We had a few outtakes left over from our production of \u201cTailwheeler’s Journal: The Movie\u201d.\u00a0 In one of them, I jokingly scolded Jana\u00e9, saying, \u201cdon’t you know that you’re always supposed to do what your instructor says?\u201d<\/p>\n
\nIt was funny to us because it referred to the fact that she turned a corner prior to soloing. It was a \u201cconfidence corner\u201d. She had reached a point where she felt confidence in her own ability and judgment. From time to time she would argue with me. I gave her a hard time about her short field technique of three-pointing the touchdown, then turning it into a wheelie and hopping on the brakes. I gave her a hard time about it until the identical technique won the short landing contest at the Bush Pilot’s Fly-in at Valdez, Alaska.<\/p>\n
\nWe may have joked about these arguments, but the development of a student’s confidence to the point where he questions his instructor is extremely important.<\/p>\n
\nI’ve often sympathized with the situation in which beginning student pilots find themselves: They enter flight training with little or no knowledge and depend on their flight instructor to be right. Unfortunately, those instructors are sometimes wrong. And the bad instruction creates baggage that the student pilot carries with him, sometimes into an aviation career which often includes\u2026 yup, flight instruction.<\/p>\n
\nThe most common example of this baggage is one I find in almost every tailwheel student with whom I fly. It has to do with the inclinometer ball normally found in the turn coordinator or turn and slip indicator. I ask every student, \u201cdid your first instructor tell you that to coordinate your turns you should “step on the ball\u201d?<\/p>\n
\nThe answer is almost always \u201cyes\u201d. By teaching the student to \u201cstep on the ball\u201d or refer to the inclinometer for coordination reference, the instructor has passed up an opportunity to familiarize the student with the technique
\nof coordinating aileron and rudder by feeling his own body swaying and simply applying rudder to keep his body upright in the seat while keeping his eyes outside the cockpit where they belong. It?s a skill that would serve the student faithfully for the rest of his flying career\u2026 if it were ever taught. But new students never question this advice and that is my point.
\nStudents who question their instructors will learn more completely. They will sometimes uncover areas in which their instructors might not be real competent. For example, I’ve had several students whose judgment of gliding accuracy was better than mine. Instructors who encourage their students to question \u201cconventional wisdom\u201d will become better instructors.<\/p>\n
\nWe all have to remember that flying is both art and science. As such, there is rarely just one proper way to conduct any pilot operation. As instructors, we need to remember that. Let?s not do anything because \u201cwe’ve always done it this way\u201d. And let’s encourage our students to question their instructors.<\/p>\n
\nHappy Swooping,
\nBrian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We had a few outtakes left over from our production of \u201cTailwheeler’s Journal: The Movie\u201d.\u00a0 In one of them, I jokingly scolded Jana\u00e9, saying, \u201cdon’t you know that you’re always supposed to do what your instructor says?\u201d It was funny to us because it referred to the fact that she turned a corner prior […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}