Little vent, little rant, little ramble

[drummer4468]

We all have "off days" during training that sneak up and discourage us. Yesterday was one of those days for me. I had a stage check for CPL after getting all of my solo XC hours in, and let's just say I am entirely unhappy/embarrassed with my performance.

Flew with the chief instructor for a quick round-robin and "surprise" diversion, basic stuff to assess my XC skills. Just paper map and compass, no nav aids(except VOR for a couple stretches), no big deal. Pulled out the sectional and plotter, got a new heading, calculated time, distance, fuel burn, etc, and I thought I was doing pretty well, until he brought up that I wasn't paying as much attention to the map as he thought I should, that he wanted to see more "pilotage skills" and tighter scrutiny on the sectional landmarks. Mind you, I'm rather familiar with the area and saw the island that the airport was on, but was a little off course and briefly mistook another clearing for the field about 10ish miles out, so maybe I seemed a little more lax or unaware than I intended. But point taken, the DPE is gonna wanna see demonstrated precision and I need to get better at verbalizing for exam purposes.

What really upset me was that my landings were absolutely ATROCIOUS today. I hadn't flown in a few weeks but I didn't think I was THAT rusty. Practicing shorts and softs, for whatever reason I simply COULD NOT get "in the zone". The approaches all looked/felt great, but the last 100ft to the ground fell apart every time. Getting blown off centerline, slamming down the soft field landings, etc. I felt like a pre-solo newbie all over again.

So, a bit discouraged and beating myself up, I got a little sloppy with the navigation back to the original destination. Got a little behind the plane, off heading, and slightly disoriented briefly, but nothing too terrible or even close to being lost. The crux of that situation was when I went to deviate left around a rain cell while the destination was clearly to the right of it ~20 miles in the distance; it was hazy and I hadn't yet processed it as "in sight"

One thing that really ticked me off, though, was getting denied a go-around. Roundout got really messy and even though I realistically could have saved it with 9k+ feet remaining, I decided to abort, reset, and try again. As soon as I added full power he chopped it and insisted I land it. Of all the things an instructor can do that I'm not fond of, that tops the list and instantly puts me on edge. Training or not, I hate when the controls are abruptly taken from me unexpectedly. His reasoning was that there was a rain cell coming into the approach end, and we may not have time for another lap before it was over the rwy(we "needed" this landing to qualify as an XC, >50nm yadayada). Again, I wasn't as concerned with it being unsafe on such a long rwy, as I was flat-out indignant. I personally would rather have taken another diversion if wx was an issue, we had plenty of fuel and numerous other fields to land at. It really screws with my head and perception of the authority dynamic, knowing that I'm ultimately PIC but also trying to be a receptive student at the same time. But that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish that I'll dive deeper into in another thread.

Anyway, so I end up getting it down, stopped, and set up for a soft-field takeoff. Add TO power, hold the nose up, lift off, build speed in ground effect, lowering the nose smoothly as speed built, and once I hit Vy, I released some fwd pressure and let it climb away. I felt good about it. But the instructor didn't like it, saying I wasn't holding it in ground effect long enough. So I tried again, making more of a pronounced effort to lower the nose and keep it in ground effect longer. Same response from the instructor though. I contested him, saying that I know full well not to pull it out of ground effect prematurely, but if the plane is past Vy and wants to climb, I see no reason to hold it down and rip down the runway at Vy+10 or 15. Am I wrong for this?

One last thing he hemmed me up for is the way I taxi with my heels off the floor. Now...I completely understand the endless battle against students who ride the crap out of the brakes with the power at 1300rpm. Sometimes I do catch myself in minor transgressions like braking before reducing power to slow down. But I make it a conscious point to continue checking myself on the ground so I'm not roasting rotors all the way to the runway. My rationale is that while taxiing, I feel much more comfortable with my feet at the ready to apply braking if needed, especially in the ramp area. Whether it's for a sudden stop or a gentle tap on one side to help motivate the very lazy nosewheel on some of these planes. He staunchly disagrees and wants my feet away from the brakes. I'd lose a lot less sleep over marginally more pad wear, than potential propstrike or wing damage when an unexpected obstacle appears. Any thoughts on/problems with my views?

ANYWAY, long rant over with. Before anyone thinks I'm just whining/blaming the instructor for my poor performance, I'm not. Despite a list of things I need to work on, he ultimately passed me for the stage check. If you've read this far, thanks for your time. For fellow student pilots at every level, take your criticism as constructively as you do your praise. Even criticism you disagree with. Get other opinions to supplement your own experience. Learn from everything positive and negative, and improve every chance you can. Most importantly don't let a bad day and some discouragement stomp on your progress. I'm gonna head over there and bang out a bunch of pattern work this week to get these landings back up to snuff.

Fly safe y'all.

 

[Salty]

Just to clarify, you state CPL, but your post sound more like things you’d work on for private not commercial.

 

[bflynn]

I think that’s the rant - the instructor is complaining about style things that are at the private level. For example, if there is a reason to taxi with your feet on the brakes, then support that or let it be. We are slow enough that nothing is going to happen in the .5 seconds it takes me to shift my feet up 6 inches. If there is a legitimate reason to fly in ground effect at more than Vy, then support that. If the issue is just not verbalizing, then the second issue is you not verbalizing.

I also do not do well with an instructor who criticizes but doesn’t explain.

 

[drummer4468]

Just to clarify, you state CPL, but your post sound more like things you’d work on for private not commercial.

Correct, the syllabus is broken up into stages, and the first two stages are just time building more or less. Lots of long XCs to the stricter standards of commercial. The maneuvers start in the next stage.

But that’s why it bugged me so much, this is stuff I should be (and typically am) plenty proficient with. I just had a bad day where I was completely off my game.

 

[drummer4468]

I think that’s the rant - the instructor is complaining about style things that are at the private level. For example, if there is a reason to taxi with your feet on the brakes, then support that or let it be. We are slow enough that nothing is going to happen in the .5 seconds it takes me to shift my feet up 6 inches. If there is a legitimate reason to fly in ground effect at more than Vy, then support that. If the issue is just not verbalizing, then the second issue is you not verbalizing.

I also do not do well with an instructor who criticizes but doesn’t explain.

Yeah, that’s the gist of it, it’s hard to take private level criticism on my techniques as an otherwise decent instrument rated pilot. And I don’t want to paint the instructor badly either, he’s a really great instructor and person, and will explain his opinion till your ears fall off after the fact. He’s just very much set in his ways and picky about how he wants things done. That being said, I’m always open to constructive criticism, but don’t do well with “well that’s just how you’re supposed to do it.”

 

[Salty]

Ok, makes sense now. I would try to accept it as hyper critical, and use it as input to judge yourself, but not internalize it. I wouldn’t want to fly with him if he did this every flight though.

he sounds a lot like my glider instructor, that yelled at me constantly if I didn’t do what he would do. Not that what I was doing was wrong, just not his way. I learned that if I talked him through my decisions as I made them he stopped yelling at me as he knew why I was doing what I was doing.

 

[Pugs]

One thing that really ticked me off, though, was getting denied a go-around. Roundout got really messy and even though I realistically could have saved it with 9k+ feet remaining, I decided to abort, reset, and try again. As soon as I added full power he chopped it and insisted I land it.

He's an idiot. Ability to execute analysis of your skills/situation/safety is perhaps the most important pilotage skill of all. I executed a go around yesterday myself. Flew too tight a pattern and ended up high. Alone I could have done an aggressive slip to likely make it but three folks in the Archer, one of who was the wife of a fellow club member on her 2nd GA flight, there was no reason to stretch it. Just go around and do it again.

 

[luvflyin]

We all have "off days" during training that sneak up and discourage us. Yesterday was one of those days for me. I had a stage check for CPL after getting all of my solo XC hours in, and let's just say I am entirely unhappy/embarrassed with my performance.

Flew with the chief instructor for a quick round-robin and "surprise" diversion, basic stuff to assess my XC skills. Just paper map and compass, no nav aids(except VOR for a couple stretches), no big deal. Pulled out the sectional and plotter, got a new heading, calculated time, distance, fuel burn, etc, and I thought I was doing pretty well, until he brought up that I wasn't paying as much attention to the map as he thought I should, that he wanted to see more "pilotage skills" and tighter scrutiny on the sectional landmarks. Mind you, I'm rather familiar with the area and saw the island that the airport was on, but was a little off course and briefly mistook another clearing for the field about 10ish miles out, so maybe I seemed a little more lax or unaware than I intended. But point taken, the DPE is gonna wanna see demonstrated precision and I need to get better at verbalizing for exam purposes.

What really upset me was that my landings were absolutely ATROCIOUS today. I hadn't flown in a few weeks but I didn't think I was THAT rusty. Practicing shorts and softs, for whatever reason I simply COULD NOT get "in the zone". The approaches all looked/felt great, but the last 100ft to the ground fell apart every time. Getting blown off centerline, slamming down the soft field landings, etc. I felt like a pre-solo newbie all over again.

So, a bit discouraged and beating myself up, I got a little sloppy with the navigation back to the original destination. Got a little behind the plane, off heading, and slightly disoriented briefly, but nothing too terrible or even close to being lost. The crux of that situation was when I went to deviate left around a rain cell while the destination was clearly to the right of it ~20 miles in the distance; it was hazy and I hadn't yet processed it as "in sight"

One thing that really ticked me off, though, was getting denied a go-around. Roundout got really messy and even though I realistically could have saved it with 9k+ feet remaining, I decided to abort, reset, and try again. As soon as I added full power he chopped it and insisted I land it. Of all the things an instructor can do that I'm not fond of, that tops the list and instantly puts me on edge. Training or not, I hate when the controls are abruptly taken from me unexpectedly. His reasoning was that there was a rain cell coming into the approach end, and we may not have time for another lap before it was over the rwy(we "needed" this landing to qualify as an XC, >50nm yadayada). Again, I wasn't as concerned with it being unsafe on such a long rwy, as I was flat-out indignant. I personally would rather have taken another diversion if wx was an issue, we had plenty of fuel and numerous other fields to land at. It really screws with my head and perception of the authority dynamic, knowing that I'm ultimately PIC but also trying to be a receptive student at the same time. But that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish that I'll dive deeper into in another thread.

Anyway, so I end up getting it down, stopped, and set up for a soft-field takeoff. Add TO power, hold the nose up, lift off, build speed in ground effect, lowering the nose smoothly as speed built, and once I hit Vy, I released some fwd pressure and let it climb away. I felt good about it. But the instructor didn't like it, saying I wasn't holding it in ground effect long enough. So I tried again, making more of a pronounced effort to lower the nose and keep it in ground effect longer. Same response from the instructor though. I contested him, saying that I know full well not to pull it out of ground effect prematurely, but if the plane is past Vy and wants to climb, I see no reason to hold it down and rip down the runway at Vy+10 or 15. Am I wrong for this?

One last thing he hemmed me up for is the way I taxi with my heels off the floor. Now...I completely understand the endless battle against students who ride the crap out of the brakes with the power at 1300rpm. Sometimes I do catch myself in minor transgressions like braking before reducing power to slow down. But I make it a conscious point to continue checking myself on the ground so I'm not roasting rotors all the way to the runway. My rationale is that while taxiing, I feel much more comfortable with my feet at the ready to apply braking if needed, especially in the ramp area. Whether it's for a sudden stop or a gentle tap on one side to help motivate the very lazy nosewheel on some of these planes. He staunchly disagrees and wants my feet away from the brakes. I'd lose a lot less sleep over marginally more pad wear, than potential propstrike or wing damage when an unexpected obstacle appears. Any thoughts on/problems with my views?

ANYWAY, long rant over with. Before anyone thinks I'm just whining/blaming the instructor for my poor performance, I'm not. Despite a list of things I need to work on, he ultimately passed me for the stage check. If you've read this far, thanks for your time. For fellow student pilots at every level, take your criticism as constructively as you do your praise. Even criticism you disagree with. Get other opinions to supplement your own experience. Learn from everything positive and negative, and improve every chance you can. Most importantly don't let a bad day and some discouragement stomp on your progress. I'm gonna head over there and bang out a bunch of pattern work this week to get these landings back up to snuff.

Fly safe y'all.

????? "...His reasoning was that there was a rain cell coming into the approach end, and we may not have time for another lap before it was over the rwy..." then "... Anyway, so I end up getting it down, stopped, and set up for a soft-field takeoff..." ?????

 

[eman1200]

Little vent, little rant, little ramble

Little long

 

[luvflyin]

Little vent, little rant, little ramble

Little long

A musical interlude while waiting for the inevitable next 'little.' That 'Richard' could really belt it out

 

[PaulS]

I've had instructors tell me not to go around and I landed safely. I'm ok with that. The landing atrocious part, whatever, it happens even to instructors, lol. The getting blown of centerline part, shouldn't happen unless conditions are really wild, keep that crosswind correction in, even after landing. The brake thing, he is correct, if you don't need them, your feet shouldn't be on them.

To me the stuff this guy was telling you wasn't out of line, he was basically saying "tighten it up". He's probably correct.

I've had one instructor tell me I should stop at point A on a taxiway, the next tell me no, no, no, you have to stop at point b. This is to move the plane from the hangar locale to a point on the taxiway where ground can hear the radio, the difference in location, about 50 feet. I finally told them I'm PIC, this is a personal preference issue, not a reg or safety problem, I'll stop where I want. That is nit picking.

I had another guy on an airplane checkout, ragging on my landings at a 7k runway I wasn't used to. I followed the papi down most of the way first time, put the wheels on the 1,000 foot marker, he said that was too long. Next landing I put the wheels on the numbers, that was too low. Each landing a greaser. So I finally said to him, your controls, show me what you want. He comes in, about 100 feet lower than I was on the landing he said was too low, to the point another 20 feet I was going to tell him to go around, anyway we cleared the light pole, get over the runway and he drops it in from about 3 feet. I had all I could do not to say something, but I was good. He said your controls on the roll. We get off the ground and he says "I'll sign you off." He was nit picking.

 

[drummer4468]

Thanks for the input everyone. Yeah, again, not at all intending to whine about the instructor being “mean to me.” The long ramble is my way of chewing and digesting his feedback even if it didn’t taste great at first.

Completely agree with the “tighten it up” sentiment, that’s a bold-faced fact regarding that performance. I’m better than that.

On the brakes topic, duly noted, I’ll work on adjusting that. Guess it just took me off guard since its never really been brought up until now.

 

[idahoflier]

I have found sometimes "Chief Instructors" have to find things to nit pick. Maybe this was one of those times... I think I would try and salvage any landing with 9K of runway available and maybe that was the point he was trying to make, but that point can be made on the ground after the flight. We all have bad days, I made an embarrassing landing yesterday. Think about it, learn from it and move on...

 

[denverpilot]

Definitely sounds like nit picking. But there's also some value in not picking when you sense someone is off their game. Sometimes they're so "on" you can worry a little that they're a tad overconfident. But I think he pushed that a bit too hard. It's an opportunity to remind a good pilot they're not infallible when used very very judiciously but over-done it leads to grumpiness and feeling like a really bad day.

A great DPE taught me you always end the lesson with some sort of praise. Even if all you can say is the student did a good job finding the airplane on the ramp. Criticize before that in the debrief in private but always end with something positive. It both keeps you from overdoing it and becoming a true ass and also people simply don't come back and don't like overly critical instructors and authority figures. There's always something they did well.

It's just human nature to dislike someone who has absolutely nothing good to say. And yeah there's days and pilots who need a scolding and no candy coating at the end, but that's saved for grave safety issues and awful judgement days which usually just aren't all that common.

The good news is you've beat yourself up enough. That shows you care. Shake it off and move on. Some people want a reputation as a bad ass. The real bad asses teach stuff like human nature... And go out if their way to show backing documentation of stuff they grade as unsatisfactory.

Chopping throttles in go arounds sends the wrong message without a strong "You did the RIGhT thing but the engine failed. So land it." Amd in the debrief stating again a go around is the correct action we just wanted to see you perform under a little stress and in a spot where it was still safe to rescue the mess. But a mess is a mess and a go around is always the right option.

I don't like his style, but Ive flown with a few of those also. Realize there will be some more. You did good analyzing it for nuggets of truth and starting to forget about the silly stuff. And as some mentioned, sometimes the crab ass is titled "chief pilot" and they're always hunting for ways to exercise that title. The best ones can back up their peeves with documentation. But sometimes you just say yes sir and move your feet where they want them for an hour and adapt since you certainly have the skill to put them either place. Just sayin.

Sometimes they're testing to see if you'll just tell them to shut up too. Have seen that personality type also. Tenth nitpick you just say are you flying or am I? If they persist sometimes there's a higher eithoriry who doesn't know they're acting the fool in the cockpit but you have to careful decide if they're beyond professional standards of behavior and whether it's worth talking to anybody in this tiny world about it.

Sometimes you just grit teeth and bear it with politeness and move on down the road. Luckily there's more good ones than bad ones. Who knows. Maybe they got pressured by their boss to give more unsatisfactory grades. It's always hard to tell.

Anyway. Ending on a positive you remained PIC. Never let em rattle you enough to distract from flying the plane. You didn't. Sucky landings and all. Ha. Been there done that!

 

[Ken Whitson]

A great DPE taught me you always end the lesson with some sort of praise. Even if all you can say is the student did a good job finding the airplane on the ramp.

.

Veering slightly off-topic, but I had to laugh at the trueness of this. A couple of years ago, as I was taxiing a new-to-me airplane (after a multi-decade absence from Matters Aviation), the instructor praised my ability to follow the yellow taxi line. 2,000 hours of flight time, and I can follow a line!

 

[Deelee]

Little vent

When I first read the title, I thought this was going to be about that little, useless clear-prop window that lets in barely enough air to breathe on a hot day even with the wind-deflector 3000 extreme engaged....

 

[Hiflyr1]

That Chief Instructor is a idiot and should be shown the door. You demonstrated good SA and Decision Making if you felt uncomfortable about the approach. What he did is one of the biggest no no,s in the 121 world forcing a bad approach. We actually try to reinforce the mantra if it doesn’t look right, feel right just go-around and it’s mandatory if unstable or out of the touch down zone regardless of length remaining. I was a DCA “dual check airman” sim instructor and line check airman at the same time for over 15 years at my major airline, till I just went back to the line flying the 777.

Also, don’t beat yourself up everyone has off days, usually the ride before the actual type ride is a bear and the type ride is good.

 

[Salty]

I dunno. If you’re flying 121 you shouldn’t be putting yourself in a position to go around that often. Said another way, most of the time you should be able to get yourself stabilized and make the landing in most situations. Not saying you shouldn’t go around when things are bad, but if you’re going around often, something else is wrong.

 

[Hiflyr1]

I dunno. If you’re flying 121 you shouldn’t be putting yourself in a position to go around that often. Said another way, most of the time you should be able to get yourself stabilized and make the landing in most situations. Not saying you shouldn’t go around when things are bad, but if you’re going around often, something else is wrong.

hahaha where did I say often? I have no idea your background but it’s totally different to fly the aircraft to the book limits ie max crosswinds, ice snow, possible windshear and around the world operations. I am currently on a trip that literally takes me around the world. Internationally in most places you have to maintain 180kts to 8 dme and 160 to 6 dme combine that with a 9 knot tailwind and a 500,000 pound aerodynamic slippery jet, things happen. So yes we sometimes go around and the push to get guys and girls to accept its not working out is written in blood and bent metal.

What I do for work is totally different than hopping in my old Cessna 140 for a flight on a good day.

 

[Salty]

I was speaking in context of instruction prep for a test ride as the OP described.

 

[Hiflyr1]

I dunno, you stated.
If you’re flying 121 you shouldn’t be putting yourself in a position to go around that often.

I was speaking in context of instruction prep for a test ride as the OP described

seems not but my original statement is valid, the instructor should especially at the students low flight times reinforced good decision making and accepting a GA if the pilot is in doubt. Remember he didn’t brief it or it’s not a requirement to demonstrate a salvaged landing.