Its a little booklet of freedom

[trey kule]

Thank you SSU. I enjoyed your post.. The second very good one I have enjoyed in a week.

I did not manage to trudge through all the posts that followed. Staying on topic does not seem to be something people can do anymore.

I hope all those who should have read this do.

[Colonel Sanders]

Is it on topic, when you criticize other people
for not being on topic?

Part of the beauty of the internet is that you
just never know which direction the sucker is
going to twist and turn. Sort of like an intellectual
rodeo ride. Some people get thrown off before
8 seconds, other people hang on.

[Shiny Side Up]

Further thought on the matter, I think the thing that really bothers me is a direct resistance to learning stuff. Like its a bad thing to know more. I particularly dislike how some will dismiss something as irrelevant or unnecassary before really thinking it through. Pulling out an example: driftlines.

Yes, no one really is going through the trouble putting these on the map, but I go through using them in ground school for a few reasons. I tell people that they're not necessary, but follow along and make your own judgement.

First, its unfortunately one of those things you might need to use for the written test since they still ask questions about the double track and opening and closing angles course correction methods, drawing on the board the lines is merely going to help illustrate the point when estimating angles - something I might add the average person is terrible at. But where does this help us in the GPS world? Well, if you don't just want to fly snaking down the magenta line that seems to be the method most preferred by pilots, you can use some of those extra numbers the GPS provides you with to re-intercept track, or alter course to go direct to destination. You could also do like some people do, just re-spam Direct all the time, but that leaves us often with an inefficient arcing course like someone was homing in on an NDB in the wind...

Do you want to be good at this or do you just want to get by?

Old to new, simple to complex. Some lines and pictures is easy, course correction math in your head is hard - ask any CPL doing an intercept on their flight test, one of the worst excersises just behind the precision 180 - but its not if your brain can reference that picture of drift lines in your head and know what it signifies.

Its also something one might do if you're going to ever fly without a GPS over a lot of swamp and trees, or God forbid at night. You're right, it is a WW2 technique, its the same way they used to get across the channel in the dark to bomb Berlin, with almost no weather info, no forcast wind and no radio aids.

But enough about history....

Either way, one can often transition from old ways to new ways when teaching, that I find for those who are willing to listen enlightenment on how the new ways work, as well as all the old tips and tricks that are still applicable.

Second example: The old coded METARS and TAF format. You're right, most people can hit plain english and just do that. But does reading old code still have value? Sure does. First, you still find a lot of weather info still in this. Lot of uncontrolled places have weather stations that will give (usually fragments of) said info in that format. So you can still get some weather info that might be pertinent if you're out of cel coverage, which is still a substantial fraction of the country.

Secondly, its worth going through why the code is the way it is because it opens a window on how the weather is observed. Now I'm a big on knowing more about weather. Though Met is usually one of the big bugbears that still kills pilots on a regular basis since they don't try to develop a good understanding of all the resourses. Here's some questions that one needs to think about, that if one can read through how the code is set up what might be hiding out there.

Why is sky coverage in 8ths rather than 10ths?

How does the coverage make cielings?

How do they figure out visibility?

That's just a short list. I could go on, but this train of thought is running out of steam. Rant for the day over.

[CpnCrunch]

Regarding METARs and TAFs: I find that many times they tack on stuff in the RMK section that isn't decoded in the plain English version. Also I find it quicker to get the information from the raw METAR than the decoded one.

[Colonel Sanders]

I particularly dislike how some will dismiss something as irrelevant or unnecassary before really thinking it through

I swear, sometimes I think you are following me around.

I was talking to some homebuilt guys a while back. One
of them had just acquired a Lancair, and wanted to get
a high performance type rating on it. I mentioned scraping
the rust off his stick & rudder skills, when I was rebuffed
with "all he needs to know is HOW TO FLY THE LANCAIR".

Ok, the homebuilt guys know more than I do, about
flying high performance airplanes. Got that.

Fast forward a bit, and he's sold the Lancair, and now
wants to fly a Velocity.

Now, what was that line about only needing to learn to
fly a Lancair?

[Shiny Side Up]

Well that's the thing right? If you're lucky, you're going to have your whole life of flying which will hopefully be decades remaining. That's a lot of time for things to change for you. I know one Mooney guy who relatively recently bought a cub. He plainly admitted that he didn't see the appeal until he actually tried it, then he was hooked. Things are always in flux, and you can't say for sure where your path in flying airplanes will lead - and they can be pretty interesting if you look for them. Putting things in perspective, what's decades of flying against an hour of dual or a few minutes in ground school working on something you just might not be able to imagine using later? Are we really that tight on time or memory that you can't draw a few drift lines before determining yourself whether its useful or not? Or are we like the child at the table determined to never eat the green beans, because a moment of possible discomfort or effort is not worth it?

And by the way, you might change to like the green beans later. One of those strange epiphanies you have while getting older.

[lownslow]

Some day in the not too distant future I'm going to get back into instructing. Not in any big way but I'd like to freelance a couple PPLs from scratch. Anyways, I think I'm going to lead off that eventual groundschool with a talk on the differences between what they may think they want to do now versus what that little blue book allows them to do and how there are no half-licenses to be had.

Thanks for that thought.

[CpnCrunch]

I'm wondering if the training for the recreational permit is more along the lines that BPF is advocating, without the stuff like drift lines, compass errors, etc.

[Shiny Side Up]

One might say that the Rec Permit is a way for someone to trade off a bit of freedom with the goal of requiring less effort or responsibility. Which there's nothing wrong with if you own that, but I always get the feeling a lot of people want a PPL with RPP standards.

[AirFrame]

What people want is a pilot's license that's as easy to maintain as a driver's license. Personally, i'd prefer that we hold ourselves to a higher standard than 90% of the idiots I see on the road.

[Big Pistons Forever]

I seem to have left the misapprehension that I want to dumb down training. Nothing could be further from the truth.

First off I want to make it clear a significant portion of the student body just want to put the minimum effort and barely meet the standard. Good instruction is wasted on these people and my interest in facilitating or improving their training is zero.

However there are a lot of students that are keen, motivated and genuinely want to learn and be a better pilot. I think the current ground school curriculum Particularly at the PPL level is failing them and that doubling down on the status quo is intellectual laziness.

How weather is taught is a particular sore point with me.

Weather is not abstract theory it should be taught as a very practical exercise. "What is making the weather and how is it going to affect my flight today". Ground school weather seems to me often presented as a long monotone lecture full of disconnected facts.

I teach weather right from the beginning as a general to the specific exercise. So lets look at the GFA and see whats is making the weather. Look there is a warm front between here and where we want to go. So what kind of weather do we expect from a warm front ? OK lets look at some enroute METARS (plain text !) and see whether we places are in fact getting the weather you would expect. We can also look at the satellite and radar pictures and see where the clouds and precip are. Animating those show how things are moving and we can tie that into the TAF's. Out of that is a mental picture of the weather and a go/no go decision.

Notice I specified plain text when talking about METAR and TAF. Earlier there was a discussion about the desirability of learning METAR codes. I am not against this, I just think that too much emphasis is placed on this knowledge too early in the training. METAR codes do not exist because someone sat down and asked "what is the best way to convey weather information to pilots" . They exist because in the pre internet days TELEX was the only way to send data and it was slow and extremely expensive. Brevity was the only consideration in their creation. Well lets fast forward to today where data transfer is fast and cheap and it is just easy and cheap to transmit plain text as it is to transmit METAR data. So does that mean that there is no requirement to learn them ?

No but learning METARs codes is an advanced skill applicable in a few specific circumstance and should be way behind a a whole host of more important stuff that should be taught first. However teaching the METAR codes is nice if you are lazy. It is black and white information that lends it self to easy testing, but does it teach anything about practical weather knowledge, I don't think so.

Or lets take the definition of "ceiling". Again this usually takes the form of an addition exercise, but does any talk about what it means. Lets say we have 2 METARS . On is 5/8 of Strato Fractus at 2000 the other one is 1/8 of Status at 800 another 1/8 of Cumulus at 1500 and 3/8 of Tower Cu at 2000. The point of this exercise should not to be just identify the fact that the ceiling is at 2000 feet it should be to ask what does this mean for my flight ?

I think the same questions can be asked about how we teach navigation. The standard method was developed in WW2. It was developed to address the problems of finding your way to a destination with no radios aids and with limited ground features due to camouflage during the day and blackout at night.

It is the only method of navigation taught yet the considerations that it is designed to address often do not exist today and it is almost completely unsuited to navigating in mountainous terrain, is total overkill in the built up areas of the heartland and usually irrelevant when navigation the coastal areas. We teach a method that virtually nobody ever uses after they get their license. Can't we do better than that ?

One of the ironies of the GPS age is that that used properly it demands a more sophisticated understanding of navigational fundamentals than the traditional way. Doing the sanity check on the magic box requires a mental picture of the route of flight and a mental time/speed/distance calculation to know the box is sending you where you actually want to go. Developing that big picture mental situational awareness is both teachable and IMO a far better use of the students time than filling in the 101 boxes of the typical FTU flight log sheet.

[Shiny Side Up]

I think the same questions can be asked about how we teach navigation. The standard method was developed in WW2. It was developed to address the problems of finding your way to a destination with no radios aids and with limited ground features due to camouflage during the day and blackout at night.

It is the only method of navigation taught yet the considerations that it is designed to address often do not exist today and it is almost completely unsuited to navigating in mountainous terrain, is total overkill in the built up areas of the heartland and usually irrelevant when navigation the coastal areas. We teach a method that virtually nobody ever uses after they get their license. Can't we do better than that ?

I'm not really sure what you're talking about here. Navigation is navigation, at its heart GPS aided or not its about figuring out what direction to go and knowing how long its going to take to get there while ensuring that during the process you stick to that plan. While the old WW2 method may be viewed as the "hardest", that's pretty relative, and the basic skills can be modified for a lot of purposes.

I would also say that people are unwittingly using it to get places in one form or another, though how much of it they're doing any thinking about is debatable.

It also should be said that while a great many pilots do almost nil flight planning after their license, that doesn't mean that's a good thing. Maybe more of them should. After all, you can read though the CADORs and find them rife with reports of airspace violations, pilots landing at the wrong airports, S&R action started because they couldn't give a reasonable ETA and other sorts of idiocy. Pilots show up here with depressing frequency on fumes, sometimes diverting, sometimes seemingly oblivious to the fact (but revealed when you fill them up - how many gallons can that thing hold?)

In my opinion if more people did what they were taught in flight school, it would drastically cut down a lot of the stupid pilot tricks that happen out there. At the very least, filling in your so called 101 question box would deter all but the most determined pilots before they go flashing off out there, and probably weed out most of the "fill it up and flash off" crowd.

[BverLuver]

I think the same questions can be asked about how we teach navigation. The standard method was developed in WW2. It was developed to address the problems of finding your way to a destination with no radios aids and with limited ground features due to camouflage during the day and blackout at night.

It is the only method of navigation taught yet the considerations that it is designed to address often do not exist today and it is almost completely unsuited to navigating in mountainous terrain, is total overkill in the built up areas of the heartland and usually irrelevant when navigation the coastal areas. We teach a method that virtually nobody ever uses after they get their license. Can't we do better than that ?

I'm not really sure what you're talking about here. Navigation is navigation, at its heart GPS aided or not its about figuring out what direction to go and knowing how long its going to take to get there

Shiny Side Up,

I am still trying to figure this one out and I have read all the previous posts on this thread. This one stumped me. So Big Pistons Forever, the need and ability to look out the window and then find your location on a chart is null and void and should no longer be taught because we have GPS? Is that the message? I am still trying to wrap my head around this point you are making. If we have misunderstood your point, I apologize, but I have read it a few times and this is what I take from it.

BL

[Big Pistons Forever]

So Big Pistons Forever, the need and ability to look out the window and then find your location on a chart is null and void and should no longer be taught because we have GPS? Is that the message? I am still trying to wrap my head around this point you are making. If we have misunderstood your point, I apologize, but I have read it a few times and this is what I take from it.

BL

Perhaps you should re read page 2 of this thread. I wrote the following on the post with 3;30 time stamp (it is in a blue font)

Quote

As for PPL navigation I see plenty of students so caught up in filling in the flight log boxes and drawing lines on the chart without really understanding what they are doing as it is all rote learning and they are just as helpless without the form as children of the megenta are without the magic box. Personally I think PPL training would be a lot better if students were prohibited from drawing on the map. On the flight test the examiner points to some place on the map and says " take me here ". The student has to point the airplane in the approximate right direction and then map read his/her way based on what they see out the window.

Unquote

I think we should spend more time concentrating on developing the " I need to go thata away " skills than teaching PPL's how to make corrections between CAS and IAS or calculating fuel required to 0.1 of a gallon as we fill in the 101 boxes on the flight log after drawing lines all over the poor map.

[trey kule]

You know when I learned to fly, we got countless hours of navigation ground school. Using calipers, marking lines with the proper arrows, calculating wind vectors by hand and intimate knowledge of the E6B

Then on our first solo X country we were handed a lap board. Plywood. With a map tack covered map with the course lines drawn on it...and told to get going. Theory was done. It was all practical from there.

I think that maybe this necessary and common sense disconnect is missing in today's training. Just like 40 page check lists for a 172.

[Shiny Side Up]

On the flight test the examiner points to some place on the map and says " take me here ". The student has to point the airplane in the approximate right direction and then map read his/her way based on what they see out the window.

Actually, that's exactly what they're required to do on the test, its called a diversion. They have to approximate the direction and make a good estimate on time to get there. Your basic Sunday joyrides are all going to be of this type of nav. Not sure what you're seeing that they're not being taught this as well.

Remember though that PPL holders aren't restricted to such navigation though - actually neither are RPP applicants either and all they do on the test is the diversion as above. A PPL can decide he's going to flash off out of Springbank one morning and make it to Yellowknife by dark. I know fresh PPLs who've done exactly that kind of trip. Shouldn't that type of trip planning also be tested? Yeah, they might have to do a bit of work, maybe even write a few things down to do such a trip. Hell, I still do that sort of stuff - one of the reasons I like paper maps (and especially my wall map of western Canada made of old WAC charts) is so I can look at the big picture of the trip all at once, which I find if you're swiping around on the iPad, or mousing on the screen, just doesn't give you that overall picture - but that's just me. If it suits you use your device of choice, just know how it works so you don't fall into the GIGO trap. Make a few notes. You know, have a few contingency plans pre thought out.

The 101 boxes is something you're over reading, and I hate to tell you this but PPL acolytes always make this out to be harder than it is. But that's unsurprising, it rains on their parade that grade nine math really does matter and maybe they should have paid attention. Every one of these forms has maybe 10 boxes for a leg of a trip. Not a big thing to ask of someone. The kids have duped you BPF. But as I said before in this thread, lots of people aren't that imaginative. They'll bellyache at you all day long that "they're never going to use that" but they can't make that promise. Things change, and hopefully maybe they'll even grow up.

[Big Pistons Forever]

A PPL can decide he's going to flash off out of Springbank one morning and make it to Yellowknife by dark. I know fresh PPLs who've done exactly that kind of trip. Shouldn't that type of trip planning also be tested? Yeah, they might have to do a bit of work, maybe even write a few things down to do such a trip. Hell, I still do that sort of stuff - one of the reasons I like paper maps (and especially my wall map of western Canada made of old WAC charts) is so I can look at the big picture of the trip all at once, which I find if you're swiping around on the iPad, or mousing on the screen, just doesn't give you that overall picture - but that's just me. If it suits you use your device of choice, just know how it works so you don't fall into the GIGO trap. Make a few notes. You know, have a few contingency plans pre thought out.

.

Actually I think you are making my point. Where did you learn what are constituted a good "contingency plan pre -thought out ? I am pretty sure it was not in your PPL ground school. You like pretty much every PPL had to figure out the practical considerations that crop up on A to B flying after the PPL. So why don't we make a point of teaching some of the practical considerations of real world cross country navigation as well as all the stuff they need to pass the flight test ?

A big part of the practical piece is effective use of the GPS, again something that is totally absent in PPL navigation ground school. The GPS is a navigation aid like any other. Like other nav aids you will probably use it better if you get some instruction on how to best employ its many capabilities effectively in flight.

Speaking of practical, how come fuel planning in the FTU environment seems to have only 2 options, Fill it up or we got "lots" for the trip to the practice area, or calculating the fuel burn to the 0.1 gallon for the cross country.

I teach practical fuel considerations starting at the very first lesson

Me: You need to think about fuel as flying time in the tank. Now for a local training flight we can use a "block" or average fuel flow of 55 pounds an hour. So I have measured the fuel with this dipstick and we have 120 pounds of fuel. So how much flying time do we have

Student: A little over 2 hours ?

Me: Correct, so we want to always land with at lest an hours worth of fuel in the airplane, so I want you to note the time we took off and add an hour to that and that will be the time we must be back on the ground, OK ?

By the time my student gets to the end of the PPL training, thinking about fuel on board in a practical way, becomes automatic. I just don't see that in very many other PPL's....

[Shiny Side Up]

Actually I think you are making my point. Where did you learn what are constituted a good "contingency plan pre -thought out ? I am pretty sure it was not in your PPL ground school.
You like pretty much every PPL had to figure out the practical considerations that crop up on A to B flying after the PPL. So why don't we make a point of teaching some of the practical considerations of real world cross country navigation as well as all the stuff they need to pass the flight test ?

You're right, I came pre-equipped with that ability since the practical considerations of flying point to point, aren't that much different than driving a car somewhere. The level of which each neophyte has this varies considerably. That said though, I did learn most of the aviation specific elements of that during PPL, which of course were expanded upon during CPL training.

At its core, what practical considerations of flying somewhere are different than any other mode of travel? But then that's the key. People want flying an airplane to be just like driving a car, with all the forgiveness of the lack of attention that activity can be given. Just get in and go. Low on fuel? We'll figure that out when we get there. Hours late? No problem, just tell Mom we're sorry and supper will be heated up.

That said, people in general should take better care doing that too.

By the time my student gets to the end of the PPL training, thinking about fuel on board in a practical way, becomes automatic. I just don't see that in very many other PPL's....

Its because they discard it as soon as they finish training or whenever is convenient. Which is sort of the gist of my thread. Doesn't matter if they were taught it, they'll make a show of it for the instructor if they have to. Gone soon as they leave the school. After all, even that little bit of head math is going to be too much effort when one wants turn key plane flying.

Also don't be fooled about students always adhering to what you have taught them, they can turn that on and off when they wish. That's me being a bit of a cynic, but I see it in action lots. You know that "lack of imagination" I was lamenting? Well apparently people can't imagine I wouldn't just be at the school all the time.

[Big Pistons Forever]

By the time my student gets to the end of the PPL training, thinking about fuel on board in a practical way, becomes automatic. I just don't see that in very many other PPL's....

Its because they discard it as soon as they finish training or whenever is convenient. Which is sort of the gist of my thread. Doesn't matter if they were taught it, they'll make a show of it for the instructor if they have to. Gone soon as they leave the school. After all, even that little bit of head math is going to be too much effort when one wants turn key plane flying.

Also don't be fooled about students always adhering to what you have taught them, they can turn that on and off when they wish. That's me being a bit of a cynic, but I see it in action lots. You know that "lack of imagination" I was lamenting? Well apparently people can't imagine I wouldn't just be at the school all the time.

If you start with the attitude that students will disregard everything you say the moment they pass the flight test then why give flying instruction to anybody ?

I feel very strongly that you can influence students by setting a good example and demonstrating personal high standards. My experience has generally been quite positive with the students I have trained. I insisted my standards be met and they generally rose to the occasion. If you set low expectations for your students then you can't be surprised when you get low performance.

When I was instructing full time I pretty quickly became impatient with lazy and unmotivated students. The ones that were assigned to me that fit that bill got rode like a cheap donkey. They either smartened up or more typically moved to another instructor. Not unsurprisingly the lazy and unmotivated instructors attracted the lazy and unmotivated students. The students over paid for crap instruction, but both parties were happy

Anyway I got (and still have) a reputation for been passionate about flight training but very demanding of my students. When I finished full time instructing I was the busiest flight instructor ( of 10) in the school and had all the best students. It was a win win situation

I realize the commercial pressures to not turn away students but one area where I think flight schools have a moral obligation to the industry is the training of flight instructors. Of the last 8 instructor students I have had, I ended up stopping the training of 3 because for various reasons, they were not good enough. I think more Class 1's have to do the same.....

[Shiny Side Up]

If you start with the attitude that students will disregard everything you say the moment they pass the flight test then why give flying instruction to anybody ?

Because it still is a worthy endeavor. Like you I take on few students though since I find teaching many of them is somewhat frustrating any more. Many I would just wish would broaden their horizon a bit more, or at least be a bit more imaginative.