gives me the chills

D

deaston

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Dan
Sucks when someone dies in GA especially when ones a student.Maybe it wasn't stalling it in but that is one thing I've mentally prepped myself to not do when things go tango uniform. I'd rather hit even crowded terrain at 50-60 mph and have a chance to spread that energy out over some distance (hopefully) than auger it in and die for sure.
 
Sometimes it's worse having an instructor with you. I remember doing touch and goes with my instructor while learning to fly in the pattern and he was taking care of the flaps for me to reduce my workload. My attention was mostly on the airspeed and ball. Climb performance was suddenly terrible on one particular iteration and it wasn't until I was on downwind and went to add flaps that I realized we already had 30+ degrees of flaps down. :mad2:

CFIs should give some thought to communication and avoid ambiguous instructions. For example, "Get your flaps in!" might be heard as "retract your flaps" by some people and "extend your flaps" by others. Instructions should be given well enough in advanced to be processed and it might be better to call out time-critical points as they happen, otherwise don't be surprised if a student drops it in after you're at 20' and say "Now you need to begin your flare early."

Just because you have an instructor next to you doesn't mean it's safe to relax or become passive. If you have an instructor you trust and you know how to communicate with each other, don't worry about becoming a statistic--it's very unlikely.
 
ollopa said:
CFIs should give some thought to communication and avoid ambiguous instructions. For example, "Get your flaps in!" might be heard as "retract your flaps" by some people and "extend your flaps" by others.
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"Dump the flaps" is especially egregious.

The possibly apocryphal anecdote is telling the other pilot "Takeoff power!".

At which point he takes off power! :eek:
 
When we first start flying, we trust the instructor completely. He knows how to fly and we don't! I know it took me ten years of flying before I told one instructor in a BFR that he was wrong and to get his hands off the yoke.

This topic reminded me a of a crash we had a couple of years ago in Llano. I know a few guys here knew and respected the instructor, but he made some bad decisions and he and the student ended up dead. Scary stuff.

You should trust your instructor, but do your research. There were some scary stories about this guy before this accident. They're easily found on the internet.

From the NTSB report: A family member reported that the student pilot (and airplane owner) stated to family members a couple days before the accident that “the stall warning still was not working right” and that the flight instructor would disable it for each flight.
Full Report Here
 
Not everyone that has a CFI ticket should. Had particular problems with CFIs from a local 141 school with the DPE on staff and ON SALARY. It was a production line school where if you put in your time, you got the ticket. Fortunately, I hope, that practice has been minimized but there are still folks out there who think they are doing right but are really down right dangerous.

My advice to students has never changed. Shop around. Take a lesson or two with several different CFIs and see what clicks. Get the names of former students of theirs and check it out. Surprising how after you get your ticket and more experience you can see how good or lacking your training really was. Especially new pilots have to be careful because their knowledge isn't there yet to determine whats really good or bad. Seek advice from other experienced pilots. Your best buddy may not be your best CFI. And by all means do not believe everything you read on the internet!
 
FastEddieB said:
The possibly apocryphal anecdote is telling the other pilot "Takeoff power!".

At which point he takes off power! :eek:
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I had that exact misunderstanding with my instructor.
 
I don't know the numbers but there is probably a statistic out there showing that the majority of fatal accidents involve a stall/spin followed by the classic lawn dart head-on with the ground. Thing is, it happens to students and seasoned pilots. When things go wrong it's hard to confirm that your faculties are going to all be there and that you won't get distracted or make a mistake. There's obviously a lot of stress involved in a situation which, in the majority of cases, is the first time you've actually encountered it. It's difficult to practice being that stressed out.
 
ollopa said:
CFIs should give some thought to communication and avoid ambiguous instructions. For example, "Get your flaps in!" might be heard as "retract your flaps" by some people and "extend your flaps" by others. Instructions should be given well enough in advanced to be processed and it might be better to call out time-critical points as they happen, otherwise don't be surprised if a student drops it in after you're at 20' and say "Now you need to begin your flare early."
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As a green CFI (since April) this is something I still need to work on. I need to stop using slang and tell the student exactly what he/she should do.
 
jordane93 said:
As a green CFI (since April) this is something I still need to work on. I need to stop using slang and tell the student exactly what he/she should do.
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Part of the whole ambiguity thing (from
my time teaching radio communications) is in standardizing not only the words but when to expect them, and being religiously consistent about it.

You can say "Sit!" to a dog or you can say "sitzen" and train the dog in German, the dog doesn't care, but you just have to say it consistently. :)

"Takeoff power" isn't inherently bad in and of itself, as long as it's never ever used to mean two things and the phrase is pre-briefed before flying, and always used consistently.
 
Instructor says..."Deer on the runway", during night practice.

Me..."Yes, I know", thinking he said we're on the runway.
 
I was playing human ballast in another instructors stage check once and watched the student nearly demonstrate a departure stall on departure. It's one of the few times I've heard what I call the "CFI death scream" as they are in imminent fear of death and fighting the student on the controls.
 
flyingron said:
I was playing human ballast in another instructors stage check once and watched the student nearly demonstrate a departure stall on departure. It's one of the few times I've heard what I call the "CFI death scream" as they are in imminent fear of death and fighting the student on the controls.
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And this is a perfect illustration of the reason I have no interest in becoming a CFI.
 
old cfi said:
Surprising how after you get your ticket and more experience you can see how good or lacking your training really was. Especially new pilots have to be careful because their knowledge isn't there yet to determine whats really good or bad.
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This is true… you really can't judge at the beginning.
 
old cfi said:
Surprising how after you get your ticket and more experience you can see how good or lacking your training really was. Especially new pilots have to be careful because their knowledge isn't there yet to determine whats really good or bad. Seek advice from other experienced pilots. Your best buddy may not be your best CFI. And by all means do not believe everything you read on the internet!
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I can relate to this. While some of them have come since the checkride, at just shy of 100 hrs I've had no less than 6 CFIs. Definitely a wide spectrum of experience levels, skills and compatibility out there.
 
I had sort of always assumed CFIs were a more competent group, having heard the check ride for CFI was pretty tough. I was wrong to paint 'em all with the same brush, however.

Was flying as PIC in CAP a few years ago, with a CFI in the right seat. Not an instructional flight for me; he was acting as the "Observor" (basically ballast, in this case). I briefed a short field landing, and noticed him showing "signs of agitation" on downwind. By the time we turned final, full flaps, stable airspeed, his hands were dancing. A lot. I asked what was up, and he said we were too slow. I had about 60 knots on the clock, Cessna 172. Short final, he's making sudden little lunges toward the yoke at every little mild turbulence bump.

Started freakin' me out, and I told him to chill, firmly, etc. I checked afterwards, and he really was a CFI. Later I heard he wasn't well regarded as an instructor or a pilot.

I couldn't imagine how he got through the training, check rides, getting hired (he was working as a CFI).
 
Sundancer said:
I had about 60 knots on the clock, Cessna 172. Short final, he's making sudden little lunges toward the yoke at every little mild turbulence bump.
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Oh man, he'd hate it when I'm doing 55 on short final.
 
FastEddieB said:
"Dump the flaps" is especially egregious.

The possibly apocryphal anecdote is telling the other pilot "Takeoff power!".

At which point he takes off power! :eek:
Click to expand...

It can be confusing in a Cherokee. "Flaps Up!" has been interpreted to mean pull the flap handle up.
 
Sundancer said:
I asked what was up, and he said we were too slow. I had about 60 knots on the clock, Cessna 172. Short final, he's making sudden little lunges toward the yoke at every little mild turbulence bump.

Started freakin' me out, and I told him to chill, firmly, etc. I checked afterwards, and he really was a CFI. Later I heard he wasn't well regarded as an instructor or a pilot.

I couldn't imagine how he got through the training, check rides, getting hired (he was working as a CFI).
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I did most of my training in a 180hp 172S/SP model and 60 on final for the short field always worked well for me. I recently went up in the 160hp 172N model with a different CFI just to practice short field landings and 60 in that one just felt too slow - he commented that we seemed a little slow and I agreed that it 'felt' like it even tho I've never gotten that feeling at that speed on final in the other 172 - increasing it just a little bit worked out fine.

Luckily he wasn't the super nervous 'jumpy' type as you described ... that would freak me out.
 
WhiskeyPapa said:
This is true… you really can't judge at the beginning.
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And what makes it worse?

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias wherein relatively unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability to be much higher than is accurate. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to accurately evaluate their own ability level. Conversely, highly skilled individuals may underestimate their relative competence, erroneously assuming that tasks that are easy for them are also easy for others.[1]
David Dunning and Justin Kruger of Cornell University have postulated that the effect is the result of internal illusion in the unskilled, and external misperception in the skilled: "The miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others."[1]

FULL TEXT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect
 
FlySince9 said:
And what makes it worse?

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias wherein relatively unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability to be much higher than is accurate. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to accurately evaluate their own ability level. Conversely, highly skilled individuals may underestimate their relative competence, erroneously assuming that tasks that are easy for them are also easy for others.[1]
David Dunning and Justin Kruger of Cornell University have postulated that the effect is the result of internal illusion in the unskilled, and external misperception in the skilled: "The miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others."[1]

FULL TEXT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect
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Yep. CFI's can, usually, fly the plane. The skill a lot of them are missing is the ability to teach that skill. Big difference and herein lies the difference between good and bad instructors.
 
deaston said:
Didn't see a discussion on this one. Apologies if already posted.

As a fairly new pilot, this type of incident rattles me the most. Simple training flight, decent weather, instructor in the plane, stalling and hitting the ground right out of the airport. At least that is what it looks like.

http://m.krgv.com/news/breaking-news-pd-two-confirmed-dead-in-plane-crash/34771108

http://www.valleycentral.com/news/story.aspx?id=1243749#.VdMxXcQ8KrU
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We fly into McAllen regularly. Unless you have an engine failure, I have a hard time picturing how this could happen.

On the other hand, what sort of power does a Zenair have? It's been blazing hot in McAllen -- when we were there last week, it was like an oven full of blow dryers on the ramp, well over 105 degrees -- so if the plane was a bit underpowered, and they were heavy....?

Anyone flown a Zenair?
 
Jay Honeck said:
...On the other hand, what sort of power does a Zenair have?...
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Probably 100 but maybe 115, I think they may have O-235's. One thing unusual about them is that they have a single control stick mounted in the center. They were in the news a couple of years ago because of spar failures. They all had to be retrofitted and were grounded by the FAA.
 
Silvaire said:
Probably 100 but maybe 115, I think they may have O-235's. One thing unusual about them is that they have a single control stick mounted in the center. They were in the news a couple of years ago because of spar failures. They all had to be retrofitted and were grounded by the FAA.
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That's not much more than my old Ercoupe. When we flew that Coupe on an Iowa summer day, 2-up with full fuel, it was a real dog.

I can't imagine 2 grown men, flying in that McAllen summer heat, in a 100 HP plane, would be worth a damn in climb performance.

Any sort of engine burble... :(
 
+1 on shopping around for your CFI. I "interviewed" five CFI's before I found the right one to teach me to fly. I met and talked with all five, three I flew with, buying an hour of their time each. I finally settled on one and have never regretted my choice.

I find that while it might not be the norm, there are pilots out there that are just nervous types. I've flown with some that were so keyed up all the time, I worried that they'd go into full on panic attack if there was an actual issue to deal with.

I like pilots who are calm and relaxed all the time emergency or no emergency.
 
HouTxPilot82 said:
I did most of my training in a 180hp 172S/SP model and 60 on final for the short field always worked well for me. I recently went up in the 160hp 172N model with a different CFI just to practice short field landings and 60 in that one just felt too slow - he commented that we seemed a little slow and I agreed that it 'felt' like it even tho I've never gotten that feeling at that speed on final in the other 172 - increasing it just a little bit worked out fine.

Luckily he wasn't the super nervous 'jumpy' type as you described ... that would freak me out.
Click to expand...

Yep, this was in a 180 HP 172, and I liked to have it about a needle's width below 60, maybe start pushing the yoke forward a bit as it neared 55 - I mean I wasn't dragging it in with a lot of power, and the horn blaring - and this model was limited to 30 degrees of flaps. It was just a little bumpy. My preconception was a CFI would always be more skilled than myself, which is, as someone said, not really rational. . .
 
Silvaire said:
Probably 100 but maybe 115, I think they may have O-235's. One thing unusual about them is that they have a single control stick mounted in the center. They were in the news a couple of years ago because of spar failures. They all had to be retrofitted and were grounded by the FAA.
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Zenair CH 2000 trainer has 116hp on a good day. I flew one regularly during my training. With me, my instructor, and full tanks we were about 80lbs under weight. Add a hot, humid day and you got trouble.

flight_alarus_panel.jpg

266AM.jpg
 
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