Flight Training in Canada - FAIL

[Colonel]

Had a busy week.  Did some flying, though -
five flights today, three flights yesterday.

Flew with another victim of the Flight Training
Establishment in Canada recently.

Poor student had 100 hour dual, the vast
majority of which was received from a class
one instructor / class one aerobatic instructor /
ATPL (not me).

His instructor should have been the Ace of
the Base.  Buckets of experience and qualifications
out the yingyang.

And this student's skills were horrible.  I
had him slow down to the normal approach
speed of the nosewheel trainer (NOT slow
flight) and tried to have him maneuver
the aircraft.

It was ugly.  He had no idea what the rudder
pedals were for.  The yawing was incredible -
the nose was swinging all over.

Question:  How does someone get 100 hrs of
dual from a class 1 / class 1 acro / ATPL instructor
and not have a fucking clue what the pedals on
the floor do?

Is that efficient, effective flight training?

[Chuck Ellsworth]

[quote]Question:  How does someone get 100 hrs of
dual from a class 1 / class 1 acro / ATPL instructor
and not have a fucking clue what the pedals on
the floor do?[/quote]

It is because they were not taught attitudes and movements properly.

If I were in charge of flight training I would revoke their license with no chance of renewal ever.

Class 1 instructor in Canada means zero.

It is criminal that these instructors even exist.

[mmm...bacon]

Possible that it was the student who was hopeless? Our class 1 hero may have spent 100 hours beating his/her head against the wall, and then said fukit, I'll send 'em along to the Colonel - maybe he can beat something into them?

[praveen4143]

This is an interesting topic TBH... I've trained quite a few students who start out well on the whole coordination bit at the beginning especially until the first solo and then slowly fall off on rudder work as that start to go solo... I'm usually hounding on them when they pick up the bad habit of forgetting rudder coordination but towards the end of the training it starts to get a bit frustrating when they forget the basics. Any ideas on how to make them return back to normal as they were pre solo? This one is quite a head scratcher for me!

[Colonel]

Nosewheel aircraft are great rental aircraft
but they are horrible ab initio trainer aircraft
because in the absence of a vigilant and nasty
instructor, they allow the student to develop
really bad habits, which surface later when
they have difficulty taking off and landing with
any crosswind, for example.

In a perfect world every student would do their
first 10 hours (and solo) in a very basic tailwheel
aircraft.

However, we don't live in a perfect world.  But
I can still do something about my little patch of
it.

When my son was learning to fly, I wouldn't let
him fly anything with a nosewheel.  He could fly
anything with a tailwheel at the airport that he
could get his hands on, though.

Here he is at age 15, with a sly grin.  There's
a little story behind that photo:

[img][/img]

I soloed him at age 14 in the Maule, he soloed
at age 16 in the Pitts, and got his 500 foot solo
and formation ICAS card in the Pitts at age 19.

But when he was 15, Bobby landed in his Citabria
and taxiied up to my hangar and wandered off. 

And I told the kid, take the Citabria up.  He climbed
in the front seat, I showed him the starter switch on
the panel and the mag switches up top, and off he
went.

My problem is that I see such a huge gap between
what I teach (and what I expect from my students)
and the other flight training I see in Canada.

The contrast between the two blows my mind.  I
suspect it's an age thing, and it's going to continue
to diverge with as the years pass.

[img][/img]

[Colonel]

[quote]Possible that it was the student who was hopeless?[/quote]

I wanted to address this separately because
it's a really important topic.

In my 25 years of flight instructing, I would
estimate that around 95% of the people who
want to get a pilot licence (and can pass a TC
medical), have adequate genetic aptitude to
do so.

Of course, some of that 95% learns faster
and some learns slower (this is HUGELY
important to people for some reason that
escapes me) ...

But it has been my experience that motivation
(which is of little interest to most people) is
at least as important as any genetic gift.
Probably more important, in the long run.

Perhaps 5% of the people who can pass a
TC medical and want a pilot's licence, simply
lack whatever genetic traits are required.  I
won't go into detail, but you probably have
an idea.  Some people just can't learn some
stuff.  I can't draw art, for example.  I can
draft a 3-view no problem, but I have zero
aptitude for freestyle sketching.

So, if we accept the above as axiomatic,
then 95% of the time, if a student blows
chunks (chunks is the name of my neighbour's
dog) it's the instructor's fault.  He simply
wasn't taught properly, probably by an
instructor that was just learning to fly and
instruct.

I remember one particularly despicable
case, where a class 4 instructor candidate
flunked his intial ride, and his recommending
class 1 instructor blamed [i]him[/i].  I'm sure
that scummy class 1 instructor is now at AC.

This really pissed me off.  The class 4's PGI
was totally fucking horrible.  We had to do
every one all over again, a little time in the
cockpit, and he passed his test.  He's off flying
a twin somewhere, last I heard.

Anyways, instructors, be a man and take some
responsibility.  Don't blame your students for
doing what you taught them to do.

I know I shouldn't give a shit, but it makes me
want to barf on my shoes when I think of someone
paying for 100 hours of dual at $250/hr and at
the end of it, not having a fucking clue.  $25k
down the drain, and everyone is cool with that.

[img]http://graphitepublications.com/wp-cont ... artoon.gif[/img]

[David MacRay]

Be it known.[move][color=blue]The colonel's son is a nice guy who's interesting and fun to talk to.[/color][/move]
He never posted much but used to hang out in chat when I first joined AvCanada.

One time it was almost Christmas and he bought two credit card knives, told me to hush as one was going to be a gift for his Dad. Then his Dad showed up in chat and he mentioned, "I just ordered your gift." Dad replied, "What for? I don't need a gift." I suspect Dad liked it though.

I think he's good at maths too.

[jump154]

[quote]Possible that it was the student who was hopeless?[/quote]

Say the student was hopeless. Why did it take a Class 1 100 hours of dual to figure that out? Should be pretty obvious...

[ScudRunner-d95]

Few years back I was flying a PC-12 in Northern Manitoba Cojo was flying and we where yawing all over the place, he kept saying its gusty out. I looked down at the lake we where over on approach and it looked a little breezy but nothing out of the ordinary then I happened to look at his feet firmly planted on the floor boards! Um use the fucking rudders pedals I said with a laugh, he said we have a yaw dampener and the controls are interconnected..................................... :o

[Napoleon So Low]

Well, we really don't have time to teach rudder pedals, because we need that time to teach the student how to use an E6B. Same as we teach engineering students to use a slide rule. We still do that, right?