My student got lost...

[eetrojan]

***
...I should not say to myself "Jesse wants me to find my location by using the sectional and landmarks" and then just jump to that as my first option, because I think that's what you want me to do.
***

In my opinion, if Jesse were your CFI, that's exactly what you should do. Learn what he's trying to teach you. Figure out why. Don't assume your point of view is better. Be respectful and eager to understand.

Later, do what you believe you should do AFTER you have assimilated everything, whether it came from your CFI or elsewhere.

Simple really.

Happy learning. The journey should be fun.

 

[ChrisK]

In simulated scenarios it can sometimes be difficult for students to determine what their instructors or examiners are trying to get them to demonstrate. My favorite memory of this was my damn DPE trying to get me to start an emergency procedures checklist when I was abeam the numbers and he called simulated engine out. As soon as he said it I dropped 10 degrees of flaps (in my 152) and started a normal base turn. He was quite unhappy that I didn't find best glide and go through a restart procedure. I said - kind of annoyed - that I can easily land power off without doing anything special, so why would I go through a restart?

He realized his mistake I think but once I knew what he wanted I found best glide, delayed the remained of flaps, and slipped it in a little high.

Scenario based training is great and I applaud the use of such, but sometimes it is just plain hard to when a student is trying to guess at the purpose of the scenario when they should really just be flying the airplane =) To some of the points made here, if I was told I lost my electrical system, I'd probably pull a GPS out of my bag until told that was failed for the scenario.

 

[Matthew]

A lot of misunderstanding in this thread is probably due to unfamiliarity with teaching styles. It gets easy, after a couple of lessons, to understand what the CFI is really after. Not so easy to do when you jump right into a situation with someone you haven't flown with before.

 

[milestogo]

The over-reliance on GPS thing is over-hyped. While I occasional fly VOR for change of pace, I don't mind flying the magenta line at all. Flying is about risk management and the risks here are less than negligible. I have 5 GPSs on board. If they all fail, we have a system-wide failure (as in GPS satellites stop working) so I switch to VOR and fly the green line - simple. If the VOR fails also we probably have an avionics failure so I switch to the VOR on my portable radio nav/com. If that fails then we have a simultaneous GPS/VOR failure which isn't going to happen. But for arguments sake let's say all radio navigation on my main bus, portable garmin 796 and radio nav/com fail. I can still call ATC and since I have a transponder, they likely find me and vector me. If my main and backup battery fail and since I've never landed with less than an hours worth of fuel, I use pilotage as best I can on the paper charts and look for an airport. If I can't determine by pilotage where I am, I have an hour minimum (likely more) to find a suitable place to land - simple. NO WAY THIS RESULTS in loss of life or limb so the risks are not worth considering against the more important risks encountered by pilots (loss of engine, fire, LOC landing, etc.)

 

[bbchien]

I'm not sure what you're talking about? I was simply trying to educate you by telling you that flight service does not have radar..and to the best of my knowledge they no longer have the ability to do a DF Steer. It used to be they could get an approximate idea of your location via nothing but your com radio signal transmitting.

Really I don't know what any of this is about. You keep going on assuming someone is attacking A when really they're trying to point out there is a problem with B and you're so damn concerned about A you can't get the important messages.

Why keep going about what you've went on with for the last umpteen pages? Why not instead learn what a DF Steer is and the history. It's more useful knowledge, although antiquated.

Flight Service just isn't what it used to be.

Jesse. This is a group 4: "student who al ready knows it all".

His mic as evidenced by # of posts in the forums, is stuck on transmit. I respectfully suggest we stop feeding the troll. We acomplish nothing, here.

 

[somorris]

We acomplish nothing, here.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that Dr. Bruce. There are probably a lot of non-participating readers that are benefiting from the input of you, Jesse and others. They just have to sift through a lot of chaff to get to the grains of knowledge and wisdom. I know it is frustrating for you trying to communicate with someone who refuses to listen. My Dad used to say "It is hard to listen with your mouth open." A wise man .

 

[MassPilot]

I use GPS and VOR's and all that good stuff when I fly, but I always have a paper sectional on my kneeboard with my route plotted, and I do my best to follow along. It's really not that difficult.

 

[milestogo]

I use GPS and VOR's and all that good stuff when I fly, but I always have a paper sectional on my kneeboard with my route plotted, and I do my best to follow along. It's really not that difficult.

True. If some glitch hit the WW GPS system, it would be interesting to see what happened. There would be some chaos. I don't think anyone would die however.

 

[kgruber]

When I get lost I use the four-course range system, Omega, Loran and DF steers. At night I head for where I think Montana is because I think there is still a lighted airway.

 

[wabower]

A PA-32 just did a mountain face-plant at 9,800' MSL enroute Dodge to Casper. Wonder how it was equipped and how the pilot was navigating?

I use GPS and VOR's and all that good stuff when I fly, but I always have a paper sectional on my kneeboard with my route plotted, and I do my best to follow along. It's really not that difficult.

 

[bbchien]

Well, he wasn't on flightaware so he wasn't IFR.....and it was on a dead direct line apparently, from the descriptions....

 

[wabower]

Interesting choice of words, considering the outcome. Wonder if he was using GPS.

Well, he wasn't on flightaware so he wasn't IFR.....and it was on a dead direct line apparently, from the descriptions....

 

[DeeG]

Interesting choice of words, considering the outcome. Wonder if he was using GPS.

I remember way back when GPS's were fairly new to the cockpit. Was out flying with a friend and he showed how he could plot a course from here to there and it would work kind of like a VOR only better. I looked at his course and asked him about the 8700' peak that was right in the middle of his flight path. "What peak?" He asks. Ummm... the one you're gonna smack into if you follow this course at altitude you chose. Your GPS isn't going to route you around the peak, you know. You have to do that yourself. "Oh, I didn't see that."

 

[Threefingeredjack]

Just to bump the response count I'll throw this thought out there: IMHO the big picture here that seems to have been shuffled off to the side is that this was a training exercise. The instructor must be able to create a scenario to force the student to think, and the student has the obligation to operate within the reality created. Many believe the sign of a good pilot is one who knows it all and reacts with surety of purpose in every situation. That is Hollywood.

IMHO, based on my limited experience, a good pilot is one who can quickly assess the situation from the available data and create an operable plan quickly and be able to modify and adapt as the situation or data changes. That involves thinking and not rote learning. Early on in my flying experience the pilot commanding our mission called the crew together for the pre-flight briefing. He said "This is my plan based on the available information we have now, what we'll actually wind up doing is anybody's guess"

And oddly enough that is how 90% of my operational flights worked out. If you can't think in the air your chances of a successful outcome diminish quickly. The instructor that makes the road rocky and the student think is doing them a huge favor, whether they recognize it or not at the time.

 

[silver-eagle]

I have found when there is an instructor in the aircraft with you, you have to double and triple check everything. They tend to fiddle with everything while babbling on about nothing. I have never had such a difficult passenger than an instructor; on or off the clock!
I learned early on in my training to keep an eye out for traffic, keep an eye on the instruments, AND keep an eye on them. Of course I have promised them if they ever break something important, they'd best be wearing a parachute because I was going to throw their carcass right out the door!
I applaud their creativity and only hope their scenarios never befall me in realtime.