Stupid Student
 

Whats the most stupid thing your student has done or said?

Well try this for starters.

I was supervising ta 50 hour student do his preflight walk around his fathers turbine Enstrom 480. When we reached the static vent just in front of the port side door pillar I asked him what it was and what it did. After looking some what lost for an answer he said, " it's a vent, as you climb the pressure out side the aircraft INCREASES and the vent allows the pressure inside the cockpit to equalise with the pressure outside!!!!!!"
The guy is obviously going to be a star pilot!!!!!!
:8

?????????????
 

I have a stupid question. Did you correct him so that he fully realized the function of the static vent? I know of a helicopter company that placed the static vent inside the helicopter so that every time the pilot opened or closed the window the internal pressure would change causing the helicopter to rise or drop very suddenly.

Maybe somebody should have told the designers about pressure differentials and how they effect aneroid controlled devices.

Stupidity occurs at all levels.

:confused:

Shame Lu....bashing Sikorsky and the CH-34 with ASE with Baralt hold on it......shame!

I always used to ask R22 self fly hirers when we did a checkout on them (they have licence so they should know right?)

Q. "if you lose the engine and rotor RPM needles but have no other indication what would you do ?"

A. "enter autorotation" (they say thinking I suppose that I will think there immediate action like this is highly commendable)

Response. " but what about the perfectly good governor and low RPM horn" I say.

"oh yeah" they say, or even " what about them" they might add

I heard this quite a few times, and was always suprised that they hadnt contrived to kill themselves yet !

Civil Aviation Department Hong Kong inspector for helicopter ops asked a HK based operator and I quote "how many tail rotor blades does your MD 520 NOTOR have"

Freddie :

Didn't someone bend an R44 in the UK for that very reason a year or so ago ?

IIRC, lost engine and rotor RPM needles due to a defective circuit board, didn't think before he entered auto and landed it hard.

Really don't think one can be too critical on those that instinctively dump the lever on seeing the engine and rotor rpm drop. Having established autorotation, the dumb thing is then not checking the Ts & Ps and pulling the lever back up to see what's really going on, with the benefit of a much less critical time frame. In the R44 case this would certainly have avoided a wrecked aircraft.

I remember, way back, practising just this scenario on an R22 safety course. Once you've practised it once, you know what to do. If you haven't, then in an emergency it's hard to troubleshoot and think clearly, and I can quite see that your first reaction might be to enter autorotation. After that, the average PPL would be so busy looking for somewhere to land, he wouldn't have time and brain capacity for much else.

It's worth remembering that being put on the spot by an instructor almost puts some people's brains into emergency mode...they're liable to answer instinctively and not be sure what to do. But if that's the case, they won't forget the right answer...which could save their lives later on. :ok:

It's easy to know all the answers down here; much harder up there.

right on brother. hindsight is a hugely valuable commodity. there is no pilot who has never given a stupid answer when put on the spot. I remember asking an instructor the following:

"if you pull the mixture in the 22, the engine stops, and you push it back in will the engine keep running like in a fixed wing?"

he was unable to give me an answer and said simply that he didn't know. He was an INSTRUCTOR. cpl and all that and he still didn't grasp the operating functions of a clutch, so are his his students stupid for not knowing either?

Up there is where you need to get the answers right when your asked by the machine.

I am afraid I will have to reply to this,

my criteria for a self fly hire check is/was, would I send my wife or child up with them for a flight and if the answer was yes, then I was happy with them.

I think that someone who can legally fly round the country with passengers who may be my relations, should not be able get away with it on the grounds that " his brain turned to mush because it was an emergency"

because they have turned a benign indication into a potential fatal accident, after all there was NO OTHER INDICATION, and surely a qualified helicopter pilot should notice that :
1) there is no change in engine sound
2) no yaw
3) no red lights
4) no low RPM horn
5) no nothing except the needles

I think you lot are way to forgiving, I always wanted my trainees to be the best they could be not just dummies who dont even know the basics.

maybe controversial but I dont care, I was flying with a commercial pilot the other day who flew 1/2 a circuit with no engine RPM needle and a red light for Alternator and didnt even notice. I was be disapointed if a PPL didnt notice that but for a CPL that is well crap.

also a 109 pilot who after doing a charter asked the engineer on the apron while still rotors running why the captions were dim,
and the answer " well you never actually turned the generators on and I think the battery is a bit low now"

I made/make loads of mistakes but if you actually read the emergency checklist before you do a checkout, maybe it would go a bit better !

Is this the one NR Fairy?

http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/group...ty_502099.hcsp

Acording to the report he only lost the engine tacho needle.


"Any landing you can walk away from is a good one" :ouch:

Have a 30 hr student that seemed to have a good grasp on aerodynamics. When I changed the question to which way the rotor tilts during transverse flow he told me it went to the left. I asked which way the fuselage went and he said to the right. Then had to simply tell him that if you are flying in normal G's the cockpit will follow the disk everywhere. I saw a light bulb come on. that or a fuse blew.

Cooper

I have a student, who has paid up front for all of his PPL. He has participated in all of our groundschool but has never flown!

We still have all his money and keep asking him when he's going to fly. He gets very irate and tells us not to keep bothering him!

Truly the dumbest I've come across.

However the ones who want to pull the collective up on entering an auto or who freeze in a flare are not much better.

Stupid responses
 

When I reported to aviation training school we had to undergo a flight physical. We were all standing there in the nude when the Doctor entered the room. He told us that we were to undergo a short arm inspection as a part of the physical. He told us to “Skinner back and milk it down”. One of the guys in the group told the Doctor to smile at it and it would fly back. He failed his physical.

Later we had to take an aptitude test and one of the questions was to draw a pendulum. One of the men drew a Penguin. He too failed the test.

As Forrest Gump would say, “Stupid is as stupid does”.

:rolleyes:

IMHO its the instructors that teach new students hovering autos and regular autorotations in the same lesson that are dumb.

Yes, that can lead to some awkward moments.

Like while reviewing for the checkride, we had done a bunch of normal autos and did a hovering auto on the way in. Yours truly dumped the collective instead of raising it - thankfully we were only the prescribed 6 inches off the ground, but what a shock.

Having done it once, I can say I'll never do it again.

Guys: Are we not being a little too hard on students. I think we all have done dumb things at one time or another. I know I still do.

"Guys: Are we not being a little too hard on students. I think we all have done dumb things at one time or another. I know I still do."

I only wish it were that infrequent for me.

None of us could fly when we started. We learned to through training. Not through great intelligence, or theoretical knowledge, or knowing lots about aerodynamics, but through training and practice.

So if a student does something dumb, he needs more training, that's all. At least, that's how it seems to me.

I agree with IHL.

When I was first learning to fly a helicopter, on the downwind leg I had a complete mind blank on the pre landing checks. Having a great deal of fixed wing time I did those checks instead. After completing those checks it was enough to unfreeze the brain and without letting on to the instructor completed the correct checks.

I still subscribe to the fact that I would rather have the student ask a dozen dumb questions than make one stupid mistake.

IMHO:O

I dont think anyone was trying to attack students. It's just a little humorous to hear about some of the questions, we at our level, find funny. I in no means wanted to attack students just share somethings I think others would find funny.

r22
 

As a r22/44 uk pplh i must add that when i fly i not only look at the instriments i listen to the engine, loss of e and r gage would indicate just that to me, loss of the gages.I have seen it hapen to a chap in an r44 who flew for aprox 20 miles with the sweat running down his face and do the worst landing i have ever seen, he said he did not know if the engine was going to stop!
My instructor has been fantastic, he does not mince his words, he puts it this way, if you do that you will die, at first this worried me but now has given me huge respect for flying and the dangers of cowboy pilots.

OK, this didn't happen to me... but to an IP I was working with.

The IP was transitioning NG Huey pilot's to UH-60s. The student was a high time Huey pilot - but had never flown anything with wheels. The student had just completed a landing and commenced taxiing to the hangar apron area. Hangar was to the aircraft's left. SOP was to taxi, turn right, and stop so that the aircraft could be dragged backwards into the hangar.

The IP (left seat) told the student, "unlock the tail wheel" the student did not respond. The aircraft approached the apron, but due to the locked tail wheel was converging with the hangar door. The IP said again, "unlock the tail wheel." The student still did not respond. The hangar was getting closer and right pedal was going in, but the Hawk maintained its converging course. The IP finally shoved his face in front of the student (which then meant he wasn't looking at hangar) and said, "UNLOCK THE TAIL WHEEL GODDAMIT!" to which the student replied "Oh" reached down and punched the switch. By now there was sufficiient right pedal that when the wheel unlocked the tail swung violently to the left. The tail rotor became "involved" with the hangar door, the tail boom bent and the aircraft went up onto its left side. The main rotor disintegrated, sending high velocity bits and pieces through the hangar walls, the other aircraft in the hangar and the offices in the back. At that point the safest place was probably inside the helo. Amazingly no one was seriously hurt.

We always concentrate on the big things (engine failures, autos), but a little thing like a locking tail wheel can scew up the most experienced of stick jockeys. It's always the little things.

Question for the Sikorsky engineers
 

Why didn't they incorporate a shear point on the lock pin? With that much tail rotor authority I'm surprised that the pin could be extracted with that much load being applied to the pin. S-58 lock pins were constantly being replaced due to pilot inattentiveness.



:confused: