Reason #528 to leave your flight school immediately

[Shiny Side Up]

Too much sim time

If your introduction to flight training begins in the Simulator - walk away. IF a school tries to sell you more than 3 hours of simulator time during the course of your private license they are trying to screw you. Walk away. There are only 3 lessons to be done in the simulator. They are: 1) Basic full panel, 2) Partial panel (not required for the PPL, but not a waste of time if you happen to be an instrument wiz) and 3) Navaids. If your instructor tries to do anything else, walk away and get another instructor. For example if your instructor tries to do attitudes and movements in the sim, you have a right to be angry and ask for your money back. If he tries to make you do spins in the sim he is wasting your time and money.

Simulators primarily have their use during the CPL and IFR training regimens, and even in the CPL the uses are limited, depending on your circumstance. Please be familiar with the requirements for both licenses. Only for the IFR (and particular when it comes to refresher work) really can extra sim training be excused.


This is a case of where I really wish I could name some places and people, but the decorum of the website precludes that. People, wise up and stop being screwed by instructors and schools. The requirements to get licenses are public knowledge. There are no excuses for drastic deviations in flight training syllabuses from said requirements. Ask for a syllabus of your training from your instructor and/or school.

IF you're reading this and you, as an instructor have participated in the above, then you should be ashamed of yourself.

[Big Pistons Forever]

Shiny has made many valuable, practical, and insightful post over the years but on this one I have to disagree. The Redbird IMO has a real place in PPL training. The flight modelling is acceptable and the visuals are very good. Obviously you need to start in the airplane but many of the procedural parts of ab initio training are amenable to the use of the simulator.

Some examples

- The first circuit lesson. This is a good introduction to the learning the rhythm of the flying the circuit, prelanding checks, radio calls. Make every circuit end in an overshoot and the student is better prepared for their first crack at the real thing.

- Advanced circuit exercises, like runway change, comm fail, engine fail are easy to realistically practice in the Redbird

- Forced approach. You can realistically practical the drills and initial set up for the landing site

- Precautionary. Again a great way to practice the drill

- Obviously the sim is good for practicing the IF stuff but it it also allows you to do some real world PDM training because you can realistically demonstrate the transition from VFR to Marginal VFR to IMC as well as graphically show how hard it is to fly in the legal minimum visibility.

TC and the industry needs to move out of the 1950's and embrace the potential of some of the technology that is out there now.

In any case the sim time can be very efficient as there are no ATC delays, you can eliminate transit time to the practice area, reset to the start of the exercise etc. It also keeps students engaged when you get a run of bad weather and keeps the instructors busy. Yes the time after 3 hours can't be counted but since virtually all of the PL's are taking more than 45 hrs, a couple of extra sim hours make no practical difference and done right will improve the flight test score.

[Shiny Side Up]

I must have failed to illustrate how bad I found this problem is then BPF, let me bring you around. I will concede that sometimes it might be useful to make use of the sim for the purposes you'd propose, but one still shouldn't see a lot of time spent doing these excersises. For example, there are no current sims that really imitate the take off and landing characteristics of any plane, so doing these excersises in my opinion is a gross waste of time - so if you want to give a primer on say the forced approach (I would strongly say though that primacy dictates that initial circuit flying should be done in the plane) then we should be talking a small ammount of time spent. One shouldn't see a whopping 1.5 - 2.0 Sim spent on the excersise, its defeating the point.

I should say that I've seen instructors run the sim as "real" as they can and have their students take off and fly to the practice area - sort of misses one of the advantages of the sim, no?

Either way, I really wish I could post copies of the PTR that came to my attention. 15 hours of sim time were conducted prior to the student even doing any airplane time. A further ten hours were conducted prior to the student's first solo (for a total of 25 hours of sim) WTF?! At 70+ hours, and incomplete training I might add, the student had flown 30+ hours in the sim. The irony of some of the comments which heavily laden with "spends too much time looking at the instruments" would have been rich if it wasn't so disturbing. Needless to say there was no flight test in sight - and the student had managed to be let go solo only 3 measly hours. Needless to say he was pretty discouraged with the whole affair, I won't get into how the two schools he went to after mishandled him - that's for another thread.

Forgive the rant, I'm angry right now. Why does flight training got to be so friggin' shitty?

[Big Pistons Forever]

Using the sim is like every other aspect of flight training, you can do it well or badly. In the example you provided the sim wasn't the problem the utter incompetence of the instructor was.

I finished a PPL from a Calgary school 2 years ago. He showed up with 77 hrs of dual and 4.2 hrs of solo . When he did the flight test he had 99 hrs of dual and 20 hrs of solo because I had to start at Attitudes and Movements and do the whole course over again. There was no sim time in his logbook, but if there were I am sure it would have been just as useless as the training he got in the airplane.

By the end of the course he was pretty good and he got 114 on the flight test but it was a painful process. The only remnant of his previous shitty training was despite much sarcastic ridicule on my part, he still sometimes forgot and stuck on that staple of Alberta Flight training "Conflicting traffic please advise" in radio calls

Bad instructing is Bad instructing and has nothing to do with the creative use of new technology to make flight training better.

[Rookie50]

Thread drift -- but why do schools refuse to train even advanced students in less than perfect wx? I was at an airport today, where a school I am familiar with had "no flying" posted -- no dual or solo, on a perfectly good if sporty vfr day.

Conditions were light rain, 3000 ft ceiling, some LL turbulance, and crosswinds gusting to 20- 24 about 20 - 40 degrees off the runway. No convection, no chance of icing. No solo, I get. But no dual, or advanced IFR dual? It was a great potential IFR training environment, wasted. IMC, With bumps, but safe. More dumbing down of training.

I flew it, wasn't that bad. Anyone halfway competent would have zero issues.

Enlighten me please.

[Colonel Sanders]

CAR 426.50 wx minima

Why does flight training got to be so friggin' shitty?

"Never ascribe to malice, what can be attributed to incompetence"

[Big Pistons Forever]

Just to be absolutely clear, I think the phrase "conflicting traffic please advise" is the exact same thing as saying " I am a moron". I hopefully do not have to explain why this is phrase is so utterly useless and stupid, so when my student used it the first time I carefully explained the reasons why I did not want him use it again. Unfortunately he appeared to have been brainwashed by his incompetent instructor so he kept on using it out of habit, despite my instructions to the contrary. Ultimately "intensity" in form of some pointed commentary that yes GASP SHUDDER included some remarks that could be described as sarcastic ridicule were used to make my point.

"It is just as easy to fly at 2000 feet as it is to fly at 1971 feet, or at 60 kts instead of 63 kts, or with the ball in the middle rather than 3/4's out of the cage".

[mike123]

- The first circuit lesson. This is a good introduction to the learning the rhythm of the flying the circuit, prelanding checks, radio calls. Make every circuit end in an overshoot and the student is better prepared for their first crack at the real thing.

- Advanced circuit exercises, like runway change, comm fail, engine fail are easy to realistically practice in the Redbird

- Forced approach. You can realistically practical the drills and initial set up for the landing site

- Precautionary. Again a great way to practice the drill

Most of it could be practiced with a sheet of paper on the desk and a pencil in the hand.

[Colonel Sanders]

incompetent instructor

... and these are the guys we want shutting down
engines in twins during training?!

[Big Pistons Forever]

- The first circuit lesson. This is a good introduction to the learning the rhythm of the flying the circuit, prelanding checks, radio calls. Make every circuit end in an overshoot and the student is better prepared for their first crack at the real thing.

- Advanced circuit exercises, like runway change, comm fail, engine fail are easy to realistically practice in the Redbird

- Forced approach. You can realistically practical the drills and initial set up for the landing site

- Precautionary. Again a great way to practice the drill

Most of it could be practiced with a sheet of paper on the desk and a pencil in the hand.

Yes but it could be IMO practiced better in a Redbird on those day where the weather doesn't allow flying. But ultimately this instruction is like every other part of the PPL. How worthwhile it is depends much more on the instructor than the medium....

[sky's the limit]

incompetent instructor

... and these are the guys we want shutting down
engines in twins during training?!

The issue is not the concept.... if you have incompetent people in flight training, therein lies the entire problem du jour. Unless of course the Race to the Bottom is to go unabated.

[Colonel Sanders]

if you have incompetent people in flight training

"If"?!

Young instructors can't be trusted with a 172
in a 10 knot crosswind. Not sure a 4-cyl piston
twin with one feathered is going to work out
for them.

[MyMeowCat]

The way I understand it --- a lot of instructors are time building for their airline dreams. Why would an instructor want to put their student in a simulator?? Does that not take away their PIC time? Perhaps the school has serious maintenance issues or all their airplanes are currently being used? Perhaps the school owner wants to make up for the cost of the simulator and want to push people into their expensive toy? Point is I don't see how it is advantageous to the instructor him/herself to put a student into a sim

[Shiny Side Up]

"Never ascribe to malice, what can be attributed to incompetence"

There's another saying that applies too: "Once is unlucky, twice is coinidence, but thrice is deliberate action." I'm not sure what one would describe 20+ repetitions, but this is correct:

Point is I don't see how it is advantageous to the instructor him/herself to put a student into a sim

So this isn't something that's cooked up by individual instructors (though I might add I noticed some names in the PTR that were already on my blacklist, can one make a blackerlist for such people? Note to self: coin term blackerlist) they're only real motivation to use a sim -assuming they don't know how to use one advantageously - is to make money on mechanical days and weather days. This stinks of something institutionalized, and it ain't the first time I've seen such shennanigans. This takes a commitee to come up with this level of incompetence, likely one driven by some beancounters, and one speculates that recouping cost is the primary motivator. Probably pawned off on students as something like "professional training" or "career building".

Still angry about it. Its bad enough we have to live with the rife incompetence, I can't stand the bald faced crooks who also seem to infect this industry.

[Colonel Sanders]

their only real motivation to use a sim ... is to make money on mechanical days and weather days

High tech milking! I suppose this is an inevitable
result of paying instructors less than minimum wage -
they have to make up the difference somehow,
either delivering pizzas on the side, or over-charging
the students.

As you say, a pretty sh1tty business. And as you say,
everyone loves the status quo.

[digits_]

Funny though. Some of my students were asking me to do this during a rainy month. Now before I get on someone's black-,blacker- or blackestlist, I didn't go through with it, since it wouldn't really help them much. I just wanted to give an example that it's not always the school or the instructor who is initiating this.

[ReserveTank]

This sounds exactly like what is happening at YOW. It's all about paying off an expensive toy that was bought without the consultation of people who actually understand flight training. It's also about selling useless "products" that ensure mom and dad's credit cards are always paying. It does not make sense to use a King Air cockpit for 15 hours before stepping in an actual Diamond Katana. It's harmful to the training process.

[Colonel Sanders]

It does not make sense to use a King Air cockpit for 15 hours before stepping in an actual Diamond Katana

As long as you wear a white shirt with four gold bars
the entire time, it's cool.

[Oxi]

This sounds exactly like what is happening at YOW. It's all about paying off an expensive toy that was bought without the consultation of people who actually understand flight training. It's also about selling useless "products" that ensure mom and dad's credit cards are always paying. It does not make sense to use a King Air cockpit for 15 hours before stepping in an actual Diamond Katana. It's harmful to the training process.

They have payed that off with many many Aerosolutions contracts and other sim use, not so much the pilot costume program. Many of the students that come through that flight school generally go two ways. They are able to learn the procedure for the ab intitio exercises and when going into the plane these students are able to get many of the exercises done in one or two lessons. The second group of students come in, expect that learning the material, taking the time to come prepared is not something necessary. This follows through in the training as they struggle with an overall understand of whats happening and leave at the end of day thinking it's just two hours of my life that I will learn to fly.

oxi

[ReserveTank]

A secondary purpose of the simulator is to allow the FTU (ATO?) to claim that their students finish with less hours on the airplane. It's the whole selling point for the person financing the training. What is not mentioned is that a decent student coupled with a decent instructor can achieve a PPL in short order without the sim. It has its place in the CPL and IR but not for initial training. They're really just taking your money. What does it cost to do 15 hours in the sim before touching an actual airplane? There's no tangible benefit. Sure, you can learn procedures in a sim, but why shouldn't that be done in an airplane like it has been for 100 years? If a student needs that much training on any one exercise that they do it in sim AND airplane, the problem lies in the instructor's technique and/or the student's learning ability (or study habit). Technology cannot fix that.
What people aren't aware of is that this whole push for alternate means of licensing compliance is a bit of a dirty business. The regulator itself is not at arm's length from profiting from this push to shortcut training. There are employees of enforcement also in the employ of the contractor that Oxi mentioned.
Businesses like this obviously have great pull when it comes to a change of reg/standard, or even when it comes to oversight. The problem is nothing positive will occur in safety or quality of training.
This will become the norm because people will just not know any better than to get sent straight to the sim after paying for a battery of tests that do absolutely nothing with student placement.