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#11
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Thanks Terry: Agree we should all be expecting more than barely good enough. I have seen some examples of examiners making up their own stuff and it can make you crazy. The standards are a bit mushy, which makes it more complicated, especially for someone who is new. I'm sure all of us that have been doing this for awhile has our own "hot spots", that is things I commonly see a weak points in the pilot population. I'll share a few of mine and maybe some other folks can add to the list. #1 Poor energy management in the landing pattern- an over application of "speed is your friend". I'd estimate that 2 out of 3 pilots I check for the first time would hit the fence at the far end of a small field. #2 Failure to create a plan for developing events. The simple lack of recognition of a need for this is far too common. #3 Poor general airmanship- especially is slow flight. Most pilots do not know how to fly in the stall range. I include in this flying the glider in a stalled or partially stalled condition. The idea that the FAA sets minimum standards, and of course all instructors will train to higher standards, sounds great in theory. However in the real world, a large portion of the instructors teach only what will actually be tested on the practical test. By debriefing their students after flight tests, they have learned exactly what a particular examiner will expect. This then allows them to train their students for a flight test with that specific examiner, rather than bothering to train for a thorough test in accordance with the PTS. A blatant example of this was recently evident when I did some acro with a pilot who had just passed his Private Pilot Glider flight test. During the first high tow I asked the pilot to turn the towplane toward the airport. The pilot then told me he had NEVER done signals on tow before. A few other relevent questions about stalls, slips and spins, showed that this pilot's knowledge base was quite deficient. However we cannot blame the pilot for these shortcummings. He was trained by an FAA certificated instructor and passed a flight test given by an FAA Designated Examiner. Unfortunately for this pilot, his training was done at an operaton known for shopping around for easy examiners. M Eiler |
#12
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At 17:00 04 February 2005, Jim Vincent wrote:
³In reality ailerons and the rudder donıt turn airplanes; they allow the pilot to bank the airplane, allowing the engine to pull the aircraft around in a circle. Once the turn is established, controls are returned to almost neutral and the elevators and engine do the work of turning the airplane.² Hmmm, I wonder what makes a glider turn. Maybe only motor gliders can turn and then only after the engine is started. Lift is what causes an airplane or glider to turn. Bank the wings and a component of lift is then in the horizontal, causing the turn. All the engine does is control the rate of climb, typically to maintain altitude. Jim Vincent Seems to me this picture is also inadequate. If the aircraft is banked and a component of the lift is then horizontal, why doesn't the aircraft just go sideways over into the next county? We need a good mental picture of what is happening to cause the circling flight instead of just being lifted sideways. We have to bring gravity, centrifugal force, and the effect of the tail feathers into this picture. |
#13
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"Nyal Williams" wrote in message ... At 17:00 04 February 2005, Jim Vincent wrote: Seems to me this picture is also inadequate. If the aircraft is banked and a component of the lift is then horizontal, why doesn't the aircraft just go sideways over into the next county? We need a good mental picture of what is happening to cause the circling flight instead of just being lifted sideways. We have to bring gravity, centrifugal force, and the effect of the tail feathers into this picture. You need to remember that this is a 3D vector problem involving both velocity vectors and acceleration vectors. The math works out something like this: Turn Radius = Velocity squared divided by 11.26 time the tangent of the bank angle. Velocity is in knots (TAS), bank angle is in degrees and turn radius is in feet. The full description of the problem and its' solution can be found on page 178 of the 1965 edition of "Aerodynamics for Naval Aviators." Respectfully, Wayne http://www.soaridaho.com/Schreder |
#14
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It isn't the examiner's job to verify everything has been taught.
Examiners sample the areas, but are not required or even suggested to cover everything. My favorite examiner was a stickler for the instructor endorsements. I asked him why he was so particular about making sure they were all correct, and everything was there. He said: "It's the instructor responsibility to cover the aeronautical skills and the knowledge and prepare the applicant for EVERYTHING in the PTS. When the instructor endorses and signs this, they are saying the pilot is trained. I just give the test. I can't possibly test everything, and I'm not going to. But if I uncover something missing, that reflects on the instructor, not the student." This examiner is also good at doing exactly what the PTS says. Buried in the many words in there, one example says: "Examiners shall test to the greatest extent practicable the applicant's correlative abilities rather than mere rote enumeration of facts throughout the practical test." This examiner never got nitpickety, but would test correlation for only fundamental areas. For example, the student might fly coordinated very well, understand yaw and roll, and describe rudder and ailerons and even parrot back adverse yaw. But in the air, the examiner may ask for a slow roll rate into a steep bank, then try the same thing with a fast roll rate. If the applicant can't CORRELATE what he was asked on the oral exam, and apply more rudder pressure during higher roll rates, then they FAIL the standard. So instructors are required to cover everything. And they are required to teach to proficiency not just of rote or understanding or application. They are required, by the PTS, to teach pilots to the highest level of learning. Correlation. When the instructor signs off saying the applicant is prepared for the practical test, they are saying the applicant has correlation for all of the skills to be tested. Not obscure weather terms, not the manufacturer names of yaw-indifferent static ports, not the number of pounds of force exerted on a tiedown at different windspeeds, and not how density altitude affects variometers. Not this obscure rote garbage. Correlation. When two windsock tails a mile apart point at each other, what does this MEAN? What is happening? What are you going to do about it? The minimum standard, straight from the PTS, is correlation, and I think it is quite a high standard indeed. Yes, there are instructors who give ZERO ground instruction. And there are some students who can learn it all on their own or in the air. But I hear what Terry said, and the instructors who sign off they've covered wind-shear and wake turbulence, or assembly procedures, when they have NOT, are simply unethical and unprofessional. My CFIG FAA ASI examiner said the same. He said the CFI endorsement carries a LOT of weight. Two years ago a CFI signed off a student for an instrument test. The student got to the "holds" portion of the flight test, and when asked to do a hold, the student said "I've never done one of those in flight before." It turns out the CFI had signed off this as proficient, but had never taught a single hold in flight or in a simulator. And there was no record of any such training anywhere in the logbook. Well, the student got some of her money back from the CFI, the FAA issued the CFI a letter, and the CFI got a VERY bad rep out of this. Yes, CFIs and even examiners go bad sometimes. Some are too easy, some are too hard. I, for one, go through every single line of the reg and endorse longhand for each item, before I endorse for a solo or practical test or privilege. I've always missed some part of it every single time, and take that opportunity to cover wind shear or assembly or how to evaluate runway lengths at airports of intended landings or ... Any of you who think the bare minimum PTS standard, or the bare minimum regulatory standard of part 61, is too lax, well, I disagree... If you're arguing that some CFIs or examiners are signing off stuff they haven't done, I agree with that, and that is a whole different subject of ethics. In article .com, wrote: Terry wrote: That said, examiners who do their own thing can make it very hard on instructors. Thanks for sharing your perspective. UH ================================================= ===================== I hope I did not give the impression that I am making up my own checkride for I am not. If an applicant meets the PTS during my time with him, then he passes. As it should be. Any examiner that is running his own checkride does not deserve nor should he continue to hold his status. By raising the bar, I meant as an iINSTRUCTOR/i, I should always be looking to higher standards from my students. After all getting the student there is what instruction is all about. Terry Claussen ] Thanks Terry: Agree we should all be expecting more than barely good enough. I have seen some examples of examiners making up their own stuff and it can make you crazy. The standards are a bit mushy, which makes it more complicated, especially for someone who is new. I'm sure all of us that have been doing this for awhile has our own "hot spots", that is things I commonly see a weak points in the pilot population. I'll share a few of mine and maybe some other folks can add to the list. #1 Poor energy management in the landing pattern- an over application of "speed is your friend". I'd estimate that 2 out of 3 pilots I check for the first time would hit the fence at the far end of a small field. #2 Failure to create a plan for developing events. The simple lack of recognition of a need for this is far too common. #3 Poor general airmanship- especially is slow flight. Most pilots do not know how to fly in the stall range. I include in this flying the glider in a stalled or partially stalled condition. Anybody else want to jump in here? UH -- ------------+ Mark J. Boyd |
#15
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The examiner had absolutely no responsibility to test this whatsoever.
If it wasn't one of the required areas, and he didn't pick it optionally, he was fully correct in not doing it. The instructor, on the other hand, had complete responsibility to train this to proficiency, and endorsed as much unethically in the student's logbook. Or the student's memory is bad, right? The FAA as far as I've seen almost always comes after the CFI license. The most famous cases are the power plane fuel mismanagement cases. Lotsa accidents from these. The occasional examiner gets fired too, sometimes for not ever flying with the applicant at all! But this seems rare. Most instructors and examiners seem to do it exactly right. CFIs train the part 61 and PTS areas completely, and to the level of correlation. Examiners stick to fundamental areas in listed references and conduct an efficient test of the required sampling of areas, at the correlation level. There is some judgement involved. Is training to the "Handbook for Naval Aviators" standard of explaining the forces involved while firing a missile, in an inverted turn, a reasonable standard. I don't think so. Are signals on tow or spin recovery procedures a reasonable standard? Sure. Somewhere in between there is some gray. How big the gray area becomes seems to be an interesting topic... In article .com, wrote: By debriefing their students after flight tests, they have learned exactly what a particular examiner will expect. This then allows them to train their students for a flight test with that specific examiner, rather than bothering to train for a thorough test in accordance with the PTS. A blatant example of this was recently evident when I did some acro with a pilot who had just passed his Private Pilot Glider flight test. During the first high tow I asked the pilot to turn the towplane toward the airport. The pilot then told me he had NEVER done signals on tow before. A few other relevent questions about stalls, slips and spins, showed that this pilot's knowledge base was quite deficient. However we cannot blame the pilot for these shortcummings. He was trained by an FAA certificated instructor and passed a flight test given by an FAA Designated Examiner. Unfortunately for this pilot, his training was done at an operaton known for shopping around for easy examiners. -- ------------+ Mark J. Boyd |
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#17
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I sure think we are close to the slippery slope when we start making
comments that imply certain things should ALWAYS be done the same way...ALL the time. Low Energy landings are great, when the weather is nice, but in a big stiff blustery crosswind, you dang sure better know how to fly your machine onto the ground or you are going to learn all about this pretty little manuever called the "ground loop". We may as well just face the music that NO single methodology is ever going to be 100% correct and that every instructor is going to have his pet peeves and that's the way life is. So I'd suggest we'd do well to explain and demonstrate the multitude of different methods to students...I'd further assert that there are plenty of pilots who simply shouldn't be flying in on the brink of a stall, because they are not keenly enough attuned to the voice of the sailplane and it's subtle ways of letting us know what it needs to keep us flying. There are many safe club pilots however, who fly their gliders onto the ground and while they may not perform flawlessly in an outlanding scenario, most of them will probably never pursue cross-country flight and have the need arise to truly utilize those skillsets. I have met MANY pilots...who are uncomfortable flirting with the stall, and the main reason is a general lack of understanding and training...we should help them work on those skills. For Every flight...there are a hundred different methods to accomplish the same thing...we should just patiently teach and share the information we have and particularly share with a person why we think the way we do, when we see a pilot do something that we think they would be better served by being enlightened by additional information. I've never yet met a pilot who wasn't willing to tell you why they do the things the way they do them...and discuss differences... Steve. |
#18
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Unlike the knowledge (written) test, in the USA, the
PTS is comprehensive. At the examiner discretion, it covers everything the FAA believes a pilot needs to know in order to fly safely. This is my understanding. One could certainly argue that the PTS is either vague or incomplete. But by design it is supposed to be comprehensive. So everything in it is testable, and that is comprehensive. This doesn't mean everything is TESTED during a given practical test, just TESTABLE. The written test seems an example of what you point out, however. ****Are examiners the best solution?****** The FAA collected statistics for pass rates of pilots for various certificates. They compared the pass rates of pilots flying with an FAA ASI for a practical test vs. the pass rates for Designated Pilot Examiners. The pass rates for both glider initial and add-on ratings for DPEs was around 90%. Over the same period, the FAA ASI pass rate for all types of glider tests was 100%. What is going on here? Well, the sample sizes were significant (at least 30+) so that can't be it. One major difference is that if a DPE has a string of perhaps 20-30 passes, they get "looked at" a little bit harder. The FAA ASIs do not get "looked at" harder for passing 100% In any case, there is some statistically significant inconsistency in these results. How about eliminating Designated Pilot Examiners altogether? Although they certainly put a human face on the FAA, are they entirely necessary? If glider DPEs are failing 10% of the applicants, and the FAA during it's mandatory random flight test checks thinks 100% are fine, then there seems to be a statistically significant standardization problem. What do you think? Does the DPE 90% FAA 100% pass rate surprise you? Are you thinking maybe you have a better shot going to the FAA instead of a DPE for your next glider practical test? http://acra.faa.gov/iacra is the automated FAA application system. It can check the numbers by some computer formula to see if the application is correct. And it can match data to the student pilot license and medical info already in the database. Beyond that, a "proctor" could put a logger with ENL in the aircraft. Noise approximates engine RPM, gives buffet or stall horn, and/or can record the voice of the pilot "That's the impending stall." So give the guy a logger, have a "proctor" verify the takeoff, and have the applicant do the manuever series off a clipboard or audio tape instruction. Land, and upload the flight log to FAA. A computer blindly checks the data, and you get a pass or fail instantly. I have not figured out how to test for coordination yet. How do you know if the pilot is coordinated? Maybe a 360 45deg with a fast reversal to another 45deg 360. The reversal would show differently on the track log coordinated or not, maybe. This would certainly provide consistency enforcing the mathematical standards. It wouldn't test whether the pilot was sweating profusely or crying during parts of the test, however...and those are things we sure wouldn't want to see once they carry a passenger. But this seems pretty straightforward to implement. Even if the DPEs remained to do the oral exam part, the flight part could be done at one's leisure. Hmmm...loggers are sure an interesting new device I didn't know anything about until recently. Maybe the FAA doesn't know about them so much either. In article , Nyal Williams wrote: At 17:30 04 February 2005, wrote: The idea that the FAA sets minimum standards, and of course all instructors will train to higher standards, sounds great in theory. However in the real world, a large portion of the instructors teach only what will actually be tested on the practical test. By debriefing their students after flight tests, they have learned exactly what a particular examiner will expect. This then allows them to train their students for a flight test with that specific examiner, rather than bothering to train for a thorough test in accordance with the PTS. A bit chopped out ................. Unfortunately for this pilot, his training was done at an operaton known for shopping around for easy examiners. M Eiler This notion of teaching to the test has come up in political discussions about education. Even our current US president was drawn into this about 4 years ago and suggested that 'teaching to the test -- is teaching.' Consider that the classroom teacher would teach multiplication by teaching only those examples on the statewide test for proficiency. No student would learn the entire table -- just a few of the 5's and 10's and two or three of the 6's and 7's -- maybe none of the 8's and none of the 4's. -- ------------+ Mark J. Boyd |
#19
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This is exactly my point! Why don't we all already know what makes an
aircraft turn? Many pilots feel they do, but if we sit several professional pilots down, separately, and ask them how an aircraft flies from a pilot's perspective, you'll get three substantively related, though specifically different answers. I can demonstrate with an equation (F=ma), a rectangular piece of stiff paper, and a paper clip that an aircraft in a bank will turn (establish a circular flight path) unless the pilot intentionally prevents it from turning by applying rudder or reducing AoA. The point, for the sake of this thread, isn't to define a theory of flight suitable for aviators. Rather, it is to recognize how informal and untested many of our theories really are. A theory that demands tail feathers to initiate turns (as opposed to the wing just dragging the aircraft sideways through the air) doesn't sufficiently explain the flight of hang gliders, boomerangs, frisbees, or my paper clip ballasted flying wing. Some might say, well, the model serves well enough.... but does it really? How many accidents do we have each year that are preventable? Why do competent pilots spin in? Why do well-trained pilots demonstrate a lack of competency in basic flight skills like slipping and stall recognition? I'll return to slips: it's my favorite example becasue so few people can do them well or describe them accurately. What factors need to be considered during a slip? Are you aware that the ailorons contribute a nose down pitching motion during a slip? Have you considered that during a slip, you must increase the angle of attack because the lift verctor is no longer antiparallel with graivity (as in a turn)? Are you aware that the pitching moment of the elevator decreases with increased beta? What effect on lift and drag does the effective reduction of wing aspect ratio have? What differences in stick use can be expected in a high performance versus a wide-body glider during slipping? Is there any aerodynamic difference between a forward and a side slip? If there isn't, why do we bother differentiating them? Have you ever seen any of these ideas discussed in a flight primer? Why not? I consider all these questions foundational. Yet it took me a long time to start asking them. I learned to do slips by rote, but never did them really well until I began to ask these questions. Hopefully, you'll recognize I've only asked some of the less obvious questions. There are plenty of others, some taught, some ignored, some simply not recognized. An example of the latter... how do you measure airspeed in a slip? OK, I'm dancing on the head of pin, but I needed an example to drive home what we don't know about something so "simple" as slipping. A good pilot should be asking questions and looking for answers all the time. A good instructor should be looking for new and better ways to pose and answer such questions. One last example, if I asked "What is the primary yaw control in a glider?" how would you react if I answered, "its the ailerons?" And why might this be a better answer than "the rudder?" There's alot left to learn, and discuss, and apply. And alot of bright, "mis-informed" people out there who have something to contribute. I'll address myself to Burt again... if the RAS is misinformed, isn't the source culpable? Isn't the first step to recognize that we're ALL, to a greater or lesser degree, misinformed so we can get about the business of improving our understanding? |
#20
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Mark James Boyd wrote: Maybe the FAA doesn't know about them so much either. Or... maybe they do. ..igc files are very handy for post crash analysis. A logger file was used in a very recent glider accident investigation. Jim |
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