My Perspective

[mhcasey]

Copied and Pasted this from an e-mail I sent to a buddy about to start his CFI training. Here's a brief rundown of my advice after ~200 dual given...

Learn basic aerodynamics. Teaching it might be tough with slower students, but I can't tell you how much it helps. I'm not just talking Bernoulli and Newton either...learn what "trim" really is, what a stall really is, what the different kinds of drag are and how they play into the power curve, etc. If you need any help on that, hit me up. The bottom line is that with a smart student, I could talk about each one of those goofy pts maneuvers for like an hour and they'd walk away with a way way better understanding of how to control the damned thing.

I also heavily emphasize attitude flying..."pitch + power = performance." Most students are going to want to stare at the instruments, and making comments like "watch your altitude" or "watch your heading" are only going to reinforce that bad habit. Keep them looking outside...if they start climbing, "So at 2300 rpm, where should the nose be for straight and level?" or "do you notice the controls getting mushy and it getting quiet in here?" I do a lot of partial panel maneuvers early on to make sure they're actually looking outside and feeling the airplane. Especially stuff like slow flight. Cover the airspeed indicator. "Are we in flaps range yet?" "I don't know. What do you think?" Get them thinking about it..."Well, I'm at 1500rpm with my nose to the horizon, it's really quiet in here, and the controls are not responsive. I guess we are." Covering the altimeter during steep turns is my favorite...If they can maintain +/- 100' without the altimeter (sometimes I cover the VSI too), they can definitely do it with all of their instruments. This type of training, believe it or not, makes the transition to instrument flight later on much easier. The attitude indicator is now the "window to the outside."

Teaching good trim technique helps pretty much everything else.

Start engine outs early and do them often. I usually do at least one a lesson after introducing them.

Weight and balance and xc planning are best done actively. Just do a few examples with the student. I use xc planning as a good opportunity to discuss airspace as well. Tell the student to prepare for long ground lessons on those.

For weather, I just printed out a DUATS report and go through each aspect of that. I picked out a day where there was actually some good weather and just saved the report from then. I also printed off every chart in the Weather Services Handbook from that day...obviously Surface Analysis, Radar Summary, SigWx, but also stuff like Lifted Index and Winds aloft. If you can get a hold of it, I'd highly recommend the Jepessen Weather book. It's like 50 bucks, but its way better than the FAA books. Know your weather if for no other reason than it's a convenient thing to talk about on the ground when you have to cancel your flight due to t-storms, ceilings, or whatever. Try to start thinking about the big picture too, not just "well the TAF at KAUS says this, so that must be the case." Start looking at fronts and air masses, moisture content, seasonal winds, etc.

Discuss amongst yourselves...

[jrh]

Originally Posted by mhcasey

Discuss amongst yourselves...

What? You mean you don't just sit there and watch students fly around the pattern all day? You're saying CFIs actually have to do something?




Just kidding. On a serious note, I like your style. I teach many of the same things.

[bdhill1979]

Hells ya.

Understanding aerodynamics helps the student understand the expected outcome of control inputs. Makes them a lot more intuitive.

Trim is everything, especially when coupled with an understanding of aerodynamics, makes for much better command of the aircraft and especially airspeed control.

I definitely pull at least one emergency on every flight. Lately I have been pulling them a lot right in the middle of a ground reference maneuver. High altitude emergency practice really isn't much of an emergency (especially in diamond aircraft; the airfield is 12 miles away, try not to over shoot it)

[exleardriver]

keep up the good work.

[pilotnate23]

You hit the nail on the head! Stick and rudder, not purely mechanical/technical...I like it