Ed Rasimus wrote:
Every IP knows that you have to let the students go a little bit, so
that they can see the outcome of their errors and then the lesson is
reinforced. The difficult judgement call is knowing how far to let
them progress and still be able to make the recovery without damage to
the airplane or the landscape.

Ye olde learning curve!

Didn't happen to me, but to a friend while we were in Basic
Jet in Kingsville, TX. Late in the Fam series, one each student
and IP in a Tango Two, IP in the back. There was a dingus
back there which let the IP slew the directional gyro in order to
test the S.A. of the stud up front. Approaching the end of the
hop, said IP applied said dingus, and said "let's go home."

Stud makes the initial callup to homeplate ("Ready or not, here
I come," more or less), tunes up NASKINGS on the TACAN,
and turns until the arrowhead is at the top of the DG. Time
passes. IP waits. More time passes. Irritation grows in the
back seat. Finally: "Sure looks dry out there." (NASKINGS,
for the uninitiated, sits a few miles off an arm of Baffin Bay,
near the Gulf of Mexico. The bay is visible for mucho miles
prior to arrival). "Yes sir." More JP-5 becomes
smoke and noise. Kingsville Approach, accustomed to this
sort of thing, hasn't commented on the fact that Our Hero hasn't
reported the 5-mile initial yet. "Some kinda drought down
there, huh?" "Yes sir," as before, but a bit nervously, as the
hapless stud begins to twig that Something Is Not Right.
Doesn't usually take more than ten minutes to start seeing signs
of human habitation once headed toward the home patch from
the MOA. IP begins to wonder if Mexican Air Force
interceptors (T-28s) are warming up on the tarmac. Finally,
inevitably: "Doesn't much look like downtown Kingsville down
there, does it?" "No, sir." "Happen to notice the DME lately?"
Student notices that the numbers in Mickey's face are in high
double digits and getting bigger (it's only 100 miles from
NASKINGS to Nuevo Laredo). "Urk." The light dawning,
the stud finally looks at his wet compass and cross-checks
against the setting sun in front of him, says "Toto, I don't think
we're in Kansas any more," and pulls a fast 180. The recovery
was nominal from that point onward. He got a Below for SA
and an Above for making his instructor laugh.



Jeff