Picking a field for the Forced Approach

[Big Pistons Forever]

What ever happened to the student being prepared for a forced landing at anytime rather than just on a flight test by simply being taught to be observant to whats going on around him/her including the ground beneath.

You still have to pass the flight test. You are likely only going to be using one or two examiners so you get a feel how they operate. I will make no bones about the fact that on the preflight test I will prepare the student for what they typically get on the ride. In the case of the forced approach it will be where they typically get the engine failure and to the usual field. This has absolutely nothing to do the actual preparation for dealing with engine problems in the real world which I will have already covered in the flight training. This will as I have previously posted be heavily orientated towards not having the engine fail in the first place and if it does fail getting it going again and PDM for dealing with partial engine failures. The flying part of the forced approach training will be almost totally devoted to flight path management with the TC BS head down checklist silliness and the over the top mayday call and passenger brief only added at the end and then solely to pass the ride as I think it is for the most part stupid.

[Beefitarian]

Big Pistons, make sure they do #1 & 2 when you're telling them 3 should prevent having to land.
(don't take the low level personal attack emoticon personal)

Trey I think the "game" is with the test examiner dudes not phisics, "win" is getting a pass on a fight test. I don't think the steep right turn was meant to be a sixty degree three G airshow special. And it would be used only if you noticed for certain you just happened to pass a real nice field on the right.

Then again I could have missed the personal attack. Kernel, some clarification here?

Either way you need to get over here for some Mountain Dew and scotch.

What ever happened to the student being prepared for a forced landing at anytime rather than just on a flight test by simply being taught to be observant to whats going on around him/her including the ground beneath.

To a small extent I'm waiting for it more which can mean I'm slightly less prepared because I know some instructors want to make it a challenging game of "Let's see if you noticed the best field on my side." or something. So I use a bit of mental energy thinking, "Is he going to pull the throttle now? Nope. How about now? Nope." instead of flying and looking for fields naturally like when you're just flying.

[Colonel Sanders]

I could have missed the personal attack

What personal attack? Generally, if I attack someone, there
will be precious little doubt about whether or not it occurred

My previous post was about passing the PFL on the flight
test. Examiner pulls throttle at 3000 AGL, turn right, look down,
wow, what a surprise, perfect field! The examiner wants to
play a game, why not play it to win it?

As BPF points out, as flight instructors we need to prepare
students both for the real world, and for the flight test. Any
instructor that doesn't do both isn't helping the student.

[Beefitarian]

I could have missed the personal attack

What personal attack? Generally, if I attack someone, there
will be precious little doubt about whether or not it occurred

Ok good. That's what I figured but I was worried I might have just missed out by being slow.

[robertsailor1]

I guess its always a debate about what is the best method of training to ensure a succesful pass.

[Big Pistons Forever]

Big Pistons, make sure they do #1 & 2 when you're telling them 3 should prevent having to land.
(don't take the low level personal attack emoticon personal)

.

Ya lost me there

Anyway to make you happy just tell the instructor the next time he fails the engine you are just going to ask yourself "where is the BEEF ?", that is a field that is Big, Empty, Enterable (no obstructions) and Flat

[Beefitarian]

Now here's the trick: you never stop doing #1, and you
only do #2 if you have extra time. And, you don't stop
doing #2, to do #3 (eg people flying away from field with
their heads down, doing checks).

Anyways this is another pretty good thread. Thanks for starting it.

[trey kule]

Sadly, it seems, from the posts here, that the flight test requirements do not reflect the reality, not only on this exercise, but on others. And instructors spend valuable and expensive time training for the flight test as opposed to the real world .

If a test exercise standard and implementation does not reflect reality, perhaps it is is time to discuss the issue with the flight training standards people in your region, so that training time can be focused better.
I do not live in lala land, and I know you will probably get the " we agree, but thats the way it is". line, but it takes time to make changes. A well thought out and presented paper to them may sit for a year or two, but eventually someone will look at it and ask how to make the flight test better reflect the examinee's ability to deal with an engine failure...If in fact, that really is a problem. Seems maybe it is about individual examiners and FTUs to some extent, rather than the standard and TC.

[Beefitarian]

And instructors spend valuable and expensive time ...

Something I noticed flying dual last year is money's no object for flight instructors and we don't seem to be in any hurry to get things done their way. We have nothing but time.

[Shiny Side Up]

Sadly, it seems, from the posts here, that the flight test requirements do not reflect the reality, not only on this exercise, but on others. And instructors spend valuable and expensive time training for the flight test as opposed to the real world .

First of all, any time that is spent which will mean that my student passes a flight test is not wasted time.

If a test exercise standard and implementation does not reflect reality, perhaps it is is time to discuss the issue with the flight training standards people in your region, so that training time can be focused better.

Then get writing to your minister. I keep harping on this, but the flight training side of this industry needs support from its brethren to make these changes. I've wrote my letters on these subjects. I've sat through meetings, audits, debriefings. I've made the phone calls. I know the many others that have. I know of few other CFIs and flight school managers who haven't already been beating their heads against this wall.

I do not live in lala land, and I know you will probably get the " we agree, but thats the way it is". line, but it takes time to make changes. A well thought out and presented paper to them may sit for a year or two, but eventually someone will look at it and ask how to make the flight test better reflect the examinee's ability to deal with an engine failure...If in fact, that really is a problem.

News for you. If TC wants to make your job follow la-la land rules, they can do so at the drop of a hat. If it only "takes time" to make changes in the other direction then maybe you're talking on the geologic scale. I've been doing this for a dozen years or so and it keeps changing for the worse. You're forgetting some critical points which affect the issue. 1) TC doesn't care about flight training efficiency, its not in their mandate. All they care about is whether people get hurt flying airplanes, the "safety" question. 2) Anything that makes general aviation harder to do in this country - and the associated flight training that creates GA pilots - they are for. The less pilots there are, the less accidents there are. Longer, more expensive flight training
makes aviation safer in their opinion.

[trey kule]

As you have presented one side, let me present the other. A few months ago, we noticed a real problem with an IFR exercise on our inititial evaluations. The problem was not that it was not a mandated standard by TC, but that many Canadian FTUs were simply not bothering with the exercise, and it was not being tested....
I wrote a letter to TC, and the reaction pleasantly surprised me. I received a letter from the head of the regions's flight training department (wrong name, but I am not going to pull my file..you get the idea), and they took action. Both short term and long term.
Make no mistake, in the past I have locked horms with TC, as far up as the federal court. But things seemed to have changed...It will be a year or so before we expect to see any changes, but I am optimistic.
On a personal note, I looked into renewing my instructor's rating for my retirement plan. The CFI's at the FTU's were , to put it kindly, making the process very onerous and expensive. I spoke with TC and was not only given some good advice, but some recommendations ....again...most helpful.

I dont think you are going to effect any changes to much, in the "I always know a better way" as how you teach something depends on the indivudal student and instructor. But I think they will act on a DFTE who thinks it is a good idea to allow an examinee to do a steep turn as an immediate action for an engine failure, and who orchastrates the flight test to do that.

BTW.. I really dont see much wrong with the standards. When I look at what a new CPL is supposed to know, I think if they do in fact know it, and can fly to the test standards they will be just fine. It is the interpretation and application that seems to be the problem...In the first instance above, the issue seemed to be that the exercise (DME arc) was never tested, and thus not being taught. In the second instance, above, Class 1's simply wanted to do the whole instructor course again... I have posted this before...I spoke with the CfI's at three flight schools...Not one, asked me about my experience. Not one asked me if I was current. Two suggested that I would need to relearn to fly from the right seat......though I spend about 1/4 of my flight time in the right seat, no one asked. Not one asked how long my rating had been expired. Only one asked what class of rating I previously held. It is all to common , I have heard from friends that when they went to get recurrency checks they ran into the same issues...Jump in the plane and go through all the exercises. No evaluation first...
That is not a TC issue.

And while I am on a rant. FTU's are like a great many other closed loop institutions, and companies.
It is very easy, as someone pointed out, when you only have one or two examiners to forget about teaching flying, and teach for the flight test. Kind of a an incestuous situation. It also happens in AOC operators, as they train for their particular operations. A bit more appropriate in those situations.

In short, keep trying. Do not complain. Put your thoughts in writing. Define the problem, and perhaps suggest a resolution. The folks in flight training are not enforcement people, you can talk to them without having it used as evidence against you.
These thoughts brought to you by someone who has seen a huge positive change in TC in the last year.

[Colonel Sanders]

TC doesn't care about flight training efficiency

Exactly! People don't realize it, but Transport thinks that an
FTU that averages 100 hours to solo and 200 hrs to PPL with
mandated less than 5 knot crosswinds, is doing a great job
because safety is maximized, and that is Transport's only
applicable metric.

FTU's don't have their customers' bests interests at heart.
In fact, they profit handsomely from inefficiency, so why
would they be concerned?

Students don't care how long their flight training takes -
all they look at is the hourly rate. If an FTU is 10 bucks
cheaper, they will always choose it, even if it ends up
taking them more hours and ends up costing them more
money, because "it's cheaper".

[Beefitarian]

~long sigh~ The instructors need to impress the CFI and the examiners who look at the pass rates as the most reliable source of feed back.

They are never going to track how many students wash out or worse yet find another FTU that suddenly trains them better. It's not their problem if you can't deal with a cross wind.

Just like us they only go to work for money, the source of that money is the people they teach how to fly. Keeping me around longer makes perfect sense, plus it builds hours for the younger guys. Instructing is just a stepping block in professional flying.

Students don't care how long their flight training takes -
all they look at is the hourly rate. If an FTU is 10 bucks
cheaper, they will always choose it, even if it ends up
taking them more hours and ends up costing them more
money, because "it's cheaper".

I think it's harder than ever to figure out where to go for the best local training. It's easy to find people bitching about places to avoid but that's not as accurate as it should be. I'm totally crabby with the place I have been going to but if I was trying to get my CPL I think what they were doing would be fine. Extra hours will always be good for that.

I just don't want to waste time now because we struggle to afford 6 hours of dual per year. After an instructor says, "I can tell you're preparing for the lessons and I appreciate that." I am left wishing they would have returned the favor.

Someone else might say a particular FTU is bad because the instructors are too demanding. How can one tell if that's true or the student was too sensitive?

In this day and age where truth is relative, I can't even tell when instructors or former students are lying to themselves and me until I've already spent the money. I'd love to start a FTU but if I could afford that I'd just pay off the house and buy a hanger full of muscle cars and a plane for recreation instead. Then I'd have something to enjoy instead of debt and the legacy of a failed business because I wanted to do things right.

Seems we're talking about trying to find a Snap-on wrench in this Walmart world.

[Colonel Sanders]

On the subject of "extra hours" ...

There is an old saying that you shouldn't attribute to malice,
what can be accounted for by incompetence.

So when an FTU/instructor does a bad (e.g. inefficient) job,
they're probably just not very good. And in the grand scheme
of things, oh well, that's not all that bad, I guess. Maybe
even average.

However, I have finely-tuned radar for "milking". Years ago,
a fellow I know wanted his CPL. Sharp pilot. Knew the regs,
had all his hours in, already had done his ground school, passed
the written test - he just needed a flight test. He owned his
own aircraft, had lots of hours, lots of recent hours.

The instructor he went to, said that it would take seven
dual flights to prepare him for the CPL flight test, which was
hogwash. That same instructor was such a blatant "milker"
that he obtained a very bad, widespread reputation as such
amongst his former students, who told me about him.

I find this horrifying. As an instructor, your students are your
product, and you should take pride in producing the very best.

The idea of your students bad-mouthing you is not a good one,
but perhaps is acceptable for instructors who are only there to
build time and move on as quickly as possible.

"milking" students is a time-honoured tradition in aviation,
amongst many instructors and FTU's who have no shame
when it comes to soloing their students at 100hrs, or ceasing
flight training when the crosswind exceeds 5 knots.

[Beefitarian]

Like I said, "in this Walmart world" you raise your hourly instructor rate 50 cents over the other school and you'll be out of business. The only way to make more money is with a short stool and a bucket.

[Colonel Sanders]

make more money

There are probably other enterprises that offer a better
IRR (internal rate of return) than flight training, but ...

It is possible to make a little (not a lot, but a little) money
in flight training. First is control your costs. And I'm not
talking about cutting corners. Years back, I visited a very
large, prestigious flight school with their own AMO, and
their twin was down. One engine was running rough. They
had changed the carburetor, prop governor and both mags
so far and the problem still wasn't resolved. Ouch.

So, now you've got your costs under control. Can't do
much about your fixed costs (insurance, etc) so you'd
best get the hours up. The way you do that is by keeping
your customers happy. Your best advertising is word
of mouth, from a satisfied customer.

Aviation is a small world, and if you deliver consistent quality,
you will get a reputation as the "place to go to". After a
while, you can probably increase your rates, to reflect the
fact that you have successfully distinguished yourself from
the "Walmart" outfits which are either simply crappy or
outright milkers. You know, thieves.

It's possible to have 2 flight schools, side by side, and
one charges $100/hr, and the other charges $200/hr,
and both are busy. That sounds impossible at first,
but they aren't providing the same service, to the same
people.

Similarly, you can buy a new car for $20,000 from Korea
or $200,000 from Germany. Oddly enough, they haven't
stopped making cars in Germany, even though they are
now making cars in Korea. Why is that?

[trampbike]

Someone else might say a particular FTU is bad because the instructors are too demanding.

Huh? This can happen?

[Beefitarian]

I heard that about Mount Royal College in the 90s a fair amount.

So, now you've got your costs under control. Can't do
much about your fixed costs (insurance, etc) so you'd
best get the hours up. The way you do that is by keeping
your customers happy. Your best advertising is word
of mouth, from a satisfied customer.

I like to agree with that but I know everyone in this thread is an idealist.

Similarly, you can buy a new car for $20,000 from Korea
or $200,000 from Germany. Oddly enough, they haven't
stopped making cars in Germany, even though they are
now making cars in Korea. Why is that?

Actually that supports what I'm saying 25 years ago I didn't even know what a KIA or Hyundai was, now they're everywhere.

[robertsailor1]

Your comments are understood but maybe the Korea/Germany wasn't the best choice as a comparison as most informed car folks considered the Japanese to be the best built cars and recently the Koreans have been knocking at their benchmarks. German cars have soul when you drive them and they are beautifully designed and nicely built but they are no where near the top of the heap in quality. They sell at premiem prices for the same reasons that Rolex watches sell....they have become a badge for success. Give them points for wonderful marketing.
There is no question in my mind that "milking" goes on and your example was a good one however as others here have mentioned there are students that don't apply themselves or have big gaps in time between lessons etc. that cause them to put in more hours than they would otherwise.

[Big Pistons Forever]

Someone else might say a particular FTU is bad because the instructors are too demanding.

Huh? This can happen?

Happened to me last month. 5 hrs into a flight instructor rating I was doing the student decided I was being too hard on him and quit. He is currently shopping for a "better" instructor

[Beefitarian]

BPF, I love you man (in a manly plutonic cyber way) but you probably could have kept that student by saying you'd drop your rate $2 per hour just for him then showing him your KIA.

[Big Pistons Forever]

BPF, I love you man (in a manly plutonic cyber way) but you probably could have kept that student by saying you'd drop your rate $2 per hour just for him then showing him your KIA.

as I actually do drive a Kia

[Beefitarian]

Yeah, I remembered that from live chat once. Before I had kids I had a near perfect memory. I still do but it's really short now.

[robertsailor1]

If the student instructor thought you were too tough maybe there is still hope.

[Colonel Sanders]

I always thought that guy was great:



Most people are capable of amazing accomplishments,
if you can only motivate them.

everyone in this thread is an idealist

Maybe so, but it's possible that the scummy, milking
instructors and the ones that are in it to just build time
and move on as fast as they can, spend their spare time
doing other things. It's just a job to them, and one they
don't enjoy very much, so why spend any extra time on
it that they don't have to?

Not all flight training is Walmart flight training. Not all cars
are Yugo's, either. According to the reasoning here, everyone
in North America ought to be driving a Yugo, but they don't.