HOW TO FLY?
 

If anyone's interested I'd like to see if I can teach you how to fly. This may seem an odd subject for the instructors and examiners forum, but if anyone's interested in testing established thinking about how to fly, I'd be happy to challenge everything we think we know about flying, just for the fun of it. With a bit of luck, you may just learn how to fly, or confirm that you already do....

WTF???????

This idea has no place whatsoever in, on or around any aircraft or indeed aviation and would most likely have anyone with even a modicum of intelligence running very quickly in the opposite direction!

Sounds like a YouTube video in the making..... a dumb idea!

Thanks for the advice Atlas. To be honest I really didn't expect much enthusiasm for the idea from instructors and examiners, most of whom wouldn't have the faintest idea about flying, but have been thoroughly convinced they know more than anyone else. Your response has confirmed that intuitive expectation better than even I imagined.

Your comment ",,,,, anyone with even a modicum of intelligence running very quickly in the opposite direction" refers not to intelligence, but foolish pride, something most instructors and examiners possess in ample supply.

BTW, if you're such a fan of the book that you thought using it would elevate you to the same level as Ayn Rand, then I have some bad news for you. It's not that intelligent. It does have some good bits, but the overall message is either innocently misguided, or worse - intentionally corrosive. "Fate is the Hunter" would have been a far wiser choice.

You must be fun to talk to at parties.

Manwell.

Go on give us a hint. Despite your Aussie sledging of instructors and examiners, I wouldn't mind an idea of what your thoughts are.

Thank you rarelyathome. Criticism of anyone can be regarded as destructive, or constructive. Another way to look at it is to acknowledge the truism that offence can only be taken, it can't be given, and as pilots and instructors would have endured more than their fair share of highly emotive criticism, it's completely understandable that they would have developed thick skins.

To outline an idea of my thoughts won't be easy, because they are so different from what I'd initially learned that it's understandable that most would consider them heretical, and I use the religious term intentionally because flying has become based on dogma rather than true objective science.

In brief, however, the general idea is that everything we thought we knew about flying is fatally flawed, and that idea is proven every time a pilot crashes. Every time.

How's that for brief?

Surely, an autoplitot has been programmed with the same missconceptions the rest of us have supposedly been taught!

Actually, the autopilot is George, not Shirley.

Manwell, you might as well elaborate on your theory, instead of just tossing out a grenade and ducking your head.

I'm not about to make this easy for anyone AC. That would spoil the process of working it out for yourself and that's the best part. If no-one here cares enough about flying to exercise their brain, then that's fine by me. Either you're interested or you're not.

Not then. Not if you're unwilling to engage and outline your ideas.

I have survived nearly 30 years of flying using the 'heretical' methodology and my students don't seem to be coming up short either in the GA or commercial worlds. I am certainly not arrogant and am always willing to discuss improvements in aviation.

Sadly, you are coming across as a troll rather than a serious aviator interested in entering a discussion.

Fix
 

Is the OP looking for a solution to a problem that doesn't exist? Grievance against FI's due to some personal experience?

I've got a secret but I'm not going to tell you cos you're bad!

Connoisseur of the art of self-abuse...

There is absolutely many examples of "fatally flawed" instruction out there. My personal experience flying with pilots who were not doing well was the fact that invariably the problem was a lack of fundamental flying skills. By that I mean they could not recognize and hold the correct attitude for what ever maneuver they trying to fly, could not maintain coordinated flight and could not smoothly transition from one flight regime to another ( eg straight and level to climb). This was because they had never been properly taught ex 5 to 9 in the first place.

My solution in every case was to go back to the very basics and practice the foundation ex 5 to 9 flying skills until the student had mastered them.

It will take a very persuasive argument for someone to convince me that there is a better way to teach the basic hands and feet skills that under pin every part of flying, although I am genuinely open to new ideas.

Where there should be change in flight instruction in my opinion, is in the thinking part of flying. Traditional flight training is all about the mechanical skills, but what is missing is the pilot decision making and threat and error management soft skills. On the very first lesson I talk about "time in the tanks" as an introduction to pilot decision making and all of my ground briefs lead off with the learning what considerations are relevant before/during and after performing what ever maneuver we are going to do.

Ex 5 is taxiing and not really a separate exercise. The real exercises where time should be spent, but are all to often rushed, are 4.1 & 4.2 effects of controls. Done properly, they're actually quite difficult to teach. Get the student to understand thoroughly the primary and secondary effects of controls, both the main control surfaces and mixture, throttle, carb heat, flaps, effects of speed and slipstream, and the foundation is solidly in place. Many of the problems I come across are as a result of these crucial exercises either being taught badly or simply rushed through.

I couldn't agree more with your last paragraph. TEM and what we used to call airmanship is where many of the weaknesses lie, to an extent in new students, but increasingly in the more experienced folk who believe the revailidation hour with an instructor is an insult to their flying skills.

EX 5 in the Canadian Curriculum is attitudes and movements. Taxiing is Ex 4

The bottom line is if you have not mastered attitudes and movements, straight and level, climbs and descents, and turns; you can't fly an airplane !

It's also disproved every time a flight doesn't end in a crash. Which happens more often?

CG (non-instructor)

Neither of these Exercise numbers feature in the EASA syllabus! They simply list Ex4

Well, as RarelyAtHome said, I also have survived for 45 years and 15,000 hrs, mostly in hand-flown unstable aircraft (helicopters) and some military jets, using the knowledge passed on to me by the heretics who came before. I have also successfully passed on this same knowledge to a large number of (now retired) airline captains, none of whom have fallen from the sky in an effort to prove Manwell correct.

Come on, no more Secret Squirrel stuff and Masonic Handshakes, let us have a peek at YOUR thought processes on our hugely defective way of flying.