Frustrated lack of progress in training

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skynewbie

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Hi all,

I have completed about 35 hours of flight training with a few different CFI who were unsuccessful in getting through to me on how to master the basic maneuvers like steep turns, slow flight and pattern work. I am not dumb or mentally deficient. I passed the written FAA exam with 83% and can fly most of the plane just fine. However, after burning through a few CFI I am ready to give up and do not know if there is any hope left to me. The last CFI was upset and kept yelling at me when I was unable to maintain heading, altitude and airspeed correctly while doing IFR hood work required for the private pilot license. He called my steep turns disasters. Are there any patient kind instructors at KPAO in Palo Alto who can help me?
 
Hey! Welcome to POA.

How old are you?

The reason I ask is that us older fellas don't seem to maintain the hand-eye coordination of younger folks...this may be contributing to your lack of progress...
Obviously, there could be many, many other factors as well...there are some really sharp CFI's here on POA...


Have you soled? Tell us more!

I ran into several log jams in my PPC training...the best piece of advice I got here on the forums and from my CFII as well was to "chair fly" i.e. go through the entire maneuver in the chair at the house telling yourself what you should be seeing in front of you...this ended up being my saving grave on steep turns and landings...

Have you read any supplemental texts on flying? Tons to learn this was as well...

Oh...and the CFI getting all red in the face...drop that one in a hurry...this stuff is fun....
 
I am 42 years old and in decent health. Passed the medical exam ok.
Passed the written exam after 2 weeks of study and video based ground school.
 
skynewbie said:
I am 42 years old and in decent health. Passed the medical exam ok.
Passed the written exam after 2 weeks of study and video based ground school.
Click to expand...

Brother, I was 42 when I started and had the worst time ever getting some of this hand eye stuff down...I am not saying this is your case but it frustrated the heck out of my CFI...he found that I was not looking down the runway and when I started looking down the runway...viola...I could land the plane...

The day I soloed...I went through 47 laps in the pattern...yep...47 laps...that day was an epiphany in the sight picture and flaring...haven't had trouble since...

I had to change CFI's three times before I soloed...the last one just started over his ways and that was some of the best money I spent...patient, knowledgable and knew how to impart concepts and information...the flight debrief's were what seemed then like graduate courses in our lessons...

The good news is 7 years later I have 1100ish hours and hqave been everywhere safely in an aircraft...my CFII did my instrument rating and we are still very good friends to this day...

I am early to this thread but let some of the really sharp guys chime in...you will be amazed of the insight and level of knowledge you will find here...
 
It sounds like the problem may be that nobody ever showed you how to attitude fly. The problems you are having sound like a failure of instruction rather than a failure of your innate ability. Attitude flying was a skill that I knew about but never was really shown until I started flying helicopters. Without it all of my flying was basically just muddling through maneuvers.

Basically, the idea is that the aircraft needs to be at a certain attitude, with reference to the horizon. This is done by observing where the horizon line crosses some point on the aircraft's windshield. Everything needs to be done with reference to this point, and your VFR scan should focus mostly on this relationship. So to climb, you need to ensure that the horizon crosses the windshield at some point. To successfully do slow flight, you need to figure out where the horizon should be crossing the windshield, and hold it there.

Pattern work is also really dependent on keeping your eyes outside. Keep the aircraft's wings level (again by using your attitude by looking outside), and pick and fly towards some point far off in the distance, and you will fly perfectly rectangular patterns.

Nowhere in flying is attitude more important than in steep turns, which is why I think this is your problem. If you aren't holding a certain attitude on the steep turns, your turns will turn out horrible, and you will just end up chasing the altitude indicator all around. Your instructor should show you where exactly the horizon should be on the cowling or windshield, and you should endeavor to keep it there during your steep turns. The first time you do this, you will probably hold altitude just fine. When you get good at doing a steep turn with your eyes totally outside the cockpit, you can start to scan between the aircraft's attitude, and the altitude indicator, to really keep the turns nice and level.
Flying like this will also help you fly when you start doing instrument work too, and proper attitude control and a good scan (not just staring at the altimeter and chasing it) will lead to good instrument flying.

The importance of attitude control cannot be overstated, and most likely was never shown to you by your instructors. Am I right?
I'm also going to guess that you are flying something with a glass cockpit. Am I right?

Kareem, the chief instructor of this school: http://www.california-airways.com/ was a member of the AOPA board, and seems like a really good guy. His school is right across the bay in Hayward. Might be worth a look.
Alternatively I would suggest trying to find the oldest instructor flying the oldest aircraft. Somebody who is teaching in something like a Piper Cub for decades will probably be best able to teach this stuff to you than the 300 hour wiz kids with CRJ dreams.

Glider pilots also become really good at this, with all the steep turns they do in thermals, so that might be an option too.

Good luck!
 
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Yep exactly right! Never had a real CFI in KLVK or KPAO where I trained so far show me how to correctly attitude fly. Since I work and live a lot closer to Palo Alto than the other areas, that would be ideal place for me to train and finish my PPL. Burned through 4 frustrated instructors so far must be on a record. Last guy was a professor of aviation and smart guy but he was very exasperated yesterday with me during maneuvers kept yelling at me "Hey do you know how to read the attitude indicator?". What a jerk. Needless to say I am not training with him anymore. Why are so many CFI jerks and bad teachers? I had the same issue a few years ago when I learned to scuba dive! Good divers who are instructors but complete buttheads when it comes to lack of patience and skill in teaching. Ok rant off. Seriously after 35 hours, I have not solo yet. Felt like a loser yesterday after hood training which is required for PPL, why?
 
Forgot to mention maybe I should just spend the 400k on a brand new Piper and have them send me to the included intensive 3 week PPL bootcamp?
 
skynewbie said:
Forgot to mention maybe I should just spend the 400k on a brand new Piper and have them send me to the included intensive 3 week PPL bootcamp?
Click to expand...
No. Learn to fly first.


The other thing I might add, is that being a good pilot is also about being a good student. First, find an instructor that you trust, and then practice humility, and listen to everything that he or she says.
 
skynewbie said:
Forgot to mention maybe I should just spend the 400k on a brand new Piper and have them send me to the included intensive 3 week PPL bootcamp?
Click to expand...
Naaaa...I bought a 172SP pre-solo...wouldn't do that again and do not recommend it...

I like the advice about finding the oldest crustiest guy you can find...thats exactly what I did...
 
skynewbie said:
Hi all,

I have completed about 35 hours of flight training with a few different CFI who were unsuccessful in getting through to me on how to master the basic maneuvers like steep turns, slow flight and pattern work. I am not dumb or mentally deficient. I passed the written FAA exam with 83% and can fly most of the plane just fine. However, after burning through a few CFI I am ready to give up and do not know if there is any hope left to me. The last CFI was upset and kept yelling at me when I was unable to maintain heading, altitude and airspeed correctly while doing IFR hood work required for the private pilot license. He called my steep turns disasters. Are there any patient kind instructors at KPAO in Palo Alto who can help me?
Click to expand...

I can only imagine your frustration. Don't give up. There are good instructors out there who can get you through this with patience an perseverance. It's just a matter of finding him/her.
 
skynewbie said:
Forgot to mention maybe I should just spend the 400k on a brand new Piper and have them send me to the included intensive 3 week PPL bootcamp?
Click to expand...
That won't do any more good that what you're doing now if you can't find a competent instructor. I can't say for sure what your problem is without flying with you, but it appears that your previous instructors have been unable to teach you the fundamentals of flying. Why is that? :dunno: Might be you, might be them -- can't say from here. But you're not going to progress until you find a good, experienced instructor who can take you back to the fundamentals of controlling attitude and power to achieve desired performance, which I'm guessing you never really learned.

So, at the end of your initial post, you asked the right question -- finding a patient, professional instructor in Palo Alto. If you don't get any suggestions here, try asking around the airport. Find folks there with their own planes and ask them who the best instructors are. You may find they are not associated with any formal flight school, and that opens other issues, but it's a start.

BTW, one measure of an instructor's quality and professionalism is the amount of time s/he spends on ground training/briefing/debriefing before and after each training flight. Someone who, when you walk in, says, "Good morning -- let's go fly" and heads straight for the plane, and then after flight does no more than sign your logbook and schedule the next lesson isn't doing the job right. Think about that when evaluating your instructors.
 
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This thread sounds awfully similar to the ones posted by "benpilot" on the red Board.
 
Steep turns were the toughest thing for me to master. My third CFI taught me to trim up and add a little throttle and that helped a lot. Of course you have to keep your eyes on the horizon and remember when to roll out.
 
John221us said:
Steep turns were the toughest thing for me to master. My third CFI taught me to trim up and add a little throttle and that helped a lot. Of course you have to keep your eyes on the horizon and remember when to roll out.
Click to expand...

A trick I learned was that once in the steep turn do exactly one wheel/hand length of trim up so you know exactly how much to go back once returned to level flight... that was my big aha moment with steep turns.
 
infotango said:
It sounds like the problem may be that nobody ever showed you how to attitude fly. The problems you are having sound like a failure of instruction rather than a failure of your innate ability. Attitude flying was a skill that I knew about but never was really shown until I started flying helicopters.
Click to expand...
This is an interesting comment to me because I thought everyone was taught what you call "attitude flying" from the beginning. At least that's what they did in the old days. Couldn't speak for what people teach new students now.
 
Mtns2Skies said:
A trick I learned was that once in the steep turn do exactly one wheel/hand length of trim up so you know exactly how much to go back once returned to level flight... that was my big aha moment with steep turns.
Click to expand...

My Cherokee has the trim on the ceiling, but yeah, basically the same thing. Add a little throttle before starting and then one spin of the crank after you enter the turn. I suppose every plane might be a little different in how much of each you need, but trying to do a steep turn without a little trim is a *****. That made life a whole lot easier.
 
Mtns2Skies said:
A trick I learned was that once in the steep turn do exactly one wheel/hand length of trim up so you know exactly how much to go back once returned to level flight... that was my big aha moment with steep turns.
Click to expand...

Funny thing is I've never had a CFI teach me to use trim during steep turns. So I learned to do them using pitch (horizon) & power only.

I agree, once I got my head out of the panel and on the horizon, my steep turns improved remarkably.

As for CFI's, I've never had a problem with any of them. I've actually appreciated when they were stern with me. However, unless we were about to die, I've never had one actually yelling at me:rolleyes2:

Heck my first CFI didn't even yell (at least not in anger) when I levitated him during my first stall recovery:rofl:. I pushed the throttle AND yoke full forward (probably due to my fear of stalls) TWICE:yikes:
 
My Tailwheel instructor was a real blast. A Very nice guy and a damned good instructor! He's been flying for around 50 years. He was so confident in his ability to teach and get us out of any situation I might possibly put us in.

He even laughed a few times as I hopped around on the runway while learning wheel landings:lol:.

One time, I started swerving during the rollout and it was starting to get away from me! He just calmly said "I got it", and two seconds later, he was giving the plane back to me.
 
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AggieMike88 said:
This thread sounds awfully similar to the ones posted by "benpilot" on the red Board.
Click to expand...

Not really. They seem to have used the same instructor at PAO (just how many aviation profs can there be instructing at one small airport with no part 141 flight schools?), but the attitudes about him in particular are quite different.

There are certainly good CFIs at PAO. While one chosen at random may or may not be one of them, it starts to strain plausibility to do that four times. And I've never even heard of one of them yelling about anything, at least outside of an emergency situation.
 
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Ever ride a motorcycle or sail a boat? Play sports in highschool?
 
Mtns2Skies said:
A trick I learned was that once in the steep turn do exactly one wheel/hand length of trim up so you know exactly how much to go back once returned to level flight... that was my big aha moment with steep turns.
Click to expand...

I teach my students to look very very closely at the nose and its relationship to the horizon before rolling into the turn. Once you are convinced you are in level unaccelerated flight and you are also convinced you know where that nose is on the horizon you then start the maneuver. Focus intentently on the nose and the horizon and roll firmly into the turn to rotate the nose around the horizon. Once the desired bank is achieved keep the focus on the horizon and its a piece of cake.

Once they see how the entry can just rotate around that horizon they nail it. Most of my students that I pick up partially through their training were never taught this.
 
I use "the magic rivet" (or screw-head depending on the cowling) to help the student pinpoint nose attitude on the horizon. The reference point will be different for right vs left turns, but each direction will have it's special spot that results in a level turn.

jesse said:
I teach my students to look very very closely at the nose and its relationship to the horizon before rolling into the turn. Once you are convinced you are in level unaccelerated flight and you are also convinced you know where that nose is on the horizon you then start the maneuver. Focus intentently on the nose and the horizon and roll firmly into the turn to rotate the nose around the horizon. Once the desired bank is achieved keep the focus on the horizon and its a piece of cake.

Once they see how the entry can just rotate around that horizon they nail it. Most of my students that I pick up partially through their training were never taught this.
Click to expand...
 
Wayne and Jesse have described two particular techniques for attitude flying in particular situations, but the key is understanding the fundamental concept of attitude + power = performance, and that likely is lacking in the OP's case. That's why I suggested finding a good instructor to go back to the basics -- and you're not going to learn that over the internet.
 
skynewbie said:
Why are so many CFI jerks and bad teachers? I had the same issue a few years ago when I learned to scuba dive! Good divers who are instructors but complete buttheads when it comes to lack of patience and skill in teaching.
Click to expand...

There are many different teaching styles as there are different learning styles. It looks like you are finding incompatible instructors in two fields.

What finally worked in scuba? Can you define it and look for the same methods in flying?

Are all your learning experiences like these two? If not, what makes these unique and difficult? If you always have a hard time learning these kinds of skills, maybe you need a self-assessment to see if you can change your approach.

... after 35 hours, I have not solo yet. Felt like a loser yesterday after hood training which is required for PPL, why?
Click to expand...

Hood training involves an instrument scan. There are a couple of ways to scan. They are explained pretty well in the FAA handbooks. I hope you've been taught at least a rudimentary scan.

Do the instructors give you feedback to tell you what you are doing well and where you are deficient and how to correct it?
 
AggieMike88 said:
This thread sounds awfully similar to the ones posted by "benpilot" on the red Board.
Click to expand...

Not surprised, considering you referred him here.
Meanwhile, the three-******* rule comes to mind. May or may not apply here, of course ...
 
skynewbie said:
Hi all,

I have completed about 35 hours of flight training with a few different CFI who were unsuccessful in getting through to me on how to master the basic maneuvers like steep turns, slow flight and pattern work. I am not dumb or mentally deficient. I passed the written FAA exam with 83% and can fly most of the plane just fine. However, after burning through a few CFI I am ready to give up and do not know if there is any hope left to me. The last CFI was upset and kept yelling at me when I was unable to maintain heading, altitude and airspeed correctly while doing IFR hood work required for the private pilot license. He called my steep turns disasters. Are there any patient kind instructors at KPAO in Palo Alto who can help me?
Click to expand...

Welcome to POA! I'm still working through my PPL myself, been going off and on for 10 years now but finally getting it wrapped up with a great school here in Austin TX.

What part is your school? 141 or 61? Does your school use a syllabus? Do you have your own syllabus you ask to train train to?

IFR hood work is usually done after you solo but it sounds like none of your CFI's want to sign off on your solo. How long ago did you do the ground school? Have you attempted your pre-solo checkout? Do you have any stage checks on your logbook?

Was your CFI being snarky when he asked about an attitude indicator? Something seems fishy.
 
I did ground school a few months back and passed the written end of January. I finished a stage checkout the one I did poorly on. I am remediating these skills to requirements. Then solo is not far away. Yeah think the CFI was being a dick about the whole attitude indicator. Thats why I dumped him after the second lesson. No need for that unprofessional behavior especially when I am paying him 50+ an hour.
 
To the contrary we were describing specific techniques to improve performance in the maneuver he described as the most difficult for him. Some instructors deal in generalities "don't lose altitude" and don't ever provide the student with such information.
Ron Levy said:
Wayne and Jesse have described two particular techniques for attitude flying in particular situations, but the key is understanding the fundamental concept of attitude + power = performance, and that likely is lacking in the OP's case. That's why I suggested finding a good instructor to go back to the basics -- and you're not going to learn that over the internet.
Click to expand...
 
My recommendation is to look for a retired Air Force B-52 pilot CFI with grey hair. Those guys are the best. Actually, any former military flight instructor should excel at teaching you attitude flying with patience and understanding.
 
Thanks I will take these into consideration. I made some cheat sheets that a flight school sent me and laminated them to use for practice in the cockpit and on the checkride.
 
skynewbie said:
Hi all,

I have completed about 35 hours of flight training with a few different CFI who were unsuccessful in getting through to me on how to master the basic maneuvers like steep turns, slow flight and pattern work. I am not dumb or mentally deficient. I passed the written FAA exam with 83% and can fly most of the plane just fine. However, after burning through a few CFI I am ready to give up and do not know if there is any hope left to me. The last CFI was upset and kept yelling at me when I was unable to maintain heading, altitude and airspeed correctly while doing IFR hood work required for the private pilot license. He called my steep turns disasters. Are there any patient kind instructors at KPAO in Palo Alto who can help me?
Click to expand...


Why the h*ll are you doing hood work on those maneuvers when you don't have them down to your comfort level and at least close to PTS without the hood????

The instructor is all wrong about having you do them under the hood right now.

Find another one, have a real heart to heart about your progress, areas of success and areas of difficulty then get into the plane with he or she....

Sheesh
 
@DutchessFlier- agreed. I ditched that new CFI at KPAO after he lost his cool with me. Flying with a new guy today. I will explain the situation with him. He seems a lot kinder and more patient from my chat with him this past week. By the way on the second hood lesson I did a lot better :)
 
skynewbie said:
@DutchessFlier- agreed. I ditched that new CFI at KPAO after he lost his cool with me. Flying with a new guy today. I will explain the situation with him. He seems a lot kinder and more patient from my chat with him this past week. By the way on the second hood lesson I did a lot better :)
Click to expand...

Are you vocalizing your experience to the new cfi?? Why are you under the hood if you haven't done your solo yet?
 
Everskyward said:
This is an interesting comment to me because I thought everyone was taught what you call "attitude flying" from the beginning. At least that's what they did in the old days. Couldn't speak for what people teach new students now.
Click to expand...
In my case the attitude flying was taught but not emphasized, and I obtained passable results by chasing the desired flight path. In other words, in steep turns I just bank more or less and pull more or less, as appropriate. Even managed turns around a point that way, never bothered to think ahead. One can easily do it in Cherokee. So I only had to start attitude flying when getting into Grob 103. That thing's enormous inertria precluded me from chasing.
 
supernovae said:
Why are you under the hood if you haven't done your solo yet?
Click to expand...
According to my logbook, my first hoodwork for 0.3 was on my 3rd flight, on August 15. By the time of my solo on October 27, I had 0.6 simulated instrument flying out of about 30. Thinking back it might have been not the most efficient curriculum, but apparently it does happen. In fact I think it's taken from Part 141 curriculum verbatim and thus should happen often. Blame FAA for the practice.
 
On part 141, I had like .1 hours under the hood prior to solo. On Part 61, my instructors syllabus still puts hood time after solo.. I guess it does vary, but at 30+ hours in and spending a lot of time under hood if they're not happy with your practice area skills (turns/steep turns et all) i'd question hood time.. but that's just me.

i'd be pretty adamant to working out whatever kinks there were to solo and start asking for stage checks / checkpoints for some sort of routine to measure up to.
 
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