Strange practice of a flying instructor?
 

Now I realise that this question at face value may appear strange (I am not a troll and this is a very serious question) The scenario leading up to this question is as below:

The instructor was taking two students (both male, late teens) for a trial lesson in a PA28, During the flight he asked the students to change seat (from front to back of aircraft) so that they could change over who was having the lesson.

My question is was this legal? and if not what sections of aviation law had been breached. Should the school report this to the CAA to protect themselves?

I have my own opinions as to the safety of such a practice, and my own thoughts on the wisdom of the instructor - no doubt others will have theirs.

Is this common practice in flying schools - no need to name and shame, just yes or no would be informative.

Thanks for your opinions on this.

YES it really did happen...

No law was broken. He was pilot in command - if the passengers swap seats in cruise (when there's no requirement to wear seat belts), then that's fine.

Its not common but not unheard of.


I have done it in the past when a PPL and his PPL mate were in the front I fell asleep in the back and the pair of prats managed to get themselves into hole of VMC with no way of getting out unless going IMC after deciding to change the route from the east coast to up the A9 mid trip, because it looked OK.

It was in a C172 and getting my fat arse into the front produced a stream of terrets strength swearing at the pair of prats and the aircraft.

Lesson learn from that though, not much point having an IR onboard if they can't get to the controls. I did consider leaning over and pattering instrument flying from the back but went for the get in the seat option. Still don't know if getting in the front was the best option.

When I was a Commercial Flying Instructor years ago we often did airborne changes - perfectly safe so long as managed correctly and also saved a lot of time giving more cost effective training.

That's nothing, really. But back in the old days, people used to do this in Cessna 152s with the second "student" lying in the baggage compartment behind the seats ;)

I was flying a 172 many years ago and the guy in the right hand seat decided to climb into the back to retrieve a map, as he climbed over the seat back his foot slipped and kicked the right hand control yoke fully forward, he then proceeded to fly into the roof but fortunately landed in the back seat not on me.

So maybe not illegal but not a very good idea me thinks !

We used to do it all the time, saved a hell of a lot of time when you paired up two students who were doing the same lesson. Quite easily achieved and certainly no problem.

It is better to land and pull off the runway, changeover and takeoff again not just from a simplicity angle but also because the new pilot does a complete flight rather than being dropped in it!
The second problem is that some light aircraft are very small and changing around can be like an Octopus dance quite entertaining if its a girl with a short skirt not so if its some fat guy!You do run the risk of getting completely jammed which I wouldnt moan about if it was the girl with the short skirt :E but would with the fat guy:{

Pace

oi I resemble that Pace

MadJock

I know you Scots wear Skirts ;) just the thought of it :eek:

Pace

Microlight pilots have special training so they can even fly standing up in the back seat - useful if the student in the front falls out as they swap places!

Never mind skirts there would be a distinct chance of a scottish pilot dropping thier guts half way through the swap while thier arse was on the other person in the front shoulder. Then disolving into giggles as that said person starts trying to give them a dead leg.

:eek:

Image burning my brain of MJ in a kilt trying to pull his way across in 172 shouting
BADGER!

Pace, depends on what type of training you are conducting. I agree that for ab initio it may not be a good idea.

However for advance students on Instrument Rating training I see no reason why not. We used to take 3 students in the Twin Comanche/Seneca - first student would fly airways to XXX do some approaches to touch and go/go around, 2nd student does airborne change to do approaches at XXX, 3rd student does airborne change to do approaches at XXX and then airways back to base.

Given that base at that time had no ILS this meant all 3 students got to do at least one ILS each (usually more) and also a non precision approach.

The main challenge then (and I suspect now) is that if you landed to do a crew change it was challenging getting back into the system again to restart training and often resulted in delay at the holding point.

For advanced students who, within the airline context, have to get used to airborne changes, this was good training to prepare them for the future. Also they had the benefit of watching their fellow trainees perform and also learn from the debriefs etc.

Of course airborne changes have to be briefed and correctly managed but if the left hand seat was moved fully rearward and the right hand seat moved forward a tad there was never any problem changing seats.

I suppose if you have never done it before it's like going to the moon (you have to solve two problems:- how to get there and how to get back) but airborne changes in this context have been performed quite safely many times.

As a postscript there is always a risk somebody might fall over the controls when exiting or entering a pilot's seat. Another reason for covering this in training.

Bob

Of course in that context you are right and I know it is a technique used a lot especially in expensive aircraft like twins.
I have done that myself both in training and giving someone a go upfront but having experienced jumping in I also know it takes a bit to get in the groove and put on a different hat to that of a passenger!!!
Its a bit like entering a cinema half way through the film ;)

If you have to experience MJ in a kilt clambering over the top even more unsettling :E Especially if what they say about Scots and Kilts is true.

Pace

The info was explicit, a PA28 - FIRST LESSON, swop seats front to back.

pussyboots, thanks for drawing my attention to that - in my enthusiasm to promote the other point of view I overlooked that fact!

I would not agree with this on a Trial Lesson which presumes that the students are new to flying which would carry extra hazards apart from the training aspects of putting somebody in the hot seat,

I am surprised no one has mentioned potential CofG/balance issues.

Not much serious training takes place in typical trial lessons which are more a famil or air experience flight. Taking two people and having an airborne crew changes means more airtime for the two studes, cutting a load of taxy and transit time. As long as it is properly briefed there are no downsides at this stage.

A little later when the guys are actually learning startup, taxy, takeoff, transit, RT etc then it has training value. Far beyond that when these things are second nature, for example when training beyond the PPL, there might be more value to a sortie by cutting out unnecessary items and again doing airborne crew changes. Very common in military flying training on certain aircraft types.

Always worth giving the incoming crewmember a couple of minutes in the seat to get his bearings and up to speed with what's going on before he starts aviating.

I would say quite a lot happens on Trial Lessons, it sets the tone for the attitude that the student has for the rest of their training, should they take it up. It's not something I'd do by choice but never say never.

It is however significantly safer than doing a swap over with the engine still running. There were a few deaths in the last couple of years from engine running changeovers and people falling into spinning props.

Oh my dear god :uhoh:

Rumour has it that MJ has stopped wearing a kilt - he could not stand the pain when his legs were waxed smooth!!

Unless of course it all goes wrong, at which point the PIC could be charged under Article 137

I heard a story about a French Cessna 172... or was it a Robin? details hazy....but on board were four full size people...

The ENGINE FELL OFF!

They didn't die.

The two in back climbed into the front and having in this way adjusted the centre of gravity, the ensemble managed to glide to earth....

History does not mention how they arranged themselves....

Dear Asker of Question:
 

My opinion (CFIIMEIATPMEL,737type, captain major US carrier)...

this was a dumb move...maybe not illegal, but dumb.

As an instructor, even for a DEMO ride, I wanted the student to takeoff, climb, turn, descend and land. Doing exactly what I said of course. and most could do it all with proper coaching from the instructor...

so one guy gets a takeoff, the other a landing? it wasn't a full lesson in my view...just a cheap cop out.


A PA 28 is a great little plane (watch "GOLDFINGER"), but always mention which version of the PA28 please.


Also...I would not have an observer student...the best lessons are instructor and student ...and THAT"s it!. Sure sometimes you take your best girl along for a ride...but I discourage that. some may say it saves money....but I wouldn't do it.

Sod all waxing with a kilt on.

And in that respect weegie is worse than me with him being the missing link between homosapien and neanderthal in the back hair deptment. In fact I don't know the reason why he doesn't have the nickname of Chewbacca.

Probably because, in the particular situation described, there are none.

Mary, quite true, but actually Miles Messenger G-AJEY in France in 1947. Boulton Paul CTP Lindsay Neale was the pilot whose skill and quick thinking (and willing pax!) saved the day.

Mother-in-law?

Apologies for the thread drift in advance...

Wasn't there a situation (maybe read 'urban myth in aviation') involving an aircraft on an air taxi detail where they ended up having to put down in a field, so the pilot asked his passengers (all 4...6... 8... of them...?) to move as far rearward as possible, with some ending up in the luggage area, to ensure he had as much 'rearward authority' during the flare as possible?

Then the story went on to mention how he was stripped of his licence, the deciding factor being that some of his passengers were obviously not wearing seatbelts/harnesses during an emergency landing?

I know you hear so much crap in aviation, but shockingly it's one of those funny industries where a lot of the wild stories either are, or have the potential to be true, so just curious!

This is also true! There was a test pilot doing a flight test on a Canard design aircraft.
The aircraft got into a flat spin and being their only test machine the pilot got out and attempted to put his weight on the canard to break the spin.
He failed and was now too low to parachute out.
The aircraft spun onto a beach the test pilot walked away uninjured and the aircraft suffered so little damage that it was recovered and rebuilt.

Pace

Legal? - Yes.
Clever? - No

In the past people were killed doing it.

People have been killed trying to land, too...

So we have 2 people who have never likely been in a light airplane and you are going to have them climbing over the seats in the tightly confined space of the Pa 28 cabin :confused:

This strikes me as a really really dumb idea. All it takes is for one of them to push the control wheel, kick the instrument panel, hit the door handle, get stuck twisted half way etc etc and you will be deeply regretting doing this :ouch:

I have never done an inflight seat change in a light aircraft and think it is inadvisable under pretty much all conditions.

Halfbaked boy. What a stupid counter argument

Its all about the degree of risk. To me the risks of trying to swop student pilots on their first ever flight between the front and back of the aeroplane is an avoidable risk. Its a strange enviroment for the student, why spoil the enjoyment of a first flight? Why demonstrate something like this to a student? Or at the very least a potential student, after all it was a trial lesson, hopefully to let the student decide if they were going to continue and learn to fly. Its a bad example of airmanship to the extreme.

I ain't arguing GEP, I'm providing another input on what is a neutral situation. Landing is inherently more dangerous than teaching a couple of teenagers to swap seats... But which requires more training?

Making a tonne of metal move in such a way that it flies at high speed through the atmosphere, with our delicate fleshy bodies on board, is not the cleverest idea anybody had (evidently), but we made it risk acceptable.

Same applies here, and in fact the major reason we will hear people voicing their opinion that it isn't a good idea is psychological - it's not what people are used to, therefore they will condemn it.

The bottom line here is that nobody on this forum (presumably) was present during the briefing the instructor gave these two young guys. A good rule for 99% of activities on life is the old 'it's only as safe as you make it'. Two mobile, physically able teenagers, briefed very carefully on how to move through a one foot gap without sticking their leg backwards, under the scrutinizing eye of an experienced instructor, makes this whole deal a non-event...

... In my opinion, because we're allowed opinions aren't we GEP ;)

edited to say - For the record, I haven't, and probably will never do this, but my reasons are more along the lines of above posters with regard to training quality/issues. My thoughts above are on the safety aspects only.

Half baked boy, yes we are all entitled to opinions, some of us can debate their thoughts with rational statements. How can it be safer to swop seats in flight than land to change pilots in a PA28?

Equally how can you argue that a landing is anything other than another phase of a planned flight.

Equally I have heard from someone who was present at the pre flight briefing that the instructor cut the briefing short because he thought it was "boring"...... The planned flight was to go to another airfield to do the changeover of students (one flying to the destination, the other flying back) For some reason the instructor decided to do the change over in flight.

The PA28 is a small four seater, any turbulance can have a marked effect, equally any problem with the aircraft during the changeover could have had life threatening consequences, how about the risk of accidentally kicking something whilst accidentally climbing over. It is a manageable risk and in my opinion one not worth taking.

the Not Worth Taking statement in GEP's post is the key.

Landing, once flying, is neccessary.

Swapping seats in the air is optional.
Entering / exiting with engine running is optional.

Does the benefit justify taking the risk?

For entering/exiting with engine running, in my mind it is NO. Risk your life for the sake of a minute (the time it takes to re-start the engine after you got in)???? Yes, it is a remote risk, but a minute isn't worth it!

Swapping seats when airborne to save 200-300 pounds (say, an hour of flying)? Hey, why don't you just LAND off one approach, so it only takes 10 minutes to swap, and as a bonus you get to train to actually LAND of the approach, someting you rarely do in IR training but almost always do afterwards...

I've not previously posted in this thread, nor any other Genghis. Must have been some other feller.

G

Good post Cobalt.

There was a group of pilots who shared Halfbaked boys thoughts about the risk of landing:

http://i1197.photobucket.com/albums/.../Kamikazee.jpg

Hmmm ...Just been out to a PA28 trying to work out who put what where when to achieve the seat swap ( & trying not to think too hard about half baked boy's
:))

Bit of a struggle to say the least but maybe I'm getting old!
Seems to fall in the category of something that is possible to do but probably shouldn't be encouraged - because if your instructor can do it with you - why shouldn't your do it with your family when you get your PPL? And who's to say whether you have the skill to sort out any resulting problems?