{"id":943,"date":"2012-11-23T13:13:15","date_gmt":"2012-11-23T21:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.mechadigital.net\/?p=943"},"modified":"2021-08-26T20:37:59","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T20:37:59","slug":"ripping-off-the-stud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/ripping-off-the-stud\/","title":{"rendered":"#39 Ripping off the Students…"},"content":{"rendered":"

George DeMartini taught me to be a flight instructor.\u00a0 There was an area where George\u2019s CFI school was like medical school.\u00a0 Doctors are taught the Hippocratic Oath.\u00a0 \u201cFirst, do no harm\u201d, they are taught.<\/p>\n

George\u2019s student instructors were warned, \u201cDon\u2019t rip off the students!\u201d<\/p>\n

None of George\u2019s bits of instruction stayed with me more than that one.<\/p>\n

Students are ripped off in two ways.\u00a0 The school and the instructor may calculate ways in which to increase the Hobbs time which determines how much they will be paid.<\/p>\n

Students may also be\u00a0ripped off by instructors who are not out to cheat them, but who fail to\u00a0properly use their flight time in order to get the most instruction for the flight hour purchased.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Tow pilot Ben Auker gets a glider checkout.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

I once witnessed a student and instructor perched in their 172 at the hold short line.\u00a0 The instructor was yakking up a storm.\u00a0 He was yakking so much, in fact, that we did four landings while they sat there with the engine (and the Hobbs meter) running.\u00a0 I think that student was being ripped off.<\/p>\n

We can also rip off ourselves, if we fail to properly utilize our flight time when we are flying to stay current and improve our skills.<\/p>\n

Here are some of the ways in which a pilot\u2019s practice time can be best utilized:<\/p>\n

Pre-flight planning<\/strong>. \u00a0One of my favorite movie lines is from Fred Thompson\u2019s character in \u201cThe Hunt for Red October\u201d.\u00a0 He tells Alec Baldwin\u2019s character that, \u201cRussians, Son, don\u2019t take a dump without a plan\u2026\u201d\u00a0 The same should usually hold true for our training flights.\u00a0 A plan will keep us organized and best utilize our flight time.\u00a0 .<\/p>\n

Avoidance of controlled airports except when that practice is necessary<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0 Because of their own requirements for separation, those controllers will sometimes send you out to East Moosebreath when all you wanted to do was whip out a few landings.\u00a0 Unless you need practice in this area, go someplace else.<\/p>\n

Mnemonic checklists<\/strong>.\u00a0 In a simple airplane, a good mnemonic checklist will save you time and keep you from dividing your attention.\u00a0 It must be a good one and it must be properly used.<\/p>\n

Direct approaches, including straight ins when appropriate and avoidance of the forty-five<\/strong>.\u00a0 It is amazing the lengths some pilots go to in order to stabilize that approach and make it easy on themselves.\u00a0 That practice robs them of the practice that develops \u201cfacility\u201d.\u00a0 Flying clear out to East Jeezus in order to turn around and enter the pattern on a forty five degree angle is a huge time waster and also keeps the pilot from developing valuable skill.\u00a0 The Straight-in approach will also save a bunch of time.\u00a0 Obviously, certain precautions must be taken to do a straight-in safely.\u00a0 Ray Charles could see that.<\/p>\n

Touch and go landings.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>A huge timesaver.\u00a0 Analyze how much runway you\u2019re giving up for the subsequent takeoff and select a spot as a \u201cgo, no-go\u201d marker.\u00a0 Touch and goes may not always be appropriate, but they sure make your practice time more productive.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Small patterns and proper flap usage<\/strong>.\u00a0 Pattern size is pretty self-explanatory.\u00a0 Pilots are divided on what constitutes proper flap usage, but in general I prefer the \u201call or nothing\u201d technique.\u00a0 Extending all the flaps on short final will save a ton of time over the more popular technique of \u201cincremental flap extension\u201d which I just can\u2019t stand.<\/p>\n

Practice of high speed approaches.\u00a0 <\/strong>This is a somewhat complex issue if you haven\u2019t studied up on it.\u00a0 I\u2019ve written about this technique which depends on your ability to judge how quickly your airplane can slow to approach speed from a high speed descending approach.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Multiple landings per approach<\/strong>.\u00a0 More so than touch and goes, squeezing more touchdowns into each approach can really give you some valuable practice.\u00a0 It is not without risk, depending on the length of the runway and the layout of the airport.\u00a0 Under the proper conditions, we sometimes make five landings out of one approach.\u00a0 No, that doesn\u2019t include bounces.<\/p>\n

Cruise descents. <\/strong>Use of the energy stored by altitude, a cruise descent at high speed should almost always be used to descend to the airport.\u00a0 It\u2019s normal for most good pilots, but some will bring the power way back and glide to the airport at \u201cbest L\/D\u201d which will take them gobs of time.<\/p>\n

We all have our moments.\u00a0 Sometimes I can run out of steam during a lesson and perhaps not put as much effort out as my student deserves.\u00a0 Sometimes (luckily) the student needs to simply fly somewhere and not have to work on something constantly.<\/p>\n

But my philosophy remains.\u00a0 No instructor should ever give his student less than the student has bargained for.\u00a0 Whether by design or not.<\/p>\n

Happy Swooping,<\/p>\n

Brian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I once witnessed a student and instructor perched in their 172 at the hold short line. The instructor was yakking up a storm. He was yakking so much, in fact, that we did four landings while they sat there with the engine (and the Hobbs meter) running. I think that student was being ripped off….”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":951,"comment_status":"open","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":[170],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943"}],"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=943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}