To all CFI's: Stupidest student questions.

I guarantee none of you can beat this.

Here goes. I am now instructing in a country that shall remain nameless, that is not South Korea. PM if you want to know.

My student and I are reading TAF's and METARS. He has to interpret the following 280530Z. He doesn't know how. I ask him if the numbers 28 ring any bells. He says "No." I ask him what the date is. He doesn't know. He then proceeds to indicate that he doesn't know what month it even is. I jokingly ask him if he knows what year it is. He gives me an inquisitive look and says: "2012?" I look at him for a second to see if he's serious. He then confirms that he is serious by saying: "But it is close to 2012 right?"

I am training this man to be a pilot and he doesn't even know what friggin year it is.

Seriously, beat that.

Captain????????????

You just got here man!! Give it more time, it will get even better, or worse depending on how you look at it.

Worse? These will give me the greatest drinking stories of all time.

Someone asked me if we give discounts to pilots on sectional charts once.

@hambone that's a pretty good one!

@ryanmickG I wouldn't have stopped laughing!

Talk about not being aware what is going on around you. Good thing its not 2012 yet, we still have time before the world ends...

Wow...

I cant compare to that one. Most of my students questions were justifiable in one way or another. However, I'm still looking for an answer as to why a foreign captain, who has thousands of hours flying very large aircraft in multiple countries and continents, was unable to identify a hold short line when queried. Unfathomable...

Asians, like Muslims, don't use the Gregorian calendar (although the Gregorian calendar is supposed to be used for business purposes). The Asian year typically ends after the Gregorian end of year. What may be 2011 for us would still be 2010 for Asians on the Yin calendar.

Perhaps this guy is still living the old way. Who knows?

Thats ok, I forgot notams were in zulu time yesterday. We're not all smart but hambone, that most likely takes the cake.

Had a student ask if aerodynamic properties changed depending on whether it was night or day. Of course I said yes, and ran with a detailed explanation for about five minutes until I ran out of BS.

One of the other instructors here has a student who asked what would happen if he flew the final approach at 40 knots one day. With no flaps!

I have something else to add as well, sarcasm is the <insert term here> in the world!! Without it I just don't think I would make it through the day. One day in the traffic pattern a student asked if he should turn to base now?

I replied, no, we should just continue south, yep that's ok, south. Now I agree that saying south, twice, may have locked it into his brain but, the sarcasm should have stopped him. It didn't....throttle to full, pitch the nose up, and climb towards the south.

Sometimes I should just keep my mouth shut!

Does he know the difference between $40/hour and $400/hour? How long do you think it would take him to figure it out?

A buddy of mine had a student working on his CFI SEL tell him in a ground lesson that the belt at the front of the engine was the drive belt for the propeller. Also that the engine was cooled by 5606.
This in-duh-vidual is now "flying" an airliner, I feel sorry for his captains.

Great answers guys. Keep em coming!

Not stupid but funny:
"Do I have to say Sierra? Can't I say Sally?"
"No you can't say Sally."

Geez...Most Pre-solo students know what and where the Alternator belt is.

I think my best one was when another instructors post-solo student came to me for extra flying. I observed his first approach without saying anything and he continued on final at pattern altitude and then started a crazy descent nearly over the threshold. I asked him why he was doing this and he said he was learning to fly the Space Shuttle and was now going to fly all his approaches like the shuttle does.

I'm loving this thread. I'm still new to the cfi rankings so I don't have any real stupid questions yet. I have had a student tell me that the PAPI knew where we were because of radar--I didn't prompt this, by the way.

Had a student read a TAF and said -RA meant a negative chance for rain

During the first flight in the traffic pattern, probably the third or fourth flight total, with one particularly spacey guy, I had this conversation abeam the numbers:

Me: Ok, now that we're at the end of the runway, reduce the power to about 1500 RPM...
[no response, keeps flying straight ahead]
Me: You're doing fine, go ahead and reduce the power.
[still no response]
Me: We need to get set up for landing, so pull back on the throttle, decrease power, set the power to about 1500 RPM...
[student turns to me, looks me in the eye, completely dead serious]
Student: But if I pull back on the throttle, we're going to start sinking.

:banghead:

Me: Yes, yes, we are. How else do you think we're going to land?


Ironically, he actually ended up being a pretty good stick and rudder pilot.