A sad waste of money …
 

I decided to splash out on an IMC training video film, at a cost of 35 quid, on the basis that I could replay it at will to help the learning process, and that I expected the medium would allow better illustrations of instrument techniques.

Oh dear, what a mistake – it’s dreadful! Turgid, wooden explanations, - the guy might be a great pilot and instructor, but in front of the camera he’s like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a car– long pauses, stilted delivery, always looking to the side of the camera for the “prompt”.

At the beginning there’s a few minutes of footage, showing the home base, walking out with the student, the student doing his pre-flight, taxiing, and finally take-off. Wonderful stuff – but :mad: all to do with IMC training.

All the flying is actually done by a student, so the rate one turns often aren’t, and we are descending at 800ft/min when the instructor is trying to illustrate recovery from a high nose-up position.

The instructor is often not pointing at the right instrument when illustrating the scan. His explanation is correct, but his finger is not following his speech.

And then the most complicated method of illustrating ADF tracking I have ever seen. Rather than use the technology to illustrate the aircraft position and the needle movements, we have 15 minutes of the instructor in front of a whiteboard, with very basic drawings of instruments on it. The aircraft is shown flying from bottom to top of the board, but the instruments are shown from top to bottom – so there’s no relation between the position of the aircraft shown on the board and the instrument display.

It gets worse when illustrating tracking away. The aircraft is shown flying top to bottom of the board, but this is supposed to be a track of 060. As the aircraft is illustrated drifting right of track it is of course now visually to the left of the track on the board. The instruments are illustrated as seen from the cockpit, showing the ADF pointing to the bottom of the instrument, which is the way the aircraft is pointing on the board (top to bottom). Utterly confusing!

Hugely disappointed, and apart from the last 2 minutes explaining the privileges of the IMC rating, it didn’t teach me anything I didn’t know.

If this is illustrative of the quality of other training videos for GA, then caveat emptor!

Thank goodness, I bought Thom's book no 5 as well.

I agree with you regarding video being an excellent aid to learning.

The best examples I have seen for instructional video's are from the King schools. You could use the FAA IR training video for the IMC rating.

They are very good at explaining things and the production quality is as good as it gets compared with the competition.

The bad points are that the presenters Martha and John sound like they are talking to children and there over-enthusiasm becomes a little tiring after a while.
Maybe it is my Britishness getting in the way :p

BTW Judging by Martha I’m surprised poor old John is still allowed to fly considering the thickness of the Beer goggles he must have worn before getting married.
:yuk:

That wouldn't be the same hideously cheerful couple greeting buyers of FS2002 would it? God, they are annoying, along with their 'instructor' friend.

No wonder aviation still has a reputation for being full of sad anoraks.:8

It may be useful to put the title of the video in your post so that others don't have to be disappointed.

Mind you, you can always flog yours at EBay!

FD

I completley agree about the IMC training video. I watched about 10 minutes, then had to turn it off. Utter rubbish. Fortunately, I had only borrowed it from a friend, and not wasted £35.

Groundbound,

You're right about that IMC video - it is a true British classic which connoisseurs rank alongside some of the early Open University maths and physics broadcasts. The lack of wild beards and elbow patches in the IMC video is usually considered to have left the OU ahead on points.

Hopes of the aviation world regaining the lead were dashed when the widely anticipated four-hour sequel on checking the oil and tyre pressures was cancelled after five years in pre-production following an outbreak of violence among the script writers.

The IMC video made me want to rush out with my video camera and shoot a better one straight away. What a load of rubbish. I don't think I have managed to watch it all the way through yet, even with the benefit of an occasional "fast forward". I just get too embarassed for the chap (and myself for parting with the cash).

TG

Groundbound,

I couldn't agree more. I have seen this videotape recording, and concur with your criticisms of the presentation, and the missed opportunities therein.

Unfortunately I have perforce to spend at least some of my time in the IT industry, and have suffered the over-enthusiastic type of presentation which seems to rank its audience as a group of infants. (IT is, of course, rife with unspeakable attempts at grammar and spelling, but that is another story.)

Until the suppliers of learning materials are capable of bringing to the market some well made, well presented, capably argued videotape recordings, in English, then, as you say, caveat emptor.

In the meantime, it would seem best to concentrate upon gaining knowledge from literature - provided it is literate!

Fly Stim :ok:

That's a great pity they didn't complete that video - I would have bought two ! :) :)

I used the King DVD for my IR and also use them every now and then as a brush up.

They are an excellent training aid although I have to agree that John King is a complete space cadet! If he was the pilot of your 777 on holiday and and was going down at a rapid rate he would make it sound like a great experience!!!

Flyin' Dutch

I hesitated to mention the title in my first post, since it was just a personal view. However, since none of the other posts have offered any defence of it, quite the contrary, then here goes ...
Hogwash!

E-bay? Now, there's a thought - although my first post is likley to have queered the patch for that. Unless, you'd like to offer something ? :) :)


Field in Sight
Well, its good to know there are some better productions out there. I was specifically looking at the UK IMC rating, though, and I doubt I would cope with the jolly enthusiasm you (and Julian) describe. :ugh:

DRJAD
Reckon' you're right! Thom's navigation book included some radio navigtation, and was tolerably literate. Should have stuck with that from the beginning.

Tall Guy
Well, I had to force myself. I kept thinking 'something will turn up, it can't go on like this'. Besides, if I stopped it half way through then I would have been wasting twice as much money. :sad:

Maybe this is something which the PPRuNe Fund could be used to subsidise? We have enough talent amongst us that we should be able to produce some GOOD films for training. Not just one for IMC, but also others for covering basic PPL training, or weather, or aerobatics possibly? NOT as a replacement to training, of course. I'm sure we would sell enough copies to forum members to cover our costs and make some profit in the long-run.

Aerbabe et al,

totally agree - and I for one would be up for making them - mind you, been trying to get the broadcasters to fund flying docs for some time now, with little success. I always thought that the market for this stuff was too small, but am willing to be convinced otherwise. Still, it may be one step nearer to my dream of combining flying and making TV programmes...

JP

Interesting comments about the King material - I bought a video of theirs a year or two ago and it was SO absolutely dreadful I took it right back. I got my money back because (probably only because) the tape was actually damaged.

For a video, such a potentially powerful training medium, it was wasted by Mr & Mrs King drawing something on a board and just waffling. The content was dumbed down to about the level of some Discovery Channel material.

Anybody who knows the subject could have done it at home with a camcorder.

I am not sure why they are so bad; 2k-3k people a year do a PPL and while the numbers are falling, this is a reasonable market.

Count me in AB - I instruct a bit of radio nav, so i'll write a skeleton script. I'm a bit ugly to present it, so you can do that bit, you could explain the principles easily enough. It'd improve sales to the often-male target audience :D

Ah - now there's a thought!

AerBabe as resident Professor, and some other competent BWPA members as the presenters - yes I like that idea.

With good graphics, and logical presentation, these could become classics and inspire a whole new generation of aviators!

Aerbabe has a fantastic idea here.

I'd be up for helping out... I'm not an instructor though. I could do the "student" bits if ya like... but please please please let me recommend you hire a very good make up artist to do wonders on me before I take to the screens. Then again if its an IMC / IR video then I'll have a hood over my face!

:) :D

I've been messing around with in flight video footage for a while with a Sony handcam thingy... results tend to vary as its invariably a family member or friend taking a few snipits of the flight from the right hand seat.

Whilst we're on the subject of video footage, has anyone come up with a good way of setting up a video camera on a tripod contraption in a Warrior/Arrow etc??? (Something that won't fall over and hit me in turbulence).

Best wishes,

Charlie Zulu
"Hoping to get a free make over out of this..."

Maybe we won't need any money after all. SC - if you write the skeleton script I'll use my creative writing skills to jazz it up a bit. Then we could ship Keygrip over with a camcorder, get Charlie Zulu a mask ... and away we go! I'm happy enough presenting, although whether I'd be able to do so without getting a fit of the giggles is another matter. :rolleyes:

This would soon be followed by a new thread on PPRuNe::D :D :D

FFF
--------------

Aerbabe - sounds like a great idea :ok: - couldn't be worse than what I bought!

Based on that dreadful film, here's a few "don't-do"s ;) :-

1) Don't stand in front of a white board with scrawled drawings on it and lecture (it seems no-one would be able to concentrate anyway :) ) - use computer graphics to illustrate the needle movement on the instruments and the relevant position of the aircraft. And show the aircraft in the correct radial position and heading - it makes it so much easier to understand. ;)

2) Whoever you dress up as a "student", make sure s/he can fly the :mad: thing - so that rate-1 turns are, and the plane is climbing when trying to illustrate recovery from a high nose -up atttitude (sigh!). Buy a mop, take off the furry bit on the end and stick it on top of an instructor. Oh, and shave off his/her mustache!

3) Don't film the instrument panel on a sunny day (reflections). If you need the light, then make sure the aircraft is tracking torwards the sun.

4) At the end of the ILS, don't be doing 100 kts in a Warrior, over the fence so the instructor has to land it :E :E

5) And please, please, please don't say de-accelerate, or de-acceleration (where did he dream that up?).


Good Luck :ok:

GB