Paying attention whilst instructing
 

An interesting thing happened to me today, and I thought I'd run it by this forum and get some opinions.

The apron was wet - large patches of standing water. My student pre-flighted the aircraft, and I walked out and climbed in next to her. As I walked out, I noticed that an aircraft which was parked in front of mine (a safe distance in front of mine) had its engine running, but didn't think anything of it. Between me and the other aircraft was a large puddle of water.

My student started doing the internal checks, and pointed out some spots of moisture on the windscreen. She was hoping that I would declare that it was raining and we should scrap the flight - she was a little nervous about her ability to fly in what she perceived as bad weather. But I could not see any further sign of rain, so I told her it was likely that the aircraft in front had increased the power a little and blown some water from the puddle that stood between us. The water was not sufficient to obscure our vision, so we started up, taxied out and had a very successful flight. (She was still convinced that the weather was below her capabilities, despite flying some very good circuits, but that's not the point.)

After the flight, I was approached by the pilot of the aircraft in front of us. It turned out that, as we were in the process of starting up, he'd suffered a ruptured oil line, and lost 8 quarts of oil. The "moisture" on our windscreen was not rain, nor was it water from the puddle - it was oil from the aircraft in front. The oil had only very recently been changed, and hence was very light in colour, which explains why both me and my student mistook it for water.

The pilot of the other aircraft was surprised that I had not stopped to wipe the oil off our windscreen. He was even more surprised that I hadn't noticed a large puddle of oil under his aircraft and informed ATC that he had a problem. (He told me that he was listening on frequency, but not transmitting as he was, understandably, more concerned with shutting his engine down.)

Having thought over the events, I don't believe that I would have noticed anything was amiss even if I was by myself, contrary to the other pilot's opinion. But I can't help wondering whether I was a little distracted because most of my attention was focussed on my student, ensuring that she completed the start-up checks correctly. Fortunately in this case the whole incident passed without any injury or damage other than to the affected engine... but if it had been a more serious incident, would my ability to provide assistance (even if it was just a radio call to alert ATC) have been impaired by my attention being focused on my student?

I'm just curious how the rest of you read this situation. Does your ability to pay attention to everything else whilst still supervising your student improve with experience? Is this just something which comes with the territory of instructing? Is there anything which I (or, more generally, we) can do to improve our general airmanship whilst supervising students?

FFF
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FFF,

You could argue your job at the time was just what you did: supervise your student.

Don't know about you, but when I am starting an engine (or supervising a student doing it) I don't tend to spend my time looking at puddles under other aircraft. I am looking for anybody coming near me and any signs there is something wrong with MY engine. If I happen to spot something with another aircraft I'd report it, but it is not my main task at the time.

Don't think you did anything 'wrong' here. And those drops might well have been water: oil on your windscreen (even clean oil) looks quite different and, specially if if there is some moisture around as well at the time, can have a very interesting optical effect.

Cheers

Gerard

I think if HE had thought there was a problem here it would have taken VERY little extra to say so on the radio - bad airmanship on HIS part not yours!:hmm:

Although I'm sure you would have helped had you noticed something amiss,it's certainly not your responsibility or bad airmanship that you didn't notice.
Your prime concern was your student,lets just hope that you are as attentative to the student after many hours instructing!
I know one of my instructors wouldn't have noticed if our own aircraft lost all oil!

I'm glad you posted. All sorts of things happen and we feel that we just have to keep going and "cover up". You made a good call and most of us would have done very much the same, I'm sure. I ( even after many hundreds of hours of instructing) would doubt my capability of recognising what was on the windscreen. I have to confess, however, that I probably have something in common with your student (is this a gender thing or am I being unneccessarily wimpy ?) and may waited until the shower passed and the prop cleared my windscreen. What do others think ?

Thanks for the input so far.... Glad to hear that the general opinion is that I've done nothing wrong, but I'm not really surprised at that because I'd pretty much worked that out for myself.

I was more interested in a more general case of whether people are less aware of what's going on outside their aircraft when instructing than they would be otherwise. The only person to address that so far is IRRenewal, who says: "You could argue your job at the time was just what you did: supervise your student." How true is this? How does one go about balancing the responsibility of being captain with the responsibility of being instructor?

Keep the input coming, everyone... this could be an interesting discussion.

FFF
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Supervising your student doesn't mean you are not the captain. You monitor what he/she does, but hopefully don't allow anything to happen you are not happy with. Supervising the student does not mean you don't look out before the engine is started for instance.

Hope this clarifies my statement earlier, before I get accused of neglecting my role as the captain.

Cheers

Gerard

Gentleman of the instructing variety,

Posting this as as outsider (P/UT PPL, hope you don't mind)

FFF,

I can't see how the Guy can have a pop at you, your eyes can not be everywhere, instructing or not.

I'm sure that anyone doing internal checks would have a reasonable situational awareness (through perhaps glancing up occasionally and maybe becoming aware of new noises around them) but not to the extent of noticing that the Guy in front is throwing oil.

If you notice, all the better, if not, unlucky for the person with the fault.

IMVHO, No one did anything wrong.

I think theres no doubt if you are explaining something or instructing then less attention is placed elsewhere.

I think you get better at making flying a motor skill so that the ability to talk and fly at the same time gets easier but you will still miss the odd radio call. But then again while instructing you are probably paying more attention than the average shiney PPL holder.

Your mans reaction was probably as a result of the shock from his engine dumping oil and he was imagining what it would have been like if it had decided to do it 20 minutes later. If the oil was new had it just come out of engineering I wonder?

FFF,

The whole issue of instructing and paying attention to everything else is an interesting one...especially for us newish instructors. I can use the excuse that the R22 is pretty unstable and I sometimes have to have the fastest reflexes in the world to stop students killing me, but even so, I can't believe how often I have no idea where I am, even in the local area. I've missed radio calls too. As for noticing what's happening to another aircraft on the ground, I'm fairly sure I wouldn't have seen it either. I presume that as with most things in aviation this gets easier with practice. But for me, it hasn't yet. :(

I'm not an instructor (wannabee) but, as others have already said, your actions seem to be appropriate in concerning yourself with the task at hand.

What I can't help but notice from what you've written above is a certain amount of responsibility shifting on the part of the other guy.

This is true for every pilot isn't it? You are responsible for your own flight in the first place. If you can help out others, time permitting, then you can. But your own flight is still your primary (and only) responsability.

What if you, in a multimillon dollar jet, are taxiing behind another multimillion dollar jet. After a few minutes you hear the pilots reporting gear problems... the gear won't retract.

Eventually they get back to the airport. After landing the pilots notice the gear didn't retract because someone forgot to remove a pin... your fault because you didn't report something "red" that's not supposed to be there (you were taxiing behind him)? Your fault because you didn't see that?

Yes, attention can get too focused on the student. Earlier in my instructing I missed a rather important radio call while pattering a student through his first take-off roll. Fortunately I did not miss the police helicopter that had just been cleared through my climbout (by radar, not tower, hence the confusion), the cause of the call for me to abort the take off.

Since then my capacity has developed and I am a lot more attentive to some things than I ever was flying on my own. There are still some areas I can miss though, especially when I am talking!

Paying attention to what standard the student is achieving is important too. I found this scan worked for me:

AI - DI - AI -Hobbs - AI - Altimeter - AI - Stare vacantly out the window - AI...


:p :p

Flying For Fun. I am guessing you are a relatively new instructor.
( If not I humbly apologise ). the good news is situational awareness increases dramatically with experience. Never the less as was pointed out by other posters your first responsibility is to your student.

TINSTAFFL How true it is. I think that you have touched on one of the hardest parts of instructing. How difficult it is to give your tenth student of the day the same attention as the first. I can think of more than one flight where in all honesty I was little more than 170 lbs of right seat ballast.:zzz: :O I consider myself very fortunate that I now instruct only part time, with students of my choosing and on my own schedule. :ok:

Well, thanks to everyone for your thoughts - seems like most of those who are more experienced than me (Big Pistons - you are, by the way, totally correct, as regular PPRuNers will know) seem to think that this is a non-issue, although one or two newer instructors are aware of a similar lack of attention. All of this suggests that as I gain experience, I will become better at doing everything at once..... I shall continue to do the best job I know how to do whilst I'm on that never-ending road towards becoming experienced!

FFF
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FFF, remember how at each level of your climb up the qualification ladder it always seemed there was an inordinate amount of stuff demanding your attention? But now it doesn't feel that way for those earlier things?

Instructing is the same as any other aspect of flying: The more experience you get the more capable you become of attending to the tasks.

Hello Fu Fu,

Hope you are enjoying this instructing lark.....

As a new instructor myself ;-) Yes, I have noted that my attention from time to time can become a little too pre-occupied on the student. I am sure it is all down to experience and having sufficient 'spare' capacity. We are learning as much as they are. Did the oil really look like water though??....have you been getting enough sleep man:hmm: :)

Take care.......beer soon???

Mordacai