Attempting an article

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Bruce Brown

Filing Flight Plan
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Apr 9, 2005
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Grover Beach, Calif.
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FlyingBruce
I am writing an article and would appreciate your input. The article is about older students (50+) and such plateaus they've experienced in their training as fear of stalls, not getting the landings, frustration at no perceived progress, etc., and how they over came them. I've read many posts over the last few years where students have worked through those frustrations and gone on to instrument ratings, aerobatic training, helicopter ratings, and even airplane ownership. I would like to hear your stories. Mine was landings. The slant of the article is to encourage those older students who may be considering dropping out to stick with it. I would also like to hear from CFIs regarding teaching older students and getting through those plateaus.
Thank you in advance for your responses. If you prefer, please feel free to e-mail me directly.
High-fives all around,
Bruce Brown
flyingbruce@sbcglobal.net
 
Bruce Brown said:
I am writing an article and would appreciate your input. The article is about older students (50+) and such plateaus they've experienced in their training as fear of stalls, not getting the landings, frustration at no perceived progress, etc., and how they over came them. I've read many posts over the last few years where students have worked through those frustrations and gone on to instrument ratings, aerobatic training, helicopter ratings, and even airplane ownership. I would like to hear your stories. Mine was landings. The slant of the article is to encourage those older students who may be considering dropping out to stick with it. I would also like to hear from CFIs regarding teaching older students and getting through those plateaus.
Thank you in advance for your responses. If you prefer, please feel free to e-mail me directly.
High-fives all around,
Bruce Brown
flyingbruce@sbcglobal.net
Click to expand...

I've often just used the same techniques used for younger students as for the older flight students, and if they live long enough, they usually succeed.
 
I'm the ORIGINAL Late Blooming Aviator (I did actually coin the term).

It took me FOREVER to learn to land consistently but other than a mental block, it was that I was doing it in a heavy high performance 235.

With my techie background I wanted to know EXACTLY how to set the power and EXACTLY how to hold the yoke and rudder... I would not accept that there was no EXACTLY.
 
Absolutely. It doesn't need to be about being 50 or over, but rather as an "older" student. Over 50 just happened to be the boat(plane) I was in...
 
I remember it was pretty much like Mike Andrews said. I had heard about flying by the numbers and that appealed to me greatly. I was so fixated on that. It seemed like every little thing in aviation is regulated to the nth degree so it seemed natural to think by the numbers was a perfect fit yet my CFI wants me to fly by the seat of my pants. It took me the longest time to reconcile those two things.

Case in point, most POH performance graphs yielded mostly approximate values. Not good enough. I wanted hard answers to how much is enough. As you can imagine I spent a lot of time with eyes inside looking for definite indications of how much is enough.

I don't think any of that is age dependant unless you get into the realm of increased life experience. That is, relative to the younger student the older student has had many more years in which to practice the specific input, specific yields POV, something which may impede flight training.
 
Bruce

Your post is very well taken by this older pilot. I have been flying for just over 46 years and still feel as a student in some areas. Flying is a constant learning experience. We keep honing our skills as we go along. I go out and get more work getting "tuned up" with a CFII and practice to hone those skills. For all pilots no matter what the age the goal is to keep learning and enjoy those learning moments.

John
 
This is a little off the subject, but a pilot that flys out of Lenhardts airport (7S9) In Oregon got his Private license just a while back. He is also having a special birthday party later this month. Jessie will be celebrating his 80th birthday. Way to go Jessie I am real proud of you. How is that for not giving up? :goofy:
 
I had a great deal of trouble learning to land acceptably. I hopefully described it adequately in the early chapters of my journal. What kept me going was anticipation of what was to come as related in the later chapters.
 
Thanks everyone. Bo, I've always enjoyed your journals. I'll check out your learning to land. Mike and Richard hit on something interesting--how we all learn a little differently. And, Bob, Happy Birthday to Jesse. We have a medical examiner in our area who must be 88 by now, and I believe is still flying. Amazing.
Bruce Brown
 
Richard said:
I remember it was pretty much like Mike Andrews said. I had heard about flying by the numbers and that appealed to me greatly. I was so fixated on that. It seemed like every little thing in aviation is regulated to the nth degree so it seemed natural to think by the numbers was a perfect fit yet my CFI wants me to fly by the seat of my pants. It took me the longest time to reconcile those two things.

Case in point, most POH performance graphs yielded mostly approximate values. Not good enough. I wanted hard answers to how much is enough. As you can imagine I spent a lot of time with eyes inside looking for definite indications of how much is enough.

I don't think any of that is age dependant unless you get into the realm of increased life experience. That is, relative to the younger student the older student has had many more years in which to practice the specific input, specific yields POV, something which may impede flight training.
Click to expand...

Aviation/aircraft performance numbers are actually quite specific and accurate for each circumstance and don't vary. The variable really is the pilot, from each second to second's time and it is those changable pilot performance variables, factored in with the physics of non variable aerodynamics, that makes it seem like "seat-of-the-pants" flying is not flying by the numbers.

IOW:

The numbers for a given flight configuration are always the same but the flight realm is changing so rapidly that the numbers do not appear constant to the untrained pilot.
 
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