the job... but many are not.
The main thing that shocks me to be honest, is that a lot of pilot's I've flown with, have no interest in learning such things, recovering from unusual attitudes, spinning, aerobatics... flying at minimum airspeed, steep turns, slipping... so what does that tell you?

[FlyingOfficerKite]

More specifically:

Height sufficient for recovery by 3000ft agl;
Location: Clear of cloud, built up areas, aerodromes and controlled airspace;

Lookout: Clearing turns 180 degrees left and right to check for other traffic in the vicinity level with and above and below the aircraft.

But even for steep turns the clearing turns are taught as UK airspace can be quite congested at times and it is regarded as good airmanship point an essential safety point.

Training areas in Northern England at least are often fairly restricted in both vertical and horizontal extent and used by light aircraft and micolights. I've had some encounters closer than anticipated even with a good lookout so the clearing turn procedure is taught even though steep turns in themselves may not be a particularly demanding exercise in terms of airspace requirement or aircraft handling.

KR

FOK

[mad_jock]

I wouldn't teach your canyon turn to a PPL student.

It is required sometimes up North you can check the wx on the East coast and everything is great, ring up oban and its cavok. Wx for SYY and BEN is great as well. Then off you go down the Great Glen or towards Ullapool and there is a wall of rain from ornagraphic relief running as a wall north south down the west coast. It would be taught as a post PPL mountain flying course if they wanted to do it or on the hour with an instructor for want of something else to do.

I honestly don't teach it as a trick. Its briefed as one of the purposes of the exercise. And as far as I know it is part of the the PPL skill set to be taught. At least I know that if one of my ex students unfortunately needs to get a bit of bank on so they don't hit another aircraft or object they can do. What do everyone elses students do? 30 AoB and hope for the best or are they meant to make it up as they go along?

As you say most students don't actually like doing it that way intially. They understand my reasoning for doing it and do it usually to a very high standard. It also seems to give them more confidence using a heavier hand of control inputs when required.

It was the method I demonstrated in my intial FI test and the one which I did to renew my FI rating both of which included my patter for the reason for doing the exercise, the tests were done with different examiners. So it can't be that uncommon, all the other instructors I have worked with have also taught it this way.

As said before it seems the FII's arn't all singing from the same sheet.

[Piper.Classique]

There are schools out there that teach to power out of a fully developed stall holding attitude.

Yeah, I had a fresh minted CPL try that in a Rans Coyote when converting to type. Interesting.......

But even for steep turns the clearing turns are taught

So, you do a turn to see if it is OK to do a turn? Surely if it is a collision avoidance exercise you need to turn away from the hazard smartish? Of course, if it is a co-ordination exercise that is a different matter. 45 degrees isn't really a steep turn, though, is it?

[BillieBob]

In almost 40 years as a flying instructor, both military and civil, I have often taught the selection of flap in the turn - when you are flying an oval circuit, as in the military, you don't have much option. I know of no occasion when a student, even on first solo, has lost control, stalled or entered a spin as a result of selecting flap in the turn (or, come to that, of any instance of flaps extending asymmetrically).

Of course, Alister, if you are suggesting that civil students are not as capable of learning to do this safely as military students of the same experience, who demonstrably are, that is an interesting statement on the ability either of civil students or of civil instructors! Not, I hasten to add, a statement with which I would agree.

At the same time, I have never taught a student to do clearing turns before steep turns - utterly ludicrous!!

[Cows getting bigger]

Hmmmm, I don't teach a clearing turn either. I teach (ie I was taught to teach) good lookout and, in the case of a high wing aircraft, this would include raising the into-turn wing first to have a good look. BB, there are well documented examples of student pilots (and qualified pilots) crashing after entering a turn with full flap. Slightly different to the scenario being discussed but indicative of a failure to control an aircraft in such a configuration.

PS. I would love to teach oval ccts (complete with flap) as I was taught by the military. Unfortunately............

[BEagle]

Turning to the bigger picture, I would like to shy away from too much standardisation. I don't want the CAA (or even my CFI) telling me that we should do crosswind landings one particular way; I don't want to be forced to use Point-and-Power; I don't want SCA to be the prescribed VFR navigation technique. I want to be able to show my student pilots all the various tools in the box and let him/her decide which ones they are going to use.

Absolutely NOT! Whichever techniques the school has decided upon, those should be taught to all its students. Standardisation is essential if the student is not to be totally confused and non-standard mavericks are the bane of a CFI's life. Of course point-and-power and SCA are so easy for the student that many dinosaurs don't trust them - but that's irrelevant in this thread.

Clearing turns before steep turns? Daft. Just a good l00kout before, during and after the turn.

MRTs on the buffet nibble? Most light spamcans don't have a decent buffet nibble, so it is very difficult to teach the practice, unless you have a Chipmunk or Bulldog to hand.

[DFC]

This thred is proving to be a great example of why instructing standards are on a steady decline in many places.


One person says;

Its rare because in virtually all light aircraft the flaps are controlled off a straight rod which links both flaps to one point of control.

Clearly that person has failed to notice that a large proportion of the GA fleet are of the Cessna variety - Right flap driven direct from the flap motor in the right wing and the left flap via cable and pulleys - cables that have broken in the past.

Never mind the fact that extending flap reduces lateral stability and changes the airflow over the taiplane.

However, since I can not see how the probability of the left flap in a C152 is increased simply because the aircraft is not at zero angle of bank - what about airspeed, pitch attitude etc etc etc.

But. While I don't subscribe to the "no flaps in the turn in case we get an asymetric flap extension" I do subscribe to the workload management and the - "Fly the Aircraft" and the "Turns are for turning and looking" way of doing things.

If one was to completely comply with the "no flap in the turn" rule then in many places, flap would never be extended because students rarely fly straight and level for long - there is always a tendency to wander in direction i.e. turn!!

Seems that everyone has forgotten that exercises 12 and 13 are not in any way designed to teach the student how to fly circuits. They are designed to teach take-off, approach and landing with revision of the exercises 1 through 10a while putting the lessons learned from 10b and 11 (stall/spin avoidance) into practice i.e avoidance!

The circuit is simply an efficient method of doing the above in minimum time.

But like the "never extend flap in the turn", many people these days teach circuits or make other secondary issues primary ones.

Eg. On the IR I teach over the holding fix actions of Time Turn i.e. start the watch then enter the turn. If you forget the watch don't start it during the turn - turns are for turning - complete the turn and thern start the watch but remember that you have spend x seconds (3deg per second) turning.

Same for the heading bug - Check new heading, Move the bug, start the turn. Again don't move the bug during the turn - if you forget, complete the turn and then set the bug.

However, most importantly, I don't teach "never start the watch in the turn".......I do teach "If you start the watch in the turn will you remember how far into the turn you started it and what amount of time is missing from the indicated time.......not easy.......what about doing a 180 degree turn and then starting the watch but adding 1 minute to the indicated time to see how long since the fix?

Getting back to the flap question - all those that talk of asymetery - how many simulate the situation involved and get the student to cope?

How many teach the flapless approach and landing but never later simulate a flap failure i.e. say nothing until the student goes for the flap and then "fail" the flap?

How many "fail" the flap during the departure.

The failure to properly teach many of the posibilities starts wityh a total failure to properly teach exercises 1 and 2 where most of the systems, SOPs, Checklists and procedures are covered.

--------

Is HASELL a check / checklist or is it simply an easy way of remembering some very important things that we should do before an exercise.

I would hope that every instructor on every exercise runs through some form of personal HASELL before getting into the exercise. Most good instructors will be doing it without even realising it.

It therefore is unbelieveable that we could have the situation where an instructor tells a student not to complete a HASELL check before completing an exercise - especially an exercise where it is a very good idea to ensure that there is a good clear area to operate in and a safe height. The student will eventually get their licence and hopefully they will from time to time practice the steep turn exercise.

Never criticise safety. Never. If a student (or instructor) wants to do 5 HASELL checks before exercise 7 then good for them. Could point out that 5 checks may be a bit over the top and that with experience they will probably reduce that but good for taking a safety concious start.

The only argument here against HASELL is that the Steep turn is "an avoidance manoeuvre" and it appears that some think that it should have no warning. Are we not getting a bit ahead of ourselves? Why not teach how to complete a steep turn - level climbing and descending and then when they can do the manoeuvre, use what they know to acheive the objective of avoiding something i.e. simulate avoiding an aircraft / turnback in a valley.

After all, few here seem to have realised that the tighest turn (the one that uses the minimum horizontal airspace) is not going to be level and therefore best way to turn round in a valley is to make a descending turn of minimum radius (climbing turn if you can't descend) - what has that got to do with steep turns????

Who in their right mind is going to avoid an aircraft at the same level by executing a level turn?

If we apply the rationalle of not doing the HASELL check consistently then we should not do them before the stalling exercise. After all, we are training for recovery at the first signs in the worst case - low level. Will that situation come with advance warning and time to compete HASELL????

Instructing standards indeed.

Is anything going to change?

Not as long as we have people with the following opinions;

MJ wanders off thinking well thats you not getting used again.

i.e. Instructor does not agree with Examiner (more experienced individual???) and rather than learning, does what is nessary to avoid changing one's habits.

-------------

What about Navigation - an area where it is clear that filures are happening and most if not all are attributable to basic training at PPL and CPL level.

Yes we do have to teach DR. No we do not have to exclusively navigate by DR. VFR flights use Visual Navigation and this is not the same as DR.

No training system is perfect. TRTOs teaching Airline pilots are relatively overall no better than the Basic RTF and have the same issues regarding how things are taught and the quality of the instruction. It is an industry wide problem.

When it is an industry wide problem where do you think that that failings lie - with the instructors? with the Organisations (RTF / FTO / TRTO) or with the regulator ?

The answer to that is very clear and 100 instructors / examiners talking about various standards and falling safety levels is going to acheive nothing untilo the regulator wakes up.