Strange flight training practices
 

Had a student change flying schools recently and while reviewing their understanding of the stuff they needed to understand, they revealed a few odd practices from their old school.

A selection:

1/. Students were not taught to lean the mixture until after they passed their PPL;

2/. No diversions were ever "sprung" on the student but notified and planned in advance (including diversions on flight tests)

3/. no allowance made for climb fuel in the fuel plan

4/. no flight plans or SARTIMES were ever lodged "because there was always someone at the school to hold company SAR".

These gems have all been verified to me by a Grade 1 instructor from that school.

The schools instructor body is strongly populated by the schools graduates and each of these items, in my view, represent a major failing on the CFI's part to adequately train their charges for the big bad world beyond.

Are these practices justifiable? Is it really so hard to teach someone to fly a C172 that leaning at PPL level is just a bit too much of a stretch? :uhoh:

If I had a PPL candidate who failed to lean the mixture (at all, let alone correctly) on their flight test it would be a pretty short test. :ugh:

I am fairly sure I did mixture control on my first student flight as part of effects of controls.

We certainly don't teach anything like that, what are WE going to do about it chaps?....................

wasn't there a concern years ago about a certain flavour of school where students became instructors and taught students at the school who became instructors who taught students who became instructors etc etc.

you dont hear much about it now since a recruiting drive moved many of them on to the regulator.

keep on leafblowing mate but do spray the feet with water to dissolve the clay.

:mad:

Watching and hearing about the degradation of training standards in the industry at some schools is scary.

The common practice at a few schools of freshly minted CPLs doing their instructor rating (after achieving a nvfr rating) then teaching with no operational experience does not a good student make. Hearing what some of these "god's gift to aviation" instructors say on the radio is testament to a lack of professionalism and lack of airmanship that is becoming more and more mainstream in both the fixed wing and helicopter industry. Anyone can teach a monkey to fly. Teaching the monkey to think for itself is the hard part.

In part and at times it seems that instructing is becoming a process of chinese whispers. Not sure if anyone else feels the same but it is just something I've witnessed over the past few years.

The chinese whispers thing is certainly true, and it's easy to see how that can give rise to and perpetuate furphies.

Have things changed since the 'old days' though? Is becoming an instructor to build hours immediately after CPL anything new, and if not, aren't these issues just the same now as then?

I guess 30-40 years ago there were wartime veterans in the system and people who'd been taught directly by same, but that would have filtered out by now as the old fellas dropped off the twig - what other factors are causing change I wonder? Not challenging the point per se but just thinking out loud.

Point 3 above talks about allowing for climb fuel. When I was a young & enthusiastic instructor, I asked my students to calculate climb fuel. Then I realised it made no practical difference (at the altitudes typically available). Cruising for 2 hours at 9000' would of course be a different story.

1) I know in my flight school we were shown, but realistically during GFPT you dont need to lean the mixture very much. We did it on the ground during taxi so as not to foul the plugs, but once airborne we rarely went above 2000ft (only for stalls).

2) Yeah this is odd.

3) The rule I was shown was 1 extra minute per 2000ft climb. So climb to 9000ft, add 5 min to your cruise fuel. On a 172, it works out pretty close, esp with all the variable fuel reserves and margins built in.

4) I can understand the logic, but I think students need to practice lodging flight notes, as it is tricky when you first start.

Sausage Factory
 

Welcome to the flight training sausage factory where students are taught to comply not to fly

I am with Leafie on this, and I bet the majority of schools that do teach leaning on the ground do it wrong as well.

Leaning below 2000', heck if I am anything but climbing, or chasing someone down :E I am running LOP. Now doing a lot of basic training area stuff and such full rich may be the go, but the secret here is to know what is appropriate. (there is a course for this, Sydney 8-10 Nov ;) ).

As for climb fuel, sure this may not matter on a short local 1500' sortie, I agree, but what we want to have taught is good practises, so that when it does matter, they remember to do it, and how to do it.

airwolf,
As an example, I have just run a quick 1hr 40 min flight, that I do often. Planned fuel for today's winds is 78L with a Variable of 12 and a fixed of 32L.

If I used the airwolf school method as you were shown, for this plan at A080 we add 4 minutes of cruise, That would be 2.9L + 72L = 74.9L. My figures are based on me leaning in the climb to a target EGT method, and compared to your typical flying school method, the burn would be 80-81L so the actual amount of difference may not be serious, and an error of 5-6L might not run you out of course, but it is a bit sloppy in terms of planning. In the absence of known climb data, it is better than nothing of course.

Diversions....SARTIMES :uhoh:

Ohh dear, what else is not taught? The problem is we do not know what we don't know.

Strange Instructing Practices
 

They do sound like strange practices indeed. I / we never taught anything like that.

The fuel to climb issue might be a result of a School operations manual requiring a cover-all conservative fuel flow being used in planning. Which is not an excuse for a student not knowing the POH fuel flows, I agree.

There are certainly issues with the training industry, in that fresh CPLs with instructor ratings do not by definition have the long years of aviation experience that they could impart to students. This is not a new problem, and is bemoaned on these boards with monotonous regularity. What would be far more interesting is hearing ideas from others out there of how these problems could be reduced.

Bear in mind to that there are good insturctors, and schools, out there that do their best to teach safe and competent pilots.

If the conditions (wages, time slots, expectations, atmosphere) improved at flying schools, I'm sure they'd have a better chance of attracting experienced pilots and instructors.

IMHO, part of the problem is that most flying schools have their students take full tanks on navexs so even if they were sloppy in their fuel planning, it wouldn't matter much. Have them take 'minimum required fuel' might get them more motivated to plan with diligence.

Hey Horatio, stop bagging out my flying school :O

This was pretty much the case for me. Rarely did a flight go over 2,000 - 3,000 ft so it was never raised until very late in the piece, in fact it may have been during a pre-licence test NAV. The explanation given wasn't fantastic either. The instructor hadn't been to Jabba's school of engine management.

This has also been the case at every school that I have ever been to other than for PPL flight test and AFR's. In fact from memory I did submit flight plans but have never submitted a SAR time to the authorities throughout my dealings with any flying school, ever. Due to your point number 4.

If a school owns the aircraft I would say that caring for the aircraft is taught from the beginning, and as such I think they take more care in who they hire to teach.

Saying that tho, someone earlier made the point that 30 years ago people might have been taught by retired military pilots. I'm sure this would have been good for stick and rudder and a number of other skills, but without a doubt the MOST dangerous pilots I encounter in the air are guys trained around that time.

Guys 50+ who own their own aircraft and fly just enough each year to stay
Unsafe.. Blasting through the cct without a care, long conversations with each other on busy ctafs about how nice the weather is , non standard procedures etc etc

No offence, that's just my experience..

Until the pay becomes better, most instructors will be on a path elsewhere . Doesn't mean they can't do a good job while their doing it..

The school I learnt to fly at didn't lean aircraft at GFPT level. It was introduced at PPL level and a matter of course for CPL level.

Climb fuel was never calculated as a more conservative company fuel burn figure was employed for the duration of the flight.

In the grand scheme of things a few litres here or there is no big deal. Flight training just teaches you to be safe. Operational efficiency comes through employment, and you fly the ship the way the boss wants you too. Of course every time you move to a different operator, the game changes. Even when operating the same type. Be adaptable.

In the real world of aviation we try to keep things as simple and as easy as possible. Pilots love to overcomplicate things, particularly the airline wannabes and hopefuls or the crusties high and mighty on their lofty perch, preaching superiority over their brainwashed flock. If you just work on a solid basic foundation in your flying and preparation, the battle is won. The engine is not going to fail because you didn't lean it. It might fail in time if you didn't lean it properly.

You're not going to run out of fuel because you didn't account for climb fuel on top of your cruise burn in a light aircraft. You might overlook something in your planning because you wasted time and head space on it. You are not going to destroy a small engine running it rich in the training area. You might have a mid-air collision with another aircraft because you were not paying attention to where you were going.

Keep it simple!

I am with you Green Goblin. K.I.S.S. Some people in GA (and airlines) just love to make stuff more complicated than it need be. I think a lot of it has to do with our generally benign Aussie skies which bore them. Idle hands and all that.
If they had to fly in really poor weather, or a really busy environment, maybe they would not have time to dream up unnecessary B.S. and would certainly come to realise that there are more critical things out there than 1 or 2 litres per hour of fuel optimisation.

The time to learn the niceties of climb planning and leaning (other than in the cruise, when applicable) is after the basics of keeping it blue side up have been mastered.
More effort should go in to ensuring that students can mentally compute fuel remaining and ETAs while under pressure. My old RAAF instructor would not even give me access to a 'prayer wheel' computer or a protractor for cross country work. They were used to plan the flight, then locked in the boot. The only cockpit navaids allowed were a chart and a pencil.
Also, harking back to when I learned to fly, I would like to see more training done when the wind is howling, rain is bucketing down and the scud is barely above MSA. That approach teaches students to know how far they can go, and a bit of respect for the elements.
Today's flying schools are breeding a bunch of pussies.

Mach: Couldn't agree more, but this again comes back to the fact that the guys teaching have (in many cases) never been exposed to such scenarios themselves. How can one hope to teach a skill they have not yet mastered themselves?

The dumbing down of the species seems to be happening in order to fill some junior pilot's (instructor's) log book without him/her having to leave the comfort and security of the circuit/training area.

Instructing should not be a means of building experience, rather a chance for others to benefit from yours!

Thank you GG
A lot of schools get their students lost up their own ar8es before they can fly S+L.
I've spent many an hour trying to remedy pilots from heavy SOP sausage factories who know the POH backwards but can't fly for Sh1t.

You all need to read Ernest K Ganns book Fate is the Hunter.

In the book he describes, as a young co pilot on a DC2 his captain at night told him to lower his seat and fly on instruments. The captain then proceeded to light matches and flick them in front of the young Gann.

It wasn't until years later when Gann was the captain and entered the mother of all thunder storms did the lessons as a young co pilot be realised. Simply ignore outside influences and FLY THE AIRCRAFT.

To every instructor I would suggest this book is mandatory reading for both pupil at instructor.