Tristar
Pattern Altitude
I'm always up for discovering new ways to understand concepts and possibly teach those new ways to students someday. I love toys and rules of thumbs and other things that seem to spark attention in those that will listen. There are always things in flight training I wish were explained to me better as with many pilots I've spoken to that might have appreciated them. Cross countries seem to be one of them. So, I've come up with a neat idea I'd love your opinion on as well as any ideas of your own.
"Puzzling Pilotage"
Puzzling Pilotage (temporary best name I could come up with) is a simple puzzle like what we put together when we were younger but with a small twist. Picture a standard puzzle but instead of putting a picture of an animal together, you're student or whoever plays, will be putting their Cross country route together. The route would probably be within reason, something like 10-20 miles wide by 50 miles. Now unlike a puzzle where you just pick a piece to start, the player will be given the first piece which will of course be their starting airport just like in real life. From there, the student will be asked to find the next pieces until they reach their "destination." At the end the student may be looking at you wondering what the point of the excercise was.
"Why am I doing this?" Points of the puzzle
1. When flying on a VFR cross country, you don't look out aimlessly into the horizon. You are looking for what on the chart makes sense to what you're looking at on the ground (or vise versa). Obviously you can't see to your destination, so you look for what comes next. Exactly like a puzzle. The idea of an XC is to put all the pieces together in order to make a big picture in your mind. You can ask the student, "tell me how you put this next piece together." The student may respond, " well I noticed this piece of a road was next to a lake and the piece after that also had the same lake by a city." "Correct! that is how you fly Cross countries!" You are looking for things to connect, where a road might be in relation to a town or the lake in this example. Thus, a puzzle is born.
2. By putting a puzzle together and asking them to emphasis details in each piece, it not only teaches them to look for their key checkpoints but also details to help fill in the gaps. Sometimes when students are working on XCs, they're so busy trying to find that one checkpoint that they miss all sorts of great details that could even build confidence. Just because a lake isn't in front of you, doesn't mean its not a great reference point. Or lets go even further to point out emergency airports along the side of the route or any other key factors that may help them depending on the student.
3. "I'm lost!" There are of course many ways to get yourself out of being lost, pilotage is of course one of them. By playing, as I've mentioned, it teaches to notice details and help not to rely solely on their preplanned checkpoints. If a student becomes lost, sometimes its due to loosing those points they know. Now they can say "hey, that railroad is connected to that city with a lake to the north, just like.....it's Monroe City!" AKA, student no longer lost and it may have not even been directly on their route.
3. This can be used as a entertaining, learning, and motivational tool outside the standard sectional chart which can be overwhelming at times to a student. It breaks it down into a game we've done since we were kids. Now don't let me degrade those of you who caught on, but I would have appreciated something like this during my XC training.
I haven't made it yet but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be too hard. It's simple, different, entertaining and each CFI can explain it according to the students needs. Of course any pilot could play also and unconsciously teach attention to detail or if they're just bored!
"Why am I doing this?" Points of the puzzle
1. When flying on a VFR cross country, you don't look out aimlessly into the horizon. You are looking for what on the chart makes sense to what you're looking at on the ground (or vise versa). Obviously you can't see to your destination, so you look for what comes next. Exactly like a puzzle. The idea of an XC is to put all the pieces together in order to make a big picture in your mind. You can ask the student, "tell me how you put this next piece together." The student may respond, " well I noticed this piece of a road was next to a lake and the piece after that also had the same lake by a city." "Correct! that is how you fly Cross countries!" You are looking for things to connect, where a road might be in relation to a town or the lake in this example. Thus, a puzzle is born.
2. By putting a puzzle together and asking them to emphasis details in each piece, it not only teaches them to look for their key checkpoints but also details to help fill in the gaps. Sometimes when students are working on XCs, they're so busy trying to find that one checkpoint that they miss all sorts of great details that could even build confidence. Just because a lake isn't in front of you, doesn't mean its not a great reference point. Or lets go even further to point out emergency airports along the side of the route or any other key factors that may help them depending on the student.
3. "I'm lost!" There are of course many ways to get yourself out of being lost, pilotage is of course one of them. By playing, as I've mentioned, it teaches to notice details and help not to rely solely on their preplanned checkpoints. If a student becomes lost, sometimes its due to loosing those points they know. Now they can say "hey, that railroad is connected to that city with a lake to the north, just like.....it's Monroe City!" AKA, student no longer lost and it may have not even been directly on their route.
3. This can be used as a entertaining, learning, and motivational tool outside the standard sectional chart which can be overwhelming at times to a student. It breaks it down into a game we've done since we were kids. Now don't let me degrade those of you who caught on, but I would have appreciated something like this during my XC training.
I haven't made it yet but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be too hard. It's simple, different, entertaining and each CFI can explain it according to the students needs. Of course any pilot could play also and unconsciously teach attention to detail or if they're just bored!