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Well, it's good to get tailwheel instruction, but it can be terrifying to give tailwheel instruction.
Pitts was the worst. Teaching people to land the Pitts - especially older guys that had spent
a lifetime flying nosewheel - was always on the brink of destruction. As a bonus, you had
zero visibility forward in the landing attitude, to compound the handling challenges. But if
you could do it, you had to do it. No one else would.
The only thing worse than teaching someone to land a Pitts, was teaching them negative
G formation aerobatics.
See, it's not so bad, teaching positive G formation. I remember I taught some Mooney guys
to do that for the OSH arrival, and they all vomited. Life in the fast lane, kiddies. Reach for
the barf bag. Embrace the barf bag.
Once someone can hold positive G formation, then it's time to move to positive G formation
aerobatics, which is completely different than solo aerobatics. You could have done ten
thousand solo loops and rolls and it doesn't prepare you in the least, to flying positive G
formation aerobatics on wing (lead is totally different).
Once someone can hold the sight picture through any positive G attitude (including inverted),
unless you're going to always take off and land in tight formation - which is a good skill to learn -
you need to teach the kids joinups and breaks.
No civilian has a clue how to do a joinup or an overhead break. You have to teach them from
zero. Remember at the end of a joinup, the two aircraft need to have identical total energy.
Total energy is defined as potential energy plus kinetic energy.
This means you cannot join from above the lead. Duh. Even joining the lead from the same
altitude is problematic.
Easiest is to join the lead from below, and faster. Aim ahead of him. Ask him to turn, and
you turn and climb inside and ahead of him, increasing your potential energy (altitude) and
decreasing your kinetic energy (speed) at the same time. Trade airspeed for altitude.
I like to join with full throttle, every time. Wide fucking open. The more G the lead has on,
the better.
Now, when you climb to his altitude, you probably will have excess airspeed. You will think
it's a problem - you will probably want to overshoot to the outside, and above. Sigh.
No. What you need to realize is that it's now your birthday. Start rolling around the lead
to dissipate energy - you will travel a longer distance.
Rolling around the lead is one of the most fun things you can do with your pants on. I
might humbly recommend that you start doing it with nose-to-tail clearance at first, until
you get good. I think the Snowbirds have had to re-learn that lesson at least once. Ahem.
Ok. Now you've got a wing pilot that can hold positive G formation, AND fly positive G formation
aerobatics, AND can do a joinup. Overheads breaks are easy - try not to hit each other on
the runway, esp with blind taildraggers. You need a protocol to clear, remember.
Now, it's time for the pilot to begin the difficult part of his training - negative G formation
and negative G vertical formation aerobatics. The Snowbirds and Blue Angels will do the
former, but not the latter. Pussies. Learn to do an outside loop in formation. Line abreast.
At the surface. The visuals are AMAZING. You will remember them for the rest of your life,
which might be very short.
Negative G formation, straight and level, is very disorienting for the student and extermely
unpleasant for the instructor. The student will learn that his bank controls are reversed, and
will try to kill you by hitting the lead by banking away from the lead. No. The effect of bank
is reversed under negative G regardless of your pitch attitude. Again, nose to tail clearance
at first.
As an instructor, the most unpleasant and terrifying thing I ever taught was negative G formation
and negative G vertical formation aerobatics.
TC says I'm not allowed to hold any flight instructor ratings any more, and I'm cool with that.
BPF, you should pull my file up. I'm sure the "qualified but not eligible" note would be amusing -
you should post it here for everyone's amusement. I like it when people tell me that I don't know
very much about flying, or how to teach it.
As the owner observes, all the old guys - pilots, instructors, mechanics - are all gone.
Of course they’re all gone. It’s South Dakota. Anyone would be gone if they had any sense. Only marginally more habitable than North Dakota. Think Saskatchewan with even less people, less trees, and more wind. The only weather change is in the winter, the wind gets lethally cold. And blows harder.
The details of my life are quite inconsequential...
Well, it's good to get tailwheel instruction, but it can be terrifying to give tailwheel instruction.
Oh I assumed it would be twice as scary to instruct, but if I shyed away from "scary things" I would not have accomplished much in my life. I'm a simple guy that likes smaller planes and tail draggers. I don't know why I just do. If I can teach tail dragger, or fly tourism up north, or maybe even medivac and get paid for it I think that is just awesome.
I like everything about it, I like smell, the sounds, all of it... Actually the only thing I don't like about aviation is how the FTU is run, I think its shit and it frustrates me daily, it makes me want to get my instructor rating even more so I can do better. And that is what I'm going to do first,
Well, it's good to get tailwheel instruction, but it can be terrifying to give tailwheel instruction.
Oh I assumed it would be twice as scary to instruct, but if I shyed away from "scary things"
It’s almost the scariest thing to do in aviation. If you want to do it, both be good at instructing and be good at tailwheel. I would suggest if regular nose wheel instruction doesn’t scare you off, then you should have the ability to do alternating one wheel touch and goes in the tail dragger before taking a stab at teaching on it.
The main challenge is often you get asked not to teach a 0-level student from scratch, but to take on someone who either doesn’t even fly a nose dragger well, and/or has accumulated a lifetime of bad habits and skill to undo. Don’t try to teach any of these that are stronger than you.
Actually the only thing I don't like about aviation is how the FTU is run, I think its shit and it frustrates me daily, it makes me want to get my instructor rating even more so I can do better. And that is what I'm going to do first,
The unfortunate side of things is that many FTU things are necessities of business which doesn’t always mesh with training efficiency. When you spend your first week as a instructor, revisit this question and see if you feel the same way.
The details of my life are quite inconsequential...
Well, it's good to get tailwheel instruction, but it can be terrifying to give tailwheel instruction.
Oh I assumed it would be twice as scary to instruct, but if I shyed away from "scary things"
It’s almost the scariest thing to do in aviation. If you want to do it, both be good at instructing and be good at tailwheel. I would suggest if regular nose wheel instruction doesn’t scare you off, then you should have the ability to do alternating one wheel touch and goes in the tail dragger before taking a stab at teaching on it.
The main challenge is often you get asked not to teach a 0-level student from scratch, but to take on someone who either doesn’t even fly a nose dragger well, and/or has accumulated a lifetime of bad habits and skill to undo. Don’t try to teach any of these that are stronger than you.
Actually the only thing I don't like about aviation is how the FTU is run, I think its shit and it frustrates me daily, it makes me want to get my instructor rating even more so I can do better. And that is what I'm going to do first,
The unfortunate side of things is that many FTU things are necessities of business which doesn’t always mesh with training efficiency. When you spend your first week as a instructor, revisit this question and see if you feel the same way.
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 first statement was sort of a blanket statement of my frustration in general, I hope the above explains it a bit better.
The problem with teaching, is every student is at least slightly different.
What works well with most can be frustrating with some.
The most difficult person to teach anything to is someone with “talent”. Partially because they hide the things they don’t know with what seems like a high degree of skill. Then instead of teaching what you usually would, you have to play hide and seek in an attempt to find the things that need to be fixed. That would quickly become easy enough if it was the same things every time.
Since playing the song wrong sounds better to them than the instructor playing it correctly, they don’t want to learn boring rudimentary things. It’s difficult to understand how, if those boring things they don’t yet know, are put into practice, it will eventually improve their abilities..
Personal flying examples of me making it difficult for instructors.
After a break in flying when I played flight sim too much, I went out with an instructor and spent an hour or so nearly unable to land. Not fun. The next flight, new instructor, after the first gnarly attempt at a landing he asked where I was looking. Oops, all better. I presume the first guy was panicking and bracing for impact, instead of observing what I was doing and instructing me.
Second one, I used to land very smoothly as a student. Problem being I was typically going too fast on touch down, so even though the wheels were on the ground if a gust came up, so might the plane. It took a while, maybe longer than it should have, to fully appreciate, I don’t want the wheels to touch down before the plane is done flying.
I like to join with full throttle, every time. Wide fucking open. The more G the lead has on,
the better.
Personally I like to rejoin after a 3 second break level with lead and without touching the throttle. Most of the time I need a to give the throttle a bit of a tweak to match lead when I am in close in but occasionally the magic works and it is a straight line right to the wing just working the angles, great fun
Re negative G, a confession: Personally I think a significant amount of negative G is like hitting your head against a brick wall, it feels really good when you stop. Just not a fan, and if that makes me a lesser aviator, I am OK with that
I like the big swooping positive G maneuvers where you flow from one manoeuvre to the next one with the G coming smoothly on and off.
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
