Where to live now?

[Squaretail]

I should re-word that, what I was very poorly trying to say was now that I have a tiny amount of time flying I can find some of the short comings with how my training has progressed to this point, and although I do find it frustrating I want to use these points as learning points to shape my own leadership and mentoring abilities so that I can be a useful and safe instructor. I really do enjoy mentoring, I loved it as a combat medic and in the clinic, teaching skills and passing on knowledge is satisfying. Something I learned long ago was even if you had a shitty Sargent or whatever you could still learn something from them, I always called it a pertinent negative, I would take the lesson I learned and never do that to my troops.

The main thing you will find out as an instructor is that your relationship with the student takes a drastic turn when the relationship is also service provider and customer. In addition to the skills you already have here, add the requirement of customer service expert to them. At least when it comes to the civilian flying world. Now in an ideal world we would solely grade instructors and schools by the quality and efficiency of their training. But that’s not the real world, so just be prepared for that clash.

Re teaching tail wheel: It is not rocket science, but the airplane has to be straight when it touches. As long as it is straight the student can’t hurt the airplane, so you have to be ready to take over immediately if things start going (literally) sideways

In essence yes, but there is a bit more to it than that. If one does start on the road to teaching, there are a whole gamut of things (and maybe non apparent hazards) for the instructor to be prepared for. Taxiing itself may be an adventure. Touching straight is just the start. Letting the tail down is where the rodeo really starts. Take offs may be a surprising shock for the neophyte. Especially if they are taking a step up with power in this adventure. Some advice: if you are going to jump from tailwheel pilot to start teaching, go do it on the widest patch of grass you can find.

[Colonel]

I think a significant amount of negative G is like hitting your head against a brick wall

I hear you. Negative G is an acquired taste. Positive G tolerance is easy to build,
but negative G tolerance must be built slowly, to avoid tearing your inner ear up.

But the aircraft can do negative G. If you decide to not fly negative G, you're going
to neglect an awful lot of the flight envelope:



For 99.999% of pilots, they are happy to be the limiting factor, wear white shirts and push
buttons, and not be able to do what the aircraft is capable of. I get that. But, I don't
live there. Any aircraft I fly, I want to be able to precisely fly it to all of it's limits.

The Russians never had a problem with negative G. Hell, the L39's have stirrups on the
rudder pedals to keep your feet on them during negative G, which is an expected and
normal flight regime.

[Colonel]

Tailwheel training: Learning factor: from the simple, to the complex.

I shudder when I see people jump into an taildragger for the first time and
start pounding circuits. They are ridiculously behind the aircraft at touchdown
which is often violently out of control. Over and over again.

Before you fly a taildragger, you learn to taxi it. Find a deserted runway or
highway. Taxi down the centerline at 10 mph. Whatever you can keep up
with. Have the instructor stab the left pedal. At this point, you will fully
depress the right pedal, past straight, and attempt to exit the pavement
on the right hand side at a very large angle.

Don't do that.

After the instructor stabs the left pedal, push the right pedal and release
it before the nose comes back to parallel with the centerline. Now you
are on the left side of the runway. Use a little right rudder - less than 5
degrees of yaw - to slowly converge with the centerline. Catch it.

Now, the instructor stabs the right pedal, and you depress the left pedal
to establish the aircraft again parallel to the centerline. Slight angle back.

Get it?

Now, increase your speed to 15 mph and repeat until you can keep up.

Now, increase your speed to 20 mph and repeat until you can keep up.

Now, increase your speed to 25 mph and repeat until you can keep up.

Until you can control an aircraft through the touchdown speed, there
is no point attempting a landing.

Pilots are always hopelessly behind the airplane, which is why they
need more practice. One hour of the "wind game" above, as Budd
Davisson calls it, is worth 10 hours of wild circuits.

[John Swallow]

Deleted...

[Big Pistons Forever]

Absolutely if you can’t control yaw at slow speeds you are not going to be able to control yaw at touchdown speeds.

Like the Colonel I start with teaching how to taxi at progressively higher speeds

The point I was trying to make is that tail draggers are rare enough now they seem to have acquired this fire breathing persona where you are always milliseconds from disaster. While there are undoubtedly some very demanding tail draggers, your average light GA tail dragger is not that hard to fly.

I taught 2 PPL’s from zero hours on a Cessna 120 and have done numerous tail wheel conversion for tricycle pilots. Ultimately from an Instructors view point it is just another rating. You have to have a syllabus that respects training fundamentals like, primacy, readiness, and relationship, know what the common mistakes are and make your interventions timely and appropriate.

[Big Pistons Forever]

One thing that never seems to get discussed at flight schools

When you are learning to fly you are the customer and the school wants you happy enough to keep coming back and spending your money.

On your first day as a working pilot you are an expense to the company and only of value if the income you generate significantly exceeds the cost of having you as an employee. Your happiness is pretty much irrelevant and this comes as a shock to many new pilots “experiencing” their first taste as a working pilot

As an instructor holding students accountable for their actions, or usually their inactions is difficult and will often be discouraged by flying school management. This cognitive dissonance will manifest itself when you demand performance from the lazy and/or stupid, and/or unmotivated student in order to become a decent pilot and they complain to the flight school manager and then take their money elsewhere.

Unfortunately the flying training business does not incentivize quality instruction. That being said being a good instructor is a choice. You can absolutely be a good instructor at any flight school just understand that your efforts will often not be appreciated or rewarded.

[Colonel]

your average light GA tail dragger is not that hard to fly

Anything is easy if you know how

One of my regrets in life is that I never got to fly this:



A taildragger jet. How fucking cool is that?

[Squaretail]

Unfortunately the flying training business does not incentivize quality instruction. That being said being a good instructor is a choice. You can absolutely be a good instructor at any flight school just understand that your efforts will often not be appreciated or rewarded.

The question would be if a good instructor has no students, is he a good instructor? The whole package matters. The same could be said of being a pilot in general. Being a good instructor is a venn diagram with lots of overlapping circles. Rod Machado is my hero in this regard.

It should also be said that most students don’t even prioritize good instruction. Last AOPA poll I saw on the subject, it didn’t even make the top five items of what made students qualify a school as a “good school”.

On the subject of tailwheel training, I will third the process of taxiing training as the start. But that said, I find blank slates are (as with most training) easiest to train. The airplanes aren’t firebreathers. However, if the student approaches it like it is, it’s another hurdle to jump. Some people can make relatively easy things harder than they need to be.

[Colonel]

I find blank slates are (as with most training) easiest to train

Absolutely. A 15 year old kid that has never flown before, will not have a
problem with using a taildragger for his first 10 hours of flight training.
He has no bad habits to unlearn. And he's young and learns very quickly.

Contrast that with a 50 year old guy with 10 years of (only) nosewheel
flying. He has learned that he doesn't need to use the rudder pedals.
He needs to unlearn his current instincts and learn new ones. And
that's going to take a long time.

if a good instructor has no students, is he a good instructor?

In mathematics, we refer to that as the "trivial solution" - a matrix full of zeroes!

I work very hard to be a good instructor with absolutely no students. I
did it for 25 years. Someone else's turn now.

[TwinOtterFan]

That being said being a good instructor is a choice. You can absolutely be a good instructor at any flight school just understand that your efforts will often not be appreciated or rewarded.

If you want to be underappreciated join the CF lol, but seriously I see your point and I get it. But your right its choice, and even though it was rarely rewarded I did my job to a 110% for me I guess, I get that it will not be all rainbows and puppy dogs, and beautiful sunny days flying amazing planes. I am sure there will be plenty of shit days just like everything else, but the difference will be a shitty day in a plane is still better than a shitty day wishing I was in a plane.

And this is not a grass is always greener thing, this is me realizing that life is short and its cruel and I control a very small piece of it. One of those pieces is how I feel that day and how I feel about what I'm doing. I have tried a few times to explain how I felt after my last deployment, how it changed my views on life. I haven't really found the words yet. But I knew I was done, and I knew I wanted to chase that dream and be a pilot. And yes I know I'm late to the game, I'm older and slower, but I love it.

I would like to hear from the instructors about why you instruct and what you do like about it for once.

EDIT:
Just for reference, I was in the medical branch so my customers were generally having the worst day of their life, or no life left and now surrounded by people feeling like it is the worst day of their life.