Time alloted for your student?

[BoDEAN]

What is the usual time block you dedicate for each student's flight?
We do 2 hr blocks. What I've found is the first 30-40 min is filled
with prebrief, preflight, fueling, pulling plane out, and by the time
the 2 hr block is over, only 1.2 - 1.4 is dedicated for flight

[Jürgen Exner]

BoDEAN wrote:
> What is the usual time block you dedicate for each student's flight?
> We do 2 hr blocks. What I've found is the first 30-40 min is filled
> with prebrief, preflight, fueling, pulling plane out, and by the time
> the 2 hr block is over, only 1.2 - 1.4 is dedicated for flight

My school does 90 minute blocks and I think at least at the beginning this
is a good choice.
The preflight does not count, the student can be at the airport 15 minutes
before the scheduled time and do the dispatch and preflight alone without
the instructor. Also, fueling should be done by the line crew automatically
as soon as the plane returns from the previous flight, not when it is about
to be used again. Then prebrief maybe 10-20 minutes.

This leaves 0.8 to 1.2 hours of actual flying time which is quite enough for
a beginner. After one hour intensive work most people will become tired and
usually there is not much point in continuing. They won't learn anything but
make more and more mistakes and become frustruated.

Of course it also depends on how much experience the student has (take it
easy and short in the beginning), what manouvers are being practiced, is it
a scorching hot summer day with glaring sun or a nice, calm spring day.
And a long cross country certainly takes more than 90 minutes.

jue

[Jay Honeck]

> This leaves 0.8 to 1.2 hours of actual flying time which is quite enough
for
> a beginner.

Amen. I remember a couple of early lessons that went longer than an hour in
the air, and I was exhausted by the end. In that hour we had probably done
8 or 9 touch and goes, and my little pea brain had absorbed as much as it
could. Cutting it off at .7 hours would have made more sense, but what did
I know?

Mary had the same experience with her instructor. She knew to expect it
(from my experience, I suppose), however, and told her instructor that it
was time to land.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[John Gaquin]

"BoDEAN" > wrote in message
>
> What is the usual time block you dedicate for each student's flight?
> We do 2 hr blocks. What I've found is the first 30-40 min is filled
> with prebrief, preflight, fueling, pulling plane out, and by the time
> the 2 hr block is over, only 1.2 - 1.4 is dedicated for flight

I think 90 min is enough initially, but I used to create my own 2 hr blocks
with more experienced students. I found the post flight session to be very
valuable as a student progressed, and that's where the added time filled in.
Of course, you can't get as rapid a turnover through the day, and that's
where most flight schools get nudgy about longer blocks.

[Jay Smith]

Jürgen Exner wrote:
> The preflight does not count, the student can be at the airport 15 minutes
> before the scheduled time and do the dispatch and preflight alone without
> the instructor.

Not necessarily. Many schools have adopted a policy that requires the
instructor to supervise the preflight as a result of the Florida incident.

[C J Campbell]

We use two hour blocks for everything except discovery flights and cross
countries.

John King at the CPC conference last year said that the typical
instructional session at a profitable flight school should be two hours of
billed instructor time and between 1.1 and 1.4 hours of flight.

[Robert M. Gary]

BoDEAN > wrote in message >...
> What is the usual time block you dedicate for each student's flight?
> We do 2 hr blocks. What I've found is the first 30-40 min is filled
> with prebrief, preflight, fueling, pulling plane out, and by the time
> the 2 hr block is over, only 1.2 - 1.4 is dedicated for flight


I book 2 hours and usually keep the ground to 30 minutes. That's
assuming the student is doing their reading beforehand.

-Robert, CFI

[Richard Kaplan]

"BoDEAN" > wrote in message
...

> What is the usual time block you dedicate for each student's flight?

8AM to 5PM -- whatever combination of flight, simulator, and/or ground time
is appropriate for a given student.

(IFR Recurrent training only)

---------------------------
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

[[email protected]]

> What is the usual time block you dedicate for each student's flight?

We schedule 2 hour blocks for the instructor. We plan on a 30 minute
brief and a 30 minute debrief, and 1 hour of flying. If the student
comes early and preflights on their own time, that is good! If the
student comes well read and well prepared, the briefing and debriefing
time are shortened and more flying occurs. :-)

We follow John King's advice about a well run, profitable, flight
school scheduling 2 hour paid blocks with the instructor and expecting
to fly .9 to 1.5 hours, depending on the preparedness of the student.

Best regards,

Jer/ "Flight instruction and mountain flying are my vocation!" Eberhard
http://poudreaviation.com

--
Jer/ (Slash) Eberhard, Mountain Flying Aviation, LTD, Ft Collins, CO
CELL 970 231-6325 EMAIL jer'at'frii.com WEB http://users.frii.com/jer/
C-206 N9513G, CFII Airplane&Glider, FAA-DEN Aviation Safety Counselor
CAP-CO Mission&Aircraft CheckPilot, BM218 HAM N0FZD, 197 Young Eagles!

[Teacherjh]

Personally I never liked the two hour blocks - not enough flying. By the time
we get to a place we can practice approaches, there isn't enough time to do
many of them. I tried to schedule three or four hour blocks, but it wasn't
easy.

Jose

--
(for Email, make the obvious changes in my address)

[Richard Kaplan]

"C J Campbell" > wrote in message
...

> John King at the CPC conference last year said that the typical
> instructional session at a profitable flight school should be two hours of
> billed instructor time and between 1.1 and 1.4 hours of flight.


From an instructional perspective, I think this varies a lot by student and
phase of learning. Early on in a private curriculum this probably makes
sense. For a post-solo private student longer flight probably are more
worthwhile as well as more realistic for what the pilot will experience
later on. For an instrument student, doing an IFR rating in 1.4 hour
increments will unreasonably prolong the training process.

From a business perspective, I do not understand this rationale except if
the school is concerned about no-shows. In that case, the school should
implement a no-show fee for longer blocks of time. Assuming the student
shows up, clearly it is much more efficient and profitable for a school to
teach in larger blocks of time per student.



--
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com