New Pipers for UND

[denverpilot]

Like I said, my info is both second hand but also published on the web for anyone to find if they look for it. Good to hear things may be better.

I see a distinct conflict of interest with two major types of students.

Any commentary on their assertion that flying in actual would be nixed by the "safety" system almost always? My impression of it was a scoring system of points that has a hard limit on number of points.

As far as not flying to closed building airports, that one is kinda a crack-up. Mandate reasonable clothes and a survival bag? Or perhaps a cell phone? LOL.

Sounds strangely cliquish or maybe just an odd culture from the outside adult perspective. But I know they're getting students who are used to their "safe zones" in life these days, so... Shrug.

Not my circus nor my monkeys so mostly just asking out of curiosity.

Many of the articles about them were that the whole place was going to go under because of too much focus on airline prep in the last downturn in airline hiring. Now that problem has disappeared again, like it always does in waves. People who attend during downturns complain and people who attend during heavy hiring sing their praises. Heh. People.

 

[Everskyward]

Any commentary on their assertion that flying in actual would be nixed by the "safety" system almost always? My impression of it was a scoring system of points that has a hard limit on number of points.

If the scoring system is the one I'm thinking about, it's called a FRAT (flight risk assessment tool). The operator can define their own point system and limits, but here are some examples. I would not be surprised if UND uses one because they are becoming the thing to do and will probably be required by regulation for 135 operators soon.

A very simple one geared to small GA. https://www.faa.gov/news/safety_briefing/2015/media/SE_Topic_15-08.pdf

One geared to turbine operators. https://www.nbaa.org/admin/sms/info07015.pdf

 

[denverpilot]

If the scoring system is the one I'm thinking about, it's called a FRAT (flight risk assessment tool). The operator can define their own point system and limits, but here are some examples. I would not be surprised if UND uses one because they are becoming the thing to do and will probably be required by regulation for 135 operators soon.

A very simple one geared to small GA. https://www.faa.gov/news/safety_briefing/2015/media/SE_Topic_15-08.pdf

One geared to turbine operators. https://www.nbaa.org/admin/sms/info07015.pdf

Yep, I didn't have examples handy but knew what they were since CAP has been using them for a long time.

They're great as an assessment tool, they actually seem to lose value when they become a mandate. No brainpower required. Check the boxes, no-go decision made for you.

Seems somewhat counter to a training environment in the middle ground scores, unless the scoring system is VERY thorough. You're not supposed to expose the answers to the test before you've made the student answer the question for themselves, if you get my drift.

 

[Everskyward]

Yep, I didn't have examples handy but knew what they were since CAP has been using them for a long time.

They're great as an assessment tool, they actually seem to lose value when they become a mandate. No brainpower required. Check the boxes, no-go decision made for you.

Seems somewhat counter to a training environment in the middle ground scores, unless the scoring system is VERY thorough. You're not supposed to expose the answers to the test before you've made the student answer the question for themselves, if you get my drift.

If your drift is that they should be able to make a decision without using a scoring system, that may be true. But it might also be good for them to get used to it now since that is what they will be using in the future if they go on to a flying job. Pilots who are presented with it later in life tend to look at it with raised eyebrows. But it's probably a good thing since people have different degrees of risk they are willing to tolerate and this makes the decision more consistent within an organization.

 

[denverpilot]

If your drift is that they should be able to make a decision without using a scoring system, that may be true. But it might also be good for them to get used to it now since that is what they will be using in the future if they go on to a flying job. Pilots who are presented with it later in life tend to look at it with raised eyebrows. But it's probably a good thing since people have different degrees of risk they are willing to tolerate and this makes the decision more consistent within an organization.

Understand the organization part, the problem I have with it is if those pilots end up flying without such an organization -- what do they base their decision making skill on? Unless the place teaches them how they came up with the scoring system, or they decide on their own to keep a copy of that one scoring system and use it religiously, they're an accident waiting to happen.

Considering poor weather decisions are one of the leading causes of accidents OUTSIDE of those flying for a living, and not nearly the same risk when flying inside, you're right, it gets them "used to" being told when to fly. Which may later kill them.

Teaching the weather decision making skills without the scores, doesn't have the same problem in reverse. It allows for a decision and a comparison to the scoresheet to see (hopefully) a small delta between one's own weather evaluation and go/no-go, and the scoresheet, and a way to evaluate the weighting of the different scores on it.

When you add in primacy, I'd want to be taught to make the decision, then see if some score sheet matched, vs always having had the scoresheet. It could easily become a "mental crutch". IMHO.

I have no argument with operators demanding their use. Their airplanes, their rules. I'm just speaking to the concept of how it relates to training. Seems like the CFI would want to hide the results of the scoresheet at least at first and see if the candidate could come up with a no-go on their own, without the sheet assisting their decision. Then brief the sheet and see whether the decision came out different and why.

Also gives away the organization's priorities when viewed that way. Perhaps scoring is abnormally high for night flight or similar, but it would only show up if you could figure out your own "scores" before seeing theirs. Which is useful data. Might show where their previous accidents have occurred or a pet peeve of the chief pilot...

Example, the glider club rumor is they'll be able to keep their insurance just barely at a much higher rate. And out of the three accidents that nearly cost them their insurance, all three involved towplanes, and two involved fuel exhaustion.

Guess what I suspect will be "highly weighted" in their club regs going forward, to the point of extremism, and rightly so? I bet absolute no-go limits are put on the tow pilots for number of tows before fueling, and additional hard limits on fuel quantity prior to any tow.

Not that this is wrong in any way, but it won't be "left to pilot's discretion" anymore.

The other accident was hitting a non-club glider that was staged with a tow rope trailing the towplane, and there's already hard limits for that, which were broken. And extenuating circumstances where a rather high estimate was given for "loss of use" by the other operator, and the insurance company didn't even fight it. More expensive to argue it than pay it.

Every written rule is, of course, usually based in someone else's screwup. Just how it goes. Making it into a little chart of scores, is just a fancy/mathematical way to mix the hard rules together.

 

[Everskyward]

Understand the organization part, the problem I have with it is if those pilots end up flying without such an organization -- what do they base their decision making skill on? Unless the place teaches them how they came up with the scoring system, or they decide on their own to keep a copy of that one scoring system and use it religiously, they're an accident waiting to happen.

Maybe I give people more credit than you do, but I think someone can make a go, no-go decision without a FRAT even if they have been trained to use one. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that some flights are riskier than others. It would come down to the way people have done it in the past. Everyone has their own limits.

 

[denverpilot]

Maybe I give people more credit than you do, but I think someone can make a go, no-go decision without a FRAT even if they have been trained to use one. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that some flights are riskier than others. It would come down to the way people have done it in the past. Everyone has their own limits.

Back up a step. I'm not claiming they can't. I'm asking do they *learn as well* how to, if they always have a backstop of the scorecard. Or can it short circuit that process?

It's rare the person who can book learn good decision making. Mistakes are usually required. This is pretty set in modern learning theory and practice. You'll "know it better" if you're allowed to make just enough of a mistake to almost get yourself into serious trouble and someone wiser pulls you back, than if you just get told "this is how to make this decision".

Once past the learning stage, standardization serves a purpose. I'm asking if it "stunts" or slows the growth of the student.

You going to remember the book study of an inadvertent stall, or what your first inadvertent stall actually felt like, more? You going to remember checking the boxes for a no-go, or having to turn around and escape the bad weather decision you made, more?

It depends a lot on the scoring system, obviously. If there's room to give someone a little supervised "rope" to hang themselves with, great. In a training environment. In an operational environment? Sure... Lock it down.

I can't think of an aviation or non-aviation mentor who hasn't handed me just enough leeway to get myself up to the edge of trouble and then said "stop" and made me figure out a back-out plan (or in aviation terminology, made me think about whether I gave myself an "out"). If some score card would have limited their ability to do so, their training would have been slower and less effective.

I use the technique on junior IT staff all the time. Ahh... I've seen this incorrect thought process and the bad outcome... Let's ask him or her a couple of pointed questions about how they'll recover if the worst they can imagine happens and then plan for them to likely have to have time to execute it on this project. We can spare the efficiency for the learning experience. They're going to need the practice in thinking about all the details they're missing if I'm not here for whatever reason.

That's all I'm saying, really. Does the jump straight to "operational" practices slow that inevitable "must make controlled mistakes" learning process?

Note how fast one of our recent posters picked up on the gap in their airmanship when they entered an incipient spin the day before their PP check ride? And how quickly they researched what they didn't know and applied it to the scenario?

One of my old instructors had a phrase he'd say to lower the stress of such an incident and make me laugh when he let me make such mistakes, "Hey, pay attention. There's going to be a test!"

 

[JC150]

Whoever pointed out the flight costs, I can tell you from personal experience that they claim to 'over estimate the total costs', but i can say that you will spend much more (mainly because of weather reasons and having to re-fly lessons for proficiency or incompleting lessons). You would think that a school that operates so far north would teach the students how to deal with winter flying. If the surface temperature is 32*F or less, you cant go into the clouds, even when its 40*F at altitude from an inversion. 25 knot winds straight down the tube? No-fly. Thunderstorms with 200 miles? No fly. Yes, I'm serious. Your roommate gets busted for alcohol in the dorms? You get put onto a mandatory no-fly list and take 50% blame. Helpful tip, live off campus!! Taking a picture in flight on your solo cross country? Don't post that online; students have been caught and disciplined for breaking the policy.

I've had friends tell me they've flunked a stage check oral for "little" things such as not knowing how many static wicks are on a C172. I don't believe this first of all. While I've never failed a stage check, I came close one time because I taxied over 15 knots on the taxiway with calm winds. So the examiners are very picky. UND has a new SMS program that they like to brag about. Be very careful with this as I was told the FAA can now take enforcement action for violation of the policies when no FAR violation is present. My instrument rated roommate got busted for picking up a pop-up instrument clearance and flying into IMC while encountering un-forecasted weather. While there was no FAR violation here, he did break a school policy and ultimately was kicked out.

This past summer at UND, I spent 6 weeks in a motel paying $60-80/night waiting for an instructor to give me my final stage check. The AirChina and Tokai contract students always have priority on the stage checks, so you will just get bumped down the list. With a shortage of instructors, this is becoming more and more common. They couldn't give me a time frame on when my number would get called, except that it would be "any day". So I kept paying to keep myself in a motel for the summer, flying with my instructor twice a week to maintain proficiency, continuing to be told that it would be "any day" for nearly 2 months. The other 'fun' fact anyone considering UND should know is certain flight courses such as AVIT-222 require you to finish your flying by the end of the semester. For those who don't know, this is part-2 of the instrument course. I had an "A" in the class, but couldn't finish because my flights kept getting weathered. I was told I could just finish the flying when I got back from winter break. What I didn't realize is this requires you to take an "F" in the class and re-take the entire ground school all over!

The flight school isn't bad, just understand they operate a certain way and there is a lot of "inbreeding" - students learn something, become CFIs, teach their students the same things, those students become CFIs, etc. There's not a lot of new hires from outside of UND, so you hear people say there's a lack of "new blood".

The whole reason I joined POA was to ask questions about things I was taught and learn from other pilots. Things I learned as a student at UND include: Leaning past peak is bad for the engine and you MUST reduce power to 25/2500 or else the engine will be over stressed.

This is my experience with the school. Do with it as you please. It's great if all you want to do is fly for an airline, but please, live off campus and buy yourself an "S" parking pass. Your QOL is so much better.

 

[hindsight2020]

Wow, sounds like a nightmare, considering the premium paid. I got my IR,CPL,CFI and -II moonlighting in the summers during grad school while holding a retail part time job on top of my job as a TA and Aero Engineering graduate student at Purdue. All part 61 and no debt. I'm not making a sales pitch either way; it took longer, but what the hell was the hurry in 2000-2005 anyways?

People must be in a real hurry to get to that right seat. I understand the hiring dynamics have changed yet again ever since the boomers began timing out and the age 65 turd celebrated its long-awaited 5th birthday, but man are people that short-memoried? It's like decade-long furloughs, loss of medical in your early 50s, macro-level pilot group capacity reductions (see: 9/11) and unrecoverable lifetime retirement benefits loss is some fable the old timers like to drag them young and virile folk down with. But we know better, you know, we're different, so that's just mythology....

Caveat emptor indeed.

 

[Everskyward]

Back up a step. I'm not claiming they can't. I'm asking do they *learn as well* how to, if they always have a backstop of the scorecard. Or can it short circuit that process?

It's rare the person who can book learn good decision making. Mistakes are usually required. This is pretty set in modern learning theory and practice. You'll "know it better" if you're allowed to make just enough of a mistake to almost get yourself into serious trouble and someone wiser pulls you back, than if you just get told "this is how to make this decision".

Once past the learning stage, standardization serves a purpose. I'm asking if it "stunts" or slows the growth of the student.

You going to remember the book study of an inadvertent stall, or what your first inadvertent stall actually felt like, more? You going to remember checking the boxes for a no-go, or having to turn around and escape the bad weather decision you made, more?

It depends a lot on the scoring system, obviously. If there's room to give someone a little supervised "rope" to hang themselves with, great. In a training environment. In an operational environment? Sure... Lock it down.

I can't think of an aviation or non-aviation mentor who hasn't handed me just enough leeway to get myself up to the edge of trouble and then said "stop" and made me figure out a back-out plan (or in aviation terminology, made me think about whether I gave myself an "out"). If some score card would have limited their ability to do so, their training would have been slower and less effective.

I use the technique on junior IT staff all the time. Ahh... I've seen this incorrect thought process and the bad outcome... Let's ask him or her a couple of pointed questions about how they'll recover if the worst they can imagine happens and then plan for them to likely have to have time to execute it on this project. We can spare the efficiency for the learning experience. They're going to need the practice in thinking about all the details they're missing if I'm not here for whatever reason.

That's all I'm saying, really. Does the jump straight to "operational" practices slow that inevitable "must make controlled mistakes" learning process?

Note how fast one of our recent posters picked up on the gap in their airmanship when they entered an incipient spin the day before their PP check ride? And how quickly they researched what they didn't know and applied it to the scenario?

One of my old instructors had a phrase he'd say to lower the stress of such an incident and make me laugh when he let me make such mistakes, "Hey, pay attention. There's going to be a test!"

A FRAT isn't going to prevent students from making mistakes or bad decisions. All it is is another tool. For one thing, it's used in planning so if conditions change during the flight the student still needs to make decisions.

 

[KSCessnaDriver]

Honestly, it sounds just like how Riddle operated when I was there, and then made the decision to not fly there after I finished my instrument ticket with them.

It sucks how they do it, but I get it. They have huge liability and have to do something to protect themselves, ignoring the real reason they are there, to teach pilots.

 

[weilke]

It sucks how they do it, but I get it. They have huge liability and have to do something to protect themselves, ignoring the real reason they are there, to teach pilots.

Their students still find plenty of ways to bend airplanes. The university is just trying not to have fatalities.

I find the wind to be more of a limitation to flying in ND than a restriction against IMC below freezing. It is uncommon for us to have the kind of winter stratus where that is the case.
Given the wind, Pipers are a better choice for a training plane than the 172s. Did my private in a Archer and a 140 and IR in Archer and Comanche. Lots of opportunity to practice crosswind landings.

 

[LDJones]

Their students still find plenty of ways to bend airplanes. The university is just trying not to have fatalities.

I find the wind to be more of a limitation to flying in ND than a restriction against IMC below freezing. It is uncommon for us to have the kind of winter stratus where that is the case.
Given the wind, Pipers are a better choice for a training plane than the 172s. Did my private in a Archer and a 140 and IR in Archer and Comanche. Lots of opportunity to practice crosswind landings.

As my crop duster instructor said to me on our first lesson in 1978: "If you're going to fly North Dakota, boy, you gotta know how to fly wind!"

 

[Richman67]

Here's a thought, once you get all your ratings, leave for where the jobs are, transfer your credits to the cheapest and fastest online school you can find and work a real flying job and do your school in your down time.

If you want to have a degree from 'Cheap online-U', sure you could do that.

If that's a concern, you can "backdoor" it.... Go to your local Community College for the first two years while living with the folks. Use the money you save for your ratings at the local FBO. At the end of two years, transfer to the school of your choice, meet their "minimum credits in residency" requirement, and get a degree that looks exactly like anyone else's who paid the full nut to go all four years.

Bonus points if you GED out of high school a year or two early and do this. Only for champion level "life hackers".

Richman

 

[weilke]

At the end of two years, transfer to the school of your choice, meet their "minimum credits in residency" requirement, and get a degree that looks exactly like anyone else's who paid the full nut to go all four years.

Looks sort of the same until someone reviews the transcript and CV. I know a good number of people who have done their undergrad that way. My wife is on the recruitment committee for a competitive residency program. The candidates who have worked their way up that way get extra credit in her assessment.
That's a bit different from going to a full university and finishing at online-U. Always raises the question whether someone couldn't hack it.

Bonus points if you GED out of high school a year or two early and do this. Only for champion level "life hackers".

Two of my wife's nephews just did that. They found out that the school has to give you a HS diploma once you have the required credits. They put in two summers of dual credit courses at the community college and graduated HS after 18 months.

 

[James331]

Another hack to that is just straight drop out of high school, take the GED test, easy enough a monkey could pass it, get into community college and have your AA before your peers have their high school diploma.

 

[Wheels]

There is no charge to the student for community college courses if they are dual enrolled in high school in this district. The school district even provides their college books. A lot of the more intelligent kids graduate high school with an associates degree that didn't cost them or their parents a penny. (At least not directly, we are all covering it with our property taxes so their parents contributed to that.) They are also guaranteed acceptance at any of the public state universities to complete their bachelors.

 

[denverpilot]

As my crop duster instructor said to me on our first lesson in 1978: "If you're going to fly North Dakota, boy, you gotta know how to fly wind!"

My first instructor started in Cheyenne. Same types of commentary. "If I never soloed a student when the wind was blowing 20, I'd never have soloed anyone. But when that's all they ever flew in, they were already used to it," he always joked.

I know he wasn't 100% serious about the joke, but there was more truth to it than fiction. There's a reason they use a wind chain instead of a windsock in CYS. Haha.

Usually that joke came out when I would call him to balk at 10G15 with a crosswind. In other words, without saying it on the phone, he was saying, "Get your ass to the airport, you're going to learn how to fly in this."

His other joke about flying at nighttime, "Airplane isn't scared of the dark, are you?" Probably "took" too well. I bomb around at night probably a little more than maybe is advisable in a single. I was not too surprised to find that 1/5 of my logged hours are in the dark.

That's a risk I've always been willing to take but I think a little harder about it as I get older, and fly a touch higher with flight plans the keep airports usually within gliding distance. And I'm more aware of those few minutes in "no man's land" in-between airport glide range and play the "if it quits here, what looks best to land on down there?" game in my head a little more. I've always been a night owl.

 

[LDJones]

His other joke about flying at nighttime, "Airplane isn't scared of the dark, are you?" Probably "took" too well. I bomb around at night probably a little more than maybe is advisable in a single. I was not too surprised to find that 1/5 of my logged hours are in the dark.

I can relate. It's a long story, but the end of it is my first night solo was off his unlit grass spray strip. He told me: "I'm going to send Baskem [his flagman] down to the end of the strip with the pickup. Line up on the corn and get off before the pickup. Do a few stop and goes once you get back to Fargo. Oh, and I don't want to read about you in the paper tomorrow!"

A couple years later I was home from law school and called him to meet me for a beer. He said, "Bring your logbook." So we met and he started perusing my logbook when I saw a smile start to spread across his face. I asked him what was so amusing.

He said, "I was afraid I might be creating a night monster when I soloed you out of the farm that night. Looks like I did!" About 40% of my 200 or so hours were night.

I said "Weren't you a little worried about Baskem sitting down there in the pickup?"

"Nah....I guess I can tell you this now: I told him to park the pickup and take a long walk and have a cigarette."

 

[MooneyDriver78]

There is a billboard by the local airports with an ad about pilots needed:
Http://transstates.net
Maybe there is a pilot shortage?

 

[LDJones]

There is a billboard by the local airports with an ad about pilots needed:
Http://transstates.net
Maybe there is a pilot shortage?

My regional was raided to the tune of 60 pilots to the majors last month. I think that's a company record. They're hiring and training as fast as they can, but it's tough to find and train those kinds of numbers.

 

[Tarheelpilot]

If the scoring system is the one I'm thinking about, it's called a FRAT (flight risk assessment tool). The operator can define their own point system and limits, but here are some examples. I would not be surprised if UND uses one because they are becoming the thing to do and will probably be required by regulation for 135 operators soon.

A very simple one geared to small GA. https://www.faa.gov/news/safety_briefing/2015/media/SE_Topic_15-08.pdf

One geared to turbine operators. https://www.nbaa.org/admin/sms/info07015.pdf

Sms has been around in the 135 world for a long time. I was working with a fully implemented sms in 2001. Exposure to a formal risk assessment program is not a bad thing in any way.

 

[Everskyward]

Sms has been around in the 135 world for a long time. I was working with a fully implemented sms in 2001. Exposure to a formal risk assessment program is not a bad thing in any way.

It might have been "around" in the 135 world but is not required, yet.

 

[Tarheelpilot]

It might have been "around" in the 135 world but is not required, yet.

It has been around enough that if an operator is running without a risk assement program I'm more surprised than if they have one.

Besides that I don't understand how anyone could say they are unnecessary or a waste of time at any level of aviation.

Whoever it was earlier in the thread that was criticizing und's rumored use of a risk assement program doesn't understand imo.

 

[denverpilot]

There is a billboard by the local airports with an ad about pilots needed:
Http://transstates.net
Maybe there is a pilot shortage?

Naming an airline "TSA" probably isn't the best Marketing strategy ever... Just sayin'.