Back when I lived in IA, I was able to meet breifly with Captain Al Haynes after a speaking engagement. He had recently reached mandatory retirement, and was going full bore on a lecture tour. I still believe he is on the speaking circuit, and hearing him in person is a great experience. I did locate an early transcript of his speech , and it is simliar to what I remember from those years back.
This is a multi part article, as he covered a lot of ground, but in the talk, and afterwords.
declaring an emergency
“I don’t know how many light airplane pilots you have here today, but I’ve talked to several groups of several pilots, and this one you can pass on Mary, they’re afraid to say anything, they don’t like to declare an emergency, they’re afraid their’ going to cause some problems or something like that. And they said to me, well, you have all these resources of United Airlines at your disposal, and the center, and all this. So do you Three words: I’m declaring an emergency, and you’ve got it. All the help you want.”
As flight instructors, we cover the FAR’s and the AIM, and the after effects of declaring an emergency to a T. One of the things it seems we fail to mention is that yes, all the help we need is available, if we ask. Sure, some folks will be ticked off due to delays, or an upset to their daily activities, especially if nothing happens. By the same token, those same people, even though ticked, are darn glad you made it down safely. One of the things Al impressed upon me as a CFI, was to beat it into my student’s heads to ask, and to lessen the emphasis on the after effects. A ton of paperwork, and a harried FAA inspector, is a lot easier to deal with, than a broken airplane, or human injury by either failing to declare an emergency, or not declaring one soon enough. Its obvious to us, it may not be so for a 70 hour private pilot.
post traumatic stress
“Now, I was never one to believe much in post-traumatic stress. had heard it a lot in WWII, from Korean, and Vietnam veterans, and Ithought, well, okay, if such a thing exists, I’ll let it go, because I don’t really believe it. I believe it now. And I’m asking you tobelieve it. It may never happen to you–I’m fortunate enough not tohave suffered PTS–yet.”
Some of us, have experienced close calls, or actual accidents, or incidents that had the potential, or did seriously mess us up. I’m not talking about the student that does something stupid or we get caught off guard, but cases where a crash occured, or an inflight scenario of such a magnitiude, that causes long term significant mental anguish. Please note, this is quite different than the normal short term effects of emotional distress such as one might encounter in a car crash etc. As CFI’s, who have been through such scenarios, we may not talk about these very much. For some, its an issue where they don’t want inadvertantly regulatory oversight, for others, its embarrasement over doing something stupid, and for others, its being the tough guy.
One of the things Al Haynes mentioned was the importance of talking about these things, and doing so quickly, as a way of commencing healing and avoiding potential trouble later. I think this is critical in general aviation. We all know gung ho pilots, some with a 100 hours, some with a few thousand, who all of a sudden quit flying. My guess is, that in many cases, it wasn’t external factors, but something that happened in flight. My concern in this matter, is not loosing a good customer, but more so, someone may well be holding things in, and it could rear up and cause trouble in their life later on. We should encourage sharing of adverse situations, as an integral part of initial and recurrent flight training. An awareness of ways of coping, prior to an event, may be useful to a pilots mental health as well as the obvious impact such discussions can have in preventing future scenarios. Please note, neither Al Haynes in his talk, nor I suggest we grill someone for info, but that we lend a willing ear. I think it is reasonable to discuss this aspect of coping, in combination with ASRS procedures, and regulatory oversight. Despite the medical reporting issues that occur, seeking professional guidance after an event may not be such a bad idea. Remember, EMS, police, and firefighters are often required to do so. The lone pilot should not feel odd, checking things out if need be, as a preventative measure.
11% OF A LECTURE is all that first year college students typically capture in their notes, according to research.1
Hmmm, it that us the case for college students, what must it be like for the 50 year old aviation student taking a private pilot ground school. Part of the issue stems from the ability to organiza ones thoughts on paper. When the subject material is new, capturing the highpoints can be quite problematic, and before too long, ones notepad ends up looking like a big fubared mess. Even more so, is the inherrant distraction of notetaking in and of itself. In the past, it was common to provide handouts to the students before the lecture. Such notes would be completely filled in with all the relevant detail. Unfortunately, what this does, is it allows the student to be passive, rather than forcing their active involvement in the lecture.
An idea proposed by Gales2 is a compromise which provides for better student organization, and active participation The idea is a simple one, a set of key point notes at the beginning of class, for the student to fill in, followed up by a complete set of notes for the student to review at the end of class. However, such a practice is not common place, due to the resource constrants of professional educators, as noted in aeroinstructor.3
To me, this seems a golden idea, and I am definitely going to put it to use at my next ground school class. In addition, I'm going to see what sort of feedback this concept generates after trying it a session or two.
(1) Kiewra, K. A. (1985). Providing the instructor's notes: An effective addition to student notetaking. Educational Psychologist. 20. 33-39.
(2) Gales, P. (2005). Instructor-provided notes. In B. Hoffman (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Educational Technology http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/articles/instprvdnts/start.htm
(3) Amundson, R. H. (2006) Why we should look at educational psychology http://aeroinstructor.com/content/view/26/29/
Education psychology is in a continual state of flux, and unfortunately, much of it remains in the ivory tower only to be shared amongst a tiny few in the educational community. These leaves the lone CFI to rely on his own personal experinece, and the availability of preplanned curricula. Unfortunately, we often times get left behind when it comes to instructional techniques and processes to foster better efficiency in learning. Granted, our 2 year FIRCs are as a rule pretty decent, but they put a lot of focus on subject material, rather than the higher level issues of educational psychology, and often times end up a being a review of the Flight Instructions Handbook on ed psych.
The other issue is one of highly constrained resources in education. The average professional educator is often time more cost and time constrained than a freelance flight instructor or one working for a small FBO. Ok, now that the rocks have been thrown, I too will admit teaching for a total wage of $0.50/hour when all was said and done. The advantage we have, is that if we provide a better training experience, our feedback loop is small enough, that it will equate to more money in our pocket, unlike other professional educators. This hit home when a student gave me a $100 tip for his oral test prep session. Improving your educational effectiveness will affect your bottom line. Using educational psychology is one of many tools to improve your effectiveness.
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Tags: educational psychology
Virtually every place I have worked for over the years has engaged in team instruction. It could be a formal phase check with a different instructor. If could be a way of keeping the student on track when their primary CFI was out sick, on a charter, or otherwise unavailable. In other cases, it can be used to get a student through a learning plateau. Its a great way to foster a well rounded student through diversity of instructional techniques.
Communication and consistancy are key. As CFI’s we all have different ways of doing things, and in some cases, we may even consider one CFI’s approach to be totally wrong… However, we have to take a big picture view of this, and that is consistency for the students sake, even if it goes against our personal opinions and bias.
For example, I have always taken a dim view of 30 minute preflights. Other instructors seem to be pleased with such an approach. Now, if I’m working at a school that advocates a 30 minute preflight, then thats what I will teach to my primary students. If I’m working at a school that has a no lean policy below 5000 feet, then I will teach leaning as an academic exercise only. I will however take up these somewhat unusual practices with the chief instructor, or the owner in private. Their may be reasons why they wish to do these things. Such reasons may only be old wives tails, or they may be valid given other extenuating factors. Either way, they are the one paying the tab, and professionalism suggests I follow their lead even if I disagree. Of course this does not preclude going along with blatantly unsafe operating practices, nor breaking the law in order to please the boss.
The reason for this is not to be a wimp, but to provide a consistant and unified instructional environment for the student. Once they have their certificate or rating, at that time, if the owner of the flight school agrees, we can go into different ways of approaching flying. I think it is critical for every CFI candidate to be exposed to a wide variety of instructional and procedural techniques.
Tags: Business Operations, consistancy, team
Here are the latest test questions from the FAA.
Sport Pilot Powered Parachute Weight Shift
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These are 2004 versions of the Sport Pilot PTS
Airplane, Gyroplane, Gyrocopter, and Flight Instructor
Airship Ballon Flight Instructor
Weight Shift Control, Powered Parachute, Flight Instructor
Tags: sport pilot pts
If I compare aircraft utilization today, to the early 80’s, it is sad, really sad. I think too many flight schools have their rates cranked way up. They are failing to reach a decent level of aircraft utilization, and in order to remain viable, are passing the fixed costs on to their students with high hourly rates.
An aircraft on the ground is like leaving your wallet open to the wind. Sure, some of the time, it can’t be helped due to weather or maintenance issues. Otoh, with proper marketing, management, and weather most aircraft should be flying 100 hours/month at a minimum, and 200 is golden. So now, that folks think I’m crazy, or that this can only occur at an air college program, lets get on with how to make it work.
First of all, maintenance: 100 hour inspections and all maintenance can be scheduled at night, thus minimizing flight interruptions. We used to start 100 hour inspections in the late afternoon/early evening Unless we ran into parts problems, most of the time we were done by 2AM. Since we did 100 hour inspections every 2-3 weeks, we would document items that were getting worn, such that they could be replaced at the next 100 hour, or in the next 200 hours depending on the wear rate. This kept us from having to stock lots of tires, brake parts, and other consumable maintenance items.
Secondly, pre-scheduling. Unlike today, we would have our students schedule the airplane for more than just the next lesson. This alone, kept the schedule pretty full.
Thirdly, night flight: There is no reason not to teach instrument flying at night, and to include significant night dual during the later hours of private pilot training. It keeps the aircraft available for VFR students, and intro flights during the daylight hours. In addition, for most students, proficiency at night operations really solidifies their day operations. Of course this is a matter of instructor judgement… but I will tell you that doing 720 degree turns at night as a 15 hour student pilot, sure made it a lot easier to do them during the daytime hours.
Fourth, sell, sell, and sell some more: One days when the weather was bad, it was time to get on the horn and make 10-20 calls. We’d call potential students, current students, and students who had completed training. These were not scripted activities, but more a check in sort of like “this is Ron from Valley Aviation, hows it going, how was your last flight, how are the kids etc, followed up by some banter, and then asking if they would like to schedule some recurrent training, or try out a new aircraft, or if nothing else, sn invite to stop on out, have some coffee, and fly the hanger.
Fifth hanger flying: Our hanger had people there from 7AM-7PM most of the time… . The coffee, and the atomic bomb shelter candy, and donuts were always available. (Although the coffee generally was not too good after 2PM!). It was always interesting to come back and find out some of our students were doing the selling for us… The local police, and business owners of the community often times would stop in for a chat every few days. What this did was create an aviation community across a wide spectra of society. It might be the 15 year old kid one day, talking to a retired grey beard, or a big corp wheel taking with a farmer, but all had this one goal in mind, flying. I think too many FBO’s go the corp way today, and their is no oppurtunity for the hanger to be flown… and it does affect aircraft utilization, and the financial performance of the flight school.
Sadly, what i see today in aviation is a lack of proactive marketing such as occured 20 years ago. The flight school no longer has the high utilization rates, so it has to raise hourly rates to cover the fixed costs. This in turn keeps many of the 15 year olds away from the airport, and its a serious deterrant to the young man with a familiy.
However, should a flight school market aggresively, their is still a huge potnential to make money in the business. I just don’t understand why it doesn’t happen anymore. Has time building become such a focus that business no longer matters to CFI’s? Sure, a CFI doesn’t like making $8-$10/hour to make coffee, cold call, pump fuel, answer phones, wrench planes, clean the john, or do whatever, just to be on site. However, the same CFI is going to be the one with a full plate of students in short order, as he was there to sell. Ask yourself, who makes a better flight school salesman, a CFI, or the line guy who has 4 airplanes backed up, or the receptionist who is trying to hold the place together, or the manager/owner who has his own plate full… Its the CFI, the one who can do all the grunt work as needed, yet stop in an instant to talk with a potential client should one walk in the door. Its the CFI who is cleaning the floor that can pop in with a quick answer to the guys flying the hanger, that gets 3 new students for a proficiency training program. Its the CFI who was there, when a fellow CFI’s student had a bad day, and needed a confidence boost, rather than to give up.
Such actions are true professionalism, and are not demeaning in the least… unless of course, you don’t want to make money in the flight school business. Then it may be fine to be on call, show up just for a few students now and then, and provide no help whatsoever to all the other people that make a flight school successful. Its your choice, what shall you do?
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Tags: business, flight school, operations
The TSA’s Recurrent Security Awareness Training Exemption full text is available at http://www.tsa.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/Exemption_FSSA_re-current.pdf
Everyone mentions the 18 month term, instead of the 12 month rule, but its always good to get an official notice. Of course, this still leaves the actual training up in the air.
TSA guidance outlines a four-part program of recurrent training, which must include review and documentation of the following:
1. Any new security measures or procedures implemented.
2. Any security incidents at the flight school or airport, and any lessons learned as a result of such incidents.
3. Any new threats posed by, or incidents involving, general aviation aircraft contained on the TSA Web site.
4. Any new TSA guidelines or recommendations concerning the security of general aviation aircraft, airports, or flight schools.
Recurrecny training is difficult for most pilots once they have earned their certificate. This is especially true for the ground school subjects, as for all too many people, they appear boring, and for some pilots lack relevance.
One of the things I’ve done in the past is provided short seminars at nights, or for the truely diehard individuals, in the early morning hours. Their is nothing like holding a ground school class at 5:30AM to judge the commitment levels of ones students! Surprisingly, I’ve had decent attendence.
The key is to make this sessions interactive, and fun…. We all know that the FAR’s can be pretty boring. One of the things I will do is research some of the latest aviation case law articles from John Yodice. Court cases do interest the public, and when you can tie case law to real life pilot operations, FAR discussions can become quite interesting.
Weather is another area that requires review. One of the things I’ve found useful for preparing curriculum is Skywarn training. While the concentration in skywarn is severe weather, the graphics, and additional weather resources presented in Skywarn create an emotional connection with pilots. Perhaps this is greater in my locale due to the frequency of severe weather, or it may just be the intensity of the subject area.
Additional subject areas for short seminars are cross country planning, transision to glass cockpits, GPS specific training, and medical issues for pilots. In the future, I’m planning on adding some course material specific to experimental aircraft, light sport aircraft, avionics, and maintenance.
Tags: short seminars
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