Time to earn license for professionals

It has long been my goal, and I'll probably achieve it after I retire from
teaching engineering, to establish what Richard Bach called "School For
Perfection". (c.f. "Gift of Wings", R. Bach)

Four students per class, three classes during the first 4 weeks in June,
July (or August, depending on the Oshkosh schedule), September, and October.
(July or August is preparing for/recovering from Oshkosh.) One scholarship
student per class, chosen from essays written by the applicants themselves
.... age limit 17 up.

50 hours of wet time in a 172 and 25 hours of CFI time up front, cash, no
refunds. $1000 into the "scholarship" fund each. You finish early, you get
the balance back. You need more time, pony up per hour.

You commit during those four weeks to come to our little mountain airstrip
and stay in a local hotel; your significant other is welcome. Morning
briefings at the hotel conference center. One flight in the morning of 1:00
with one observer in the back seat of the 172. Two students on the ground
listening to the radio or studying ground school in the FBO. Land. Pilot
gets out and gets to be one of the radio persons. The back seat gets into
the left front, one of the radio guys gets into the back. Another 1:00
lesson. Rotate. Lunch at the airport deli. Another 1:00 in the afternoon
using the same sort of rotation. Dinner somewhere together, be it at a
local bistro or bbq over at my place. Ground school prep for the written
back at the hotel until 9 pm.

Do it again next morning. Sunday mornings off. Sunday afternoons wrenching
on "your" plane getting ready for Monday morning lessons.

Gotta go back home for an "emergency"? Unless it is a medical emergency in
your immediate family, you are gone, never again to come back. Bye. No
refund. Medical emergencies get to come back in next year's "class".

When it gets to cross-country time, the schedule changes, but you've got the
idea.

Expensive? Nowhere NEAR as expensive as wet flight time at $120 an hour for
100-200 hours to get your ticket over a three or four year span.

And, I believe, turning out pilots as opposed to airplane drivers.

I'd dearly LOVE to do it back in Iowa City using Jay's place as the hotel,
but I just can't handle four months away from home. And, I've got all my
wrenching tools out here. It would be difficult, but it would be ideal.



Drake: "...You ask about a flight school...young Mister Terrell is just
beginning to fly, but he has spent a year and a half studying the wind and
the sky, and the dynamics of unpowered flight. He has built forty gliders.
Wingspans from eight inches up to the one you saw ... thirty-one feet. He
has made his own wind tunnel and he has worked with the full size tunnel on
Level Three."

I said, "At that rate...it is going to take him a lifetime to learn how to
fly."

Drake: "Well of COURSE it will." (R. Bach)



Jim



--
"If you think you can, or think you can't, you're right."
--Henry Ford


wrote in message
ps.com...
Hello all,

I just wanted to see if other CFIs and pilots have been seeing the
same trend I have. I've been flying with a student for a little over a
year now, and she's almost ready to solo. It will take her another
year to get her ticket, for a total of 2 years, and probably 100 - 120
hours total, when done. Why? Because she's a busy CPA, and sometimes
cannot fly for periods of up to a month. Obviously if a student pilot
hasn't flown for a month, much of the next lesson is simply brushing
off the rust.

When it gets to cross-country time, the schedule changes, but you've got the
idea.

Expensive? Nowhere NEAR as expensive as wet flight time at $120 an hour for
100-200 hours to get your ticket over a three or four year span.

And, I believe, turning out pilots as opposed to airplane drivers.


Sounds like a good idea although I have my reservations. I also spread
out my instruction over 3 years (with 4 different instructors) due to
a lack of time and travel etc that kept me away from flying for months
on occasions. While obviously it cost me a lot more, I also got
exposed to a lot more scenarios than I would have in one month.
Stronger crosswinds, and all kinds of different weather situations
from wind shear on final to wet runways. I also feel uncomfortable
with the idea of ponying up a lot of cash to go flying for a month
with one instructor, what if I don't get along well with that
instructor? Flexibility is important and since there are no guarantees
of any kind, I wouldn't recommend a one month crash course to
everybody, maybe it works for some people but I don't think it does
for every one.

RST Engineering wrote:
It has long been my goal, and I'll probably achieve it after I retire from
teaching engineering, to establish what Richard Bach called "School For
Perfection". (c.f. "Gift of Wings", R. Bach)

Four students per class, three classes during the first 4 weeks in June,
July (or August, depending on the Oshkosh schedule), September, and October.
(July or August is preparing for/recovering from Oshkosh.) One scholarship
student per class, chosen from essays written by the applicants themselves
... age limit 17 up.

50 hours of wet time in a 172 and 25 hours of CFI time up front, cash, no
refunds. $1000 into the "scholarship" fund each. You finish early, you get
the balance back. You need more time, pony up per hour.

You commit during those four weeks to come to our little mountain airstrip
and stay in a local hotel; your significant other is welcome. Morning
briefings at the hotel conference center. One flight in the morning of 1:00
with one observer in the back seat of the 172. Two students on the ground
listening to the radio or studying ground school in the FBO. Land. Pilot
gets out and gets to be one of the radio persons. The back seat gets into
the left front, one of the radio guys gets into the back. Another 1:00
lesson. Rotate. Lunch at the airport deli. Another 1:00 in the afternoon
using the same sort of rotation. Dinner somewhere together, be it at a
local bistro or bbq over at my place. Ground school prep for the written
back at the hotel until 9 pm.

Do it again next morning. Sunday mornings off. Sunday afternoons wrenching
on "your" plane getting ready for Monday morning lessons.

Gotta go back home for an "emergency"? Unless it is a medical emergency in
your immediate family, you are gone, never again to come back. Bye. No
refund. Medical emergencies get to come back in next year's "class".

When it gets to cross-country time, the schedule changes, but you've got the
idea.

Expensive? Nowhere NEAR as expensive as wet flight time at $120 an hour for
100-200 hours to get your ticket over a three or four year span.

And, I believe, turning out pilots as opposed to airplane drivers.

I'd dearly LOVE to do it back in Iowa City using Jay's place as the hotel,
but I just can't handle four months away from home. And, I've got all my
wrenching tools out here. It would be difficult, but it would be ideal.



Drake: "...You ask about a flight school...young Mister Terrell is just
beginning to fly, but he has spent a year and a half studying the wind and
the sky, and the dynamics of unpowered flight. He has built forty gliders.
Wingspans from eight inches up to the one you saw ... thirty-one feet. He
has made his own wind tunnel and he has worked with the full size tunnel on
Level Three."

I said, "At that rate...it is going to take him a lifetime to learn how to
fly."

Drake: "Well of COURSE it will." (R. Bach)



Jim



I've always had a problem with crash courses for pilots, ESPECIALLY for
primary training. The reason is that most of the actual learning you do
in training isn't done during dual while under the pressure of flying
the airplane but rather in between flights where the relaxed mind can
better understand and comprehend what was done by rote in the air with
the instructor. In other words, the time spent between dual sessions is
in my opinion a necessary part of any OPTIMIZED training program as it
is during these periods where maximum retention is attained.
In any good training program, you need a constant schedule of dual inter
spaced with periods away from the aircraft. ANY program that pushes a
student on an inflexible ridged time line is in my opinion not an
optimized training regimen.


--
Dudley Henriques

"Dudley Henriques" wrote

In any good training program, you need a constant schedule of dual inter
spaced with periods away from the aircraft. ANY program that pushes a
student on an inflexible ridged time line is in my opinion not an
optimized training regimen.

I hear what you are saying, an on the surface I don't disagree. But !...

It is also far from optimum, to wait so long in-between lessons that there
is no continuity, and much time is spent trying to brush up on skills
forgotten since the last lesson.

So, given that, and the fact that some time will be spent observing, would
the observing help teach some lessons not realized fully while actually
flying?

Would it not still be better to have intensive learning taking place, than
have intensive forgetting taken place?

I feel like there is a good chance that the intensive training may be better
in the long run, even though it may not be the best. Perhaps if it is the
only way, then it should be used, and then some follow-ups to check and see
that good practices are still taking place.

I don't know the answers. It just seems like this may be a way, for some
that this is the only way.
--
Jim in NC

Morgans wrote:
"Dudley Henriques" wrote

In any good training program, you need a constant schedule of dual inter
spaced with periods away from the aircraft. ANY program that pushes a
student on an inflexible ridged time line is in my opinion not an
optimized training regimen.

I hear what you are saying, an on the surface I don't disagree. But !...

It is also far from optimum, to wait so long in-between lessons that there
is no continuity, and much time is spent trying to brush up on skills
forgotten since the last lesson.

So, given that, and the fact that some time will be spent observing, would
the observing help teach some lessons not realized fully while actually
flying?

Would it not still be better to have intensive learning taking place, than
have intensive forgetting taken place?

I feel like there is a good chance that the intensive training may be better
in the long run, even though it may not be the best. Perhaps if it is the
only way, then it should be used, and then some follow-ups to check and see
that good practices are still taking place.

I don't know the answers. It just seems like this may be a way, for some
that this is the only way.
Optimum initial primary training as I have observed it during my tenure
as an instructor is a fairly constant schedule of dual inter spaced with
a period of at least a day or two between lessons.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that this "off period" is
critical and absolutely necessary so that what happened in the airplane
has time to sink in, be researched, thought about, and questioned and
answered.
Many instructors in my opinion make a HUGE mistake by trying to teach
everything about everything while the student is flying the airplane.
Any good lesson plan should allow for a brief period of pre-brief
between the CFI and the student, covering the basics of what will be
done during the session along with some idea of how to accomplish the
upcoming tasks. While the student is in the air attempting to accomplish
these tasks, the instructor should keep things as simple as possible,
allowing the student to rote the task. Then after the flight, there
should be a period of de-brief, where what was done by rote in the air
is explained in the detail needed to begin the next process which is the
time period between lessons I deem so critical.
It's during this "down time", that the student is encouraged to study
the theory behind what was done in the air, asking whatever questions
are necessary to allow a more comprehensive understanding of what has
been done in the air.
The bottom line on all this is that if these periods of down time are
skipped or neglected, the result in many cases (and I have observed this
over fifty years in the flight instruction business in one capacity or
another) is a student progressing rapidly, but mainly by being able to
duplicate the required flying tasks based on a rote understanding, which
is not optimum for the student.
In other words, rushing the student can produce a pilot who can perform
a task and even fly the airplane and pass a test, but not necessarily a
student who understands what he/she has been taught on a higher level
which would have been possible by utilizing more down time between dual
sessions.


--
Dudley Henriques

I completely agree with what you said but I was wondering what is the
brief period you refer to in terms of time? Does it depend on the
individual student?

Optimum initial primary training as I have observed it during my tenure
as an instructor is a fairly constant schedule of dual inter spaced with
a period of at least a day or two between lessons.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that this "off period" is
critical and absolutely necessary so that what happened in the airplane
has time to sink in, be researched, thought about, and questioned and
answered.
Many instructors in my opinion make a HUGE mistake by trying to teach
everything about everything while the student is flying the airplane.
Any good lesson plan should allow for a brief period of pre-brief
between the CFI and the student, covering the basics of what will be
done during the session along with some idea of how to accomplish the
upcoming tasks. While the student is in the air attempting to accomplish
these tasks, the instructor should keep things as simple as possible,
allowing the student to rote the task. Then after the flight, there
should be a period of de-brief, where what was done by rote in the air
is explained in the detail needed to begin the next process which is the
time period between lessons I deem so critical.
It's during this "down time", that the student is encouraged to study
the theory behind what was done in the air, asking whatever questions
are necessary to allow a more comprehensive understanding of what has
been done in the air.
The bottom line on all this is that if these periods of down time are
skipped or neglected, the result in many cases (and I have observed this
over fifty years in the flight instruction business in one capacity or
another) is a student progressing rapidly, but mainly by being able to
duplicate the required flying tasks based on a rote understanding, which
is not optimum for the student.
In other words, rushing the student can produce a pilot who can perform
a task and even fly the airplane and pass a test, but not necessarily a
student who understands what he/she has been taught on a higher level
which would have been possible by utilizing more down time between dual
sessions.

--
Dudley Henriques

wrote:
I completely agree with what you said but I was wondering what is the
brief period you refer to in terms of time? Does it depend on the
individual student?



See other posts for time suggestion between flights please;

EVERYTHING in flight instruction depends on the individual student.
There is no room in any good CFI's teaching method for generalization.


--
Dudley Henriques

Don't forget the original postulate ... "license for professionals". The
instances quoted were doctors, lawyers, CPAs, and the like. If you have
ever been around a med school, a law school, or a graduate program of any
sort, you will see that these people are used to having it hammered to them
day after day and somehow they seem to thrive on this sort of intensive
learning.

Did I in any way imply that this method would work for any and all students?
I wouldn't for the world say that in any way, shape, or form. I've had
students take six months to a year to get their ticket and they liked
working that way. I've had students that wanted it Friday starting on
Monday.

Would I take everybody that applied to the school I described? Hell NO.
Since I haven't done it, I haven't thought about the application criteria,
but it would be one in which I find out whether compressed learning is right
for the individuals involved.

Sheesh, I've only been playing this education game at the college level for
what, 40 years now? I've got one kid in my class tonight that is finishing
up the semester's work in the third week of a 16 week semester. I've got
two more that are two weeks behind going into the fourth week. I completely
understand different learning styles and rates. But should I keep the kid
that is finishing up in his chair playing solitare on the computer just to
have a warm body in the class? Not on your tintype. That kid gets his
grade and a hearty well done, and go have fun from me.

Jim

--
"If you think you can, or think you can't, you're right."
--Henry Ford


"Dudley Henriques" wrote in message
...

Optimum initial primary training as I have observed it during my tenure
as an instructor is a fairly constant schedule of dual inter spaced with
a period of at least a day or two between lessons.

RST Engineering wrote:
Don't forget the original postulate ... "license for professionals". The
instances quoted were doctors, lawyers, CPAs, and the like. If you have
ever been around a med school, a law school, or a graduate program of any
sort, you will see that these people are used to having it hammered to them
day after day and somehow they seem to thrive on this sort of intensive
learning.

Did I in any way imply that this method would work for any and all students?
I wouldn't for the world say that in any way, shape, or form. I've had
students take six months to a year to get their ticket and they liked
working that way. I've had students that wanted it Friday starting on
Monday.

Would I take everybody that applied to the school I described? Hell NO.
Since I haven't done it, I haven't thought about the application criteria,
but it would be one in which I find out whether compressed learning is right
for the individuals involved.

Sheesh, I've only been playing this education game at the college level for
what, 40 years now? I've got one kid in my class tonight that is finishing
up the semester's work in the third week of a 16 week semester. I've got
two more that are two weeks behind going into the fourth week. I completely
understand different learning styles and rates. But should I keep the kid
that is finishing up in his chair playing solitare on the computer just to
have a warm body in the class? Not on your tintype. That kid gets his
grade and a hearty well done, and go have fun from me.

Jim

The first thing new instructors have to be taught as they become
instructors is that there are base differences between teaching in a
classroom that isn't moving and teaching in a classroom that is moving
at 100 mph plus.
Bottom line on extended experience as a classroom teacher is that it's a
plus of course when entering a flight instruction environment, and SOME
of the methods you used as a professional classroom teacher will
transfer to the flight instruction scenario, BUT.........there are
enough differences between the two environments that flight instruction
has to be approached uniquely by the instructor.
Carrying the classroom mindset into the flight instruction scenario
without this "adjustment" can seriously affect the quality of the flight
instruction given.
You can perform as a CFI using classic classroom teaching technique, but
in my opinion, you will be a much better CFI if you consider carefully
the dynamics involved with teaching in a moving classroom.
All this having been said, and as you have stated for my consideration
your "40 years of experience" in the classroom as a counter to what I am
saying to you, I am perfectly content not to push my position further
with you on this matter.

--
Dudley Henriques

Sorry, Dudley, I got my CFI (airplane) 37 years ago and my CFI (glider) 30
years ago. I have roughly 500 primary students under my belt, so no, I know
for a fact that the classroom on the ground and the classroom in the air are
two totally different things. My point was that I've learned to adapt to
many different learning capabilities in both environments.

Jim

--
"If you think you can, or think you can't, you're right."
--Henry Ford

"Dudley Henriques" wrote in message
...