[quote]the focus of the first say, 5/10 or 15 hours?[/quote]
The first flights in the aircraft involve the student
LOOKING OUTSIDE at The Big Attitude Indicator.
You know. The horizon.
This lesson is called Attitudes and Movements and
must be mastered before moving on to the fancy
stuff.
Ideally, an ab initio trainer should not have a
vacuum pump or attitude indicator or heading
indicator or nav radios, which merely distract
the student from what he should be doing:
LOOKING OUTSIDE
What a student needs to learn:
ATTITUDE plus POWER equals PERFORMANCE
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For example, after takeoff, the student should
set a climb configuration: cowl on the horizon
(or slightly below), full power. After it settles
down (and ONLY after it settles down) then do
you look at the airspeed and VSI and altimeter.
While an aircraft must have an airspeed and
altimeter, I believe that a VSI can be distracting
at first, and like an AI or DG can do more harm
than good, at first.
LOOK OUTSIDE.
By 10 hours, the student should have maneuvering
skills adequate to go solo in a tailwheel aircraft.
Post-solo, he should switch to a different, more
advanced aircraft, for the second half of his primary
flight training involving cross-country flight, instrument
flight, radio navigation, aerobatics, formation, etc.
While at the PPL level I expect the student to master
all of the above individually, I don't expect them to
be able to combine them, like instrument formation
in cloud, or formation aerobatics. That's for the CPL.
PS It is really really weird to use the same aircraft
for pre-solo and CPL training. Like an Edsel or F-35,
it will not do anything well or efficiently.