I'm back! and ready to learn

[TwinOtterFan]

First off how is everybody doing? It's been a while since I have been able to log on and chat. I used to check this page every morning with my breakfast but have been out for the last few months, did I miss anything interesting? I hope all is well and everyone is enjoying their summer, I am finally back and ready to start my flight training officially this time... and much later than I had anticipated but better late than never I think.

Any tips before I begin this adventure?

[Colonel]

People might assign you reading before a lesson.

Complete waste of time. It will be jibber/jabber.

Show up early, before your lesson. As you get more experience you will
learn to pre-flight the airplane. Have that done ASAP, preferably before
your instructor even shows up! Hint: remove flight locks. Gas. Oil. Windshield.

You will get ground instruction and pre-flight briefing. You don't know the
difference. Don't worry, your instructor probably doesn't either. It would
be nice if he told you, before you went flying, what you are going to do,
and how to do it. Maybe what you might see. Maybe common errors.

That's probably too much to ask. You're going to go flying, and you're going
to be very busy. Many confusing things are going to happen for the first time,
that you don't understand. You will be "behind the airplane", which is normal
for low-time pilots. Try to look outside as much as you can - use the big
attitude indicator called the horizon - and remember the indentations were
put on the control column by the manufacturer, not by pilots squeezing the
controls insanely. Learn to use the trim, and try not to over-control.

After the flight, your instructor probably won't bother with a post-flight
briefing - the civilian world isn't big on them, which is a real pity.

But you should figure out, after the flight, what is the MOST IMPORTANT
THING you could do, to do it better. Just pick one thing. The most important.

After you get home, write or type out what you did on that flight. How
you were supposed to do it. What errors you made. How you can correct
them and do it better next time.

Now, read the corresponding chapter in the Flight Training Manual, and it
will make sense. Learn what you were supposed to do, and how you are
supposed to do it well.

No one in the civilian world does this, but if they did, they would halve
their flight training time from 100 hours to PPL, to 50 hours to PPL.

Efficiency is unimportant in civilian flight training, which is unfortunate.

Good luck, and have fun! Don't do anything I wouldn't do.



My son is jumping with his BASE rig today. Don't do that, either.

You people worrying about the seasonal flu are so cute.

[Slick Goodlin]

^what he said, mostly. The Colonel has been at it a lot longer than I have and nothing he said is going to make your wiener fall off so who am I to argue? I was going to suggest reading the relevant chapter(s) of the FTM the night before each lesson as a sort of base to build the flight on but starting today I like that idea of reading after to help lock it in.

Hopefully you can find a good instructor, they should be a lot easier to find now than they were this time last year and don’t be afraid to change if you’re not getting along. Other than that, remember that your landing is like 0.1% of the flight so don’t let the firmness of it ruin your day. Most of all never forget that you’re flying because you like flying. If you ever get down on your training and need to recharge just go flying for the enjoyment of it, whether that’s by going with a friend to buzz around or with your instructor to just practice some exercise you already enjoy, or just going sightseeing.

Also thanks for asking how my summer has been going. It’s been the best and worst ever; work has been unstable as hell but I’ve been more involved with the Moth than ever before in my time off and frankly I’d rather focus on that. That part has been just delightful.

Have fun flying and keep us posted.

[Colonel]

suggest reading the relevant chapter(s) of the FTM the night before each lesson

I used to recommend that, until I realized it was a complete waste of the
student's time. It confused and frustrated him, and the FTM shouldn't do
that - that's TC's job.

Reading the FTM after the lesson is a lot better use of the student's time,
is what I learned over the decades.

As Slick says, try to enjoy flying. I sure as hell do.



Ignore the jealous haters. Canadian aviation is full of them.

When you have trouble landing, come back again and we will fix that.

I’ve been more involved with the Moth than ever before in my time off and frankly I’d rather focus on that. That part has been just delightful.

As I've said before, if all you do in aviation is fly a tube & fabric taildragger
off grass, you really haven't missed much.

[Slick Goodlin]

Reading the FTM after the lesson is a lot better use of the student's time,
is what I learned over the decades.

After mulling it over some more, do you think that’s a universal truth or do your decades of experience factor into this being the best thing for your students?

As I've said before, if all you do in aviation is fly a tube & fabric taildragger off grass, you really haven't missed much.

Preach. I’ve decided that my world is best viewed through a filter of wings and wires.

[Colonel]

this being the best thing for your students?

Clearly, I can only speak for the experiences of my students :^)

The learning factor of Relationship tells us that students will have a great
deal of difficulty learning new stuff that is completely unrelated and unrooted
in any other experience or knowledge that they possess at the time.

I believe this is why reading the FTM before the flight - the student trying
to do his own ground instruction - is not very efficient for the vast majority
of people.

Reading the applicable FTM chapter after the flight reviews what the student
was already told by the instructor and what he did in the airplane, and does
a very good job of reinforcing the new knowledge. Learning factor of Recency
strongly applies here.

Again, I can only speak from my own experience of teaching my own students
over the decades. I would be fascinated to hear what other experienced
instructors think about this.

Remember, efficiency is very important to me. It is not very important to
other instructors in civil aviation, to whom a 100hr PPL is acceptable. This
affects how I teach. The student's time (and money) is very valuable to me.
I do not spend it carelessly.

And do keep in mind that TC says that while I am technically qualified to renew
my class one instructor and aerobatic instructor ratings, I am not eligible to do so.

my world is best viewed through a filter of wings and wires

At the risk of sounding like some dreamy idiot like Richard Bach, the first
time I flew a biplane, I knew I had come home. Twins and jets are nice,
don't get me wrong. Like internet porn, they are very popular. But very
subjectively, a biplane is where I belong.



The TC Inspectors and Four Bars can spew their venom and hate, but this
is quite literally my view of the world:

[TwinOtterFan]

People might assign you reading before a lesson.

Complete waste of time. It will be jibber/jabber.

Show up early, before your lesson. As you get more experience you will
learn to pre-flight the airplane. Have that done ASAP, preferably before
your instructor even shows up! Hint: remove flight locks. Gas. Oil. Windshield.

After the flight, your instructor probably won't bother with a post-flight
briefing - the civilian world isn't big on them, which is a real pity.

But you should figure out, after the flight, what is the MOST IMPORTANT
THING you could do, to do it better. Just pick one thing. The most important.

After you get home, write or type out what you did on that flight. How
you were supposed to do it. What errors you made. How you can correct
them and do it better next time.

Now, read the corresponding chapter in the Flight Training Manual, and it
will make sense. Learn what you were supposed to do, and how you are
supposed to do it well.

Good luck, and have fun! Don't do anything I wouldn't do.



My son is jumping with his BASE rig today. Don't do that, either.

You people worrying about the seasonal flu are so cute.

After almost a decade of military service I assumed showing up early and having the pre-flight done and the plane ready to go was literally the only way to start the lesson. 10 minutes early is on time after all,

I really like the idea of writing out my flight and then reading to find my own deficiencies, a lot like my training. What went wrong? What to change? Try again.

Thank you for the input,

[TwinOtterFan]

^what he said, mostly. The Colonel has been at it a lot longer than I have and nothing he said is going to make your wiener fall off so who am I to argue? I was going to suggest reading the relevant chapter(s) of the FTM the night before each lesson as a sort of base to build the flight on but starting today I like that idea of reading after to help lock it in.

Hopefully you can find a good instructor, they should be a lot easier to find now than they were this time last year and don’t be afraid to change if you’re not getting along. Other than that, remember that your landing is like 0.1% of the flight so don’t let the firmness of it ruin your day. Most of all never forget that you’re flying because you like flying. If you ever get down on your training and need to recharge just go flying for the enjoyment of it, whether that’s by going with a friend to buzz around or with your instructor to just practice some exercise you already enjoy, or just going sightseeing.

Also thanks for asking how my summer has been going. It’s been the best and worst ever; work has been unstable as hell but I’ve been more involved with the Moth than ever before in my time off and frankly I’d rather focus on that. That part has been just delightful.

Have fun flying and keep us posted.

Thank you, I imagine there may be a day or two that I will have to remind myself why I am making this change, I have been in tons of aircraft, but only ever "flown" once. But I was hooked the minute I did lol. There is a private grass field not to far from where I will be staying and they teach tail dragger their. I have been thinking it would be really awesome to do that at some point I'm not sure if I should wait until my PPL is done? or if I can blend the two?

Your welcome, I'm sorry you had a bit of a rough summer with work. I imagine that has been the norm with most people, I am glad to hear you had something to focus on though, it makes a big difference. I struggled to find the positives during my summer.

[Slick Goodlin]

There is a private grass field not to far from where I will be staying and they teach tail dragger their. I have been thinking it would be really awesome to do that at some point I'm not sure if I should wait until my PPL is done? or if I can blend the two?

Can you make the tailwheel flying part of your PPL training? I can confidently tell you... maybe.

When learning tailwheel you’re either flying with an instructor or a ‘mentor’ (not an official term). You see unlike the US, in Canada there’s no such thing as a tailwheel rating or endorsement so you don’t need an instructor. However, you do need an instructor to gain experience that’s valid for the sign-off of a private license. Further to that, when flying with an instructor the aircraft either needs to be registered to a Flight Training Unit, or registered to you or your family. There’s a third option (obtained at arm’s length) but nobody including TC knows what it really means. The ‘mentor’ btw often rents you their airplane and comes along for free to observe and give pointers; not legal flight instruction (in that you can’t log dual) but not illegal either. It has its place and I support it.

My suggestion would be to slam through your PPL as quickly as you can reasonably bear, focusing on having one instructor and flying one type. Broad experiences are good (please oh please fly different stuff in different ways after your sign-off) but dual flying is expensive and keeping up momentum in training is good. Do seek out an instructor with some diversity of experience, they’re better equipped to parse out what’s really needed to fly an airplane instead of this airplane. Basically if the school flies DA20s and your instructor has 245 hours total time all on DA20s, you don’t want him. Let him build experience on someone else. I have a stock rant on this but I’ll save it for another thread sometime.

[TwinOtterFan]

Okay, that makes sense. I do not think the flight school I am attending does have a taildragger anymore, I believe they have phased them out. It is a large FTU and also a large flying club so possibly I could find a mentor after my PPL. I did not realize that tail wheel was not an endorsement in Canada. I went back in looked at the other FTU that offers it and they just teach PPL's it just happens to be in a tailwheel so maybe another option for after my PPL.

Either way, PPL first then I'll look at tailwheel again while ticking away my CPL maybe, I also thought about a float rating since I can obtain that as well in the same area. Not sure if its worth it, it is something I have always been interested in and can always do it later I was just thinking if I'm going to pay to fly may as well be learning something at the same time?