RAF Instructors - steely eyed or gentle and supportive ?
BEagle wrote:
Agreed. I once had a creamie instructor hold an aircrew knife to my throat whilst in close formation on the JP. He thought it was hilarious, I thought he was a tw@t. Not that the knife posed any threat of actually cutting me of course!
Why on earth would you ever need to do that? Distracting your student during close formation and taking your own hand away from the controls seems bŁoody stupid to me.
Agreed. I once had a creamie instructor hold an aircrew knife to my throat whilst in close formation on the JP. He thought it was hilarious, I thought he was a tw@t. Not that the knife posed any threat of actually cutting me of course!
CG
Don't you even read what you are criticising?
What are your hands doing on the controls when the stude is flying?
22000 posts. Must be an expert on everything.
Well, that comment pretty well sums up everything which was wrong about flying training back then....
You have your hand near, but not 'on' the controls - and emphatically not being used to assault your student.
Why was he 'looking the wrong way'? Poorly briefed, perhaps?
Take control, remind him of the correct technique, get him to follow you through, then give him control.
Resorting to 'tapping' him on the bone dome marks you out as having failed to have briefed him correctly in the first place. I am also reminded of this piece of your so-called 'instructional technique':
As for your personal abuse towards me, perhaps you should re-familiarise yourself with the PPRuNe Ts&Cs....
You have your hand near, but not 'on' the controls - and emphatically not being used to assault your student.
Why was he 'looking the wrong way'? Poorly briefed, perhaps?
Take control, remind him of the correct technique, get him to follow you through, then give him control.
Resorting to 'tapping' him on the bone dome marks you out as having failed to have briefed him correctly in the first place. I am also reminded of this piece of your so-called 'instructional technique':
We were doing spinning in a JP4. The first action for spin recovery was to check the turn needle before applying opposite rudder (copes with the inverted spin case). On the fifth very good recovery when the student had yet again not done that, I leant over, and jabbing the T&S at every word said "Look at the f***ing turn needle" At this point the glass broke jamming the needle hard over. He never forgot again. Not an approved CFS IT method.
As for your personal abuse towards me, perhaps you should re-familiarise yourself with the PPRuNe Ts&Cs....
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
As I recall the first action in an academic spin recovery is to check altitude followed by power followed by turn needle and then rudder. But then my mind does play tricks on me.
But I do recall that good instruction starts with a well flown demonstration of the correct technique: anything other causes confusion since the student will have had a mass brief on the correct way of doing things and will not be expecting something that differs from his pre flight study and briefing. Perhaps that could have been a contributory reason this student had not been checking his turn needle. Not that I agree that there are no bad students, just bad instructor: in my experience both exist.
But I do recall that good instruction starts with a well flown demonstration of the correct technique: anything other causes confusion since the student will have had a mass brief on the correct way of doing things and will not be expecting something that differs from his pre flight study and briefing. Perhaps that could have been a contributory reason this student had not been checking his turn needle. Not that I agree that there are no bad students, just bad instructor: in my experience both exist.
Last edited by beardy; 27th Oct 2015 at 15:35.
Gentleman Aviator
Best piece if advice I had when a CFS(H) stude (which I subsequently passed on to my CFS(H) studes) was:
Supposedly dates from the 1920s or 30s - and it's very true!
No student replication of your demonstrations will be more accurate than that of your behaviour on the ground!
Would any of you experienced instructors like to comment on the Side-by- Side versus Tandem seating discussion?
As a student I found that the visible presence of an instructor in my right peripheral vision tended to occupy too large a part of my scan ( Am I doing it right ? What is he thinking?. Where are his hands?, What is he looking at?) )
Tandem was a voice and an input on the controls. Much less intrusive and an aid ,in my case, to building confidence.
But that was just my experience.
As a student I found that the visible presence of an instructor in my right peripheral vision tended to occupy too large a part of my scan ( Am I doing it right ? What is he thinking?. Where are his hands?, What is he looking at?) )
Tandem was a voice and an input on the controls. Much less intrusive and an aid ,in my case, to building confidence.
But that was just my experience.
Nav course
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
Navstar, the meaning of life.
42
In fact I did a fair number of courses #42, just the way it went.
42
In fact I did a fair number of courses #42, just the way it went.
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comment on the Side-by-Side versus Tandem seating
As a student, moving from the JP to the Hawk was a revelation and, like you, I loved the tandem set-up; it set you free. That said, a lot of my dislike of the JP depended upon whom I was flying with - the difference between the ex-Shack/V-force co-pilots and ex-FJ guys was very noticeable in my time. It wasn't their fault - with hindsight it became clear that they had not had that much stick-time themselves, regardless of instructional ability.
Then, Hawk TWU back to Lightning Training Flight. This could reasonably be described as hilarious (both bad and good), especially since on my course the 2-seater undercarriage collapsed on landing after the conversion phase and we did the rest of the course chased in the single-seater - which was wonderful. Then the engineers fixed all the Tubs just in time for the end of the course - literally the last 3 or 4 sorties - and that turned into a deeply miserable time! As we used to say, the best use of the T5 would have been to crash it into the simulator...then everyone would have been happy.
The T5 was a real dog's breakfast what with the reversed controls in the right-hand seat (albeit very funny when watching someone else tanking) and the fact that, if you were flying with anyone normal-sized, you had to get out of each other's way to move the stick. Check-rides were obviously stilted with blokes trying to pretend they weren't watching you when, of course, they were glued to your every move. Can't say I liked it, but it did make for a great experience for the passengers.
I instructed (tandem) both two-seat and single-seat at the sqn and OCU-level as a QWI and IP and would say that it made for a much better student experience for all the reasons described. In the USMC, we also taught an awful lot of the course (both WSOs and pilots and both 2-seat and single-seat courses) from the other jet, which was even better. I preferred to allow the 2-seat students - and, as a flt cdr, the junior front-line crews - to fly together, since they learned much more from the experience and did not suffer the decision-making gradient inevitable when a more experienced mate is in the jet. Not all the then-sqn cdrs agreed, but that was more a reflection of their risk aversion than the students'/crews' performance.
At the level I instructed, I never felt the need to watch the student's each and every move from beside or behind him. Indeed, from the comms discipline, formation-keeping, lookout and fuel calls you could tell exactly where he was looking, where his hands were and even what he was thinking without being in the same jet.
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