My first solo - and the worst flight of my life

Monarch Air has schools at both Addison, from whence they took off,

Whence they took off. "whence" means "from where".

Jose
--
"There are 3 secrets to the perfect landing. Unfortunately, nobody knows
what they are." - (mike).
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

"Jose" wrote in message
t...
Monarch Air has schools at both Addison, from whence they took off,

Whence they took off. "whence" means "from where".

Jose

Thank you

Monarch Student wrote:

So should I get a new instructor?
Don't take this wrong...but...do you really need to ask? No question in
my mind, I'd drop this guy and go instructor and/or flight school
shopping. The guy is working for you. If you don't like the
attitude/service/whatever, move on. There are plenty of good CFIs and
flight schools out there.

Congrats on the solo. Hope you find a better instructor.

Any advice would be appreciated. I'm beginning to hate flying, which
is sad because I began learning thinking it would be fun.
It is fun. It can be an absolute blast with the right instructor as well.


--
Jack Allison
PP-ASEL-Instrument Airplane

"To become a Jedi knight, you must master a single force. To become
a private pilot you must strive to master four of them"
- Rod Machado

(Remove the obvious from address to reply via e-mail)

Student Pilot:
If your flight instructor did as you stated, he badly needs a Flight
Instructor -- to teach him how to instruct. He may be a pilot, but
he's not an instructor!

I suggest that you get a different instructor, and tell your "former"
instructor frankly why you changed, and don't hold back! This should
have no effect on your treatment by all the others at the school,
because they are undoubtedly well aware of the personality defects of
that particular individual. Someone will probably come to you and
thank you for "teaching" him a human relations lesson.

Hugh Waterman
SMEL,commercial, instructor, instrument


On Tue, 21 Nov 2006 19:34:35 -0600, Monarch Student
wrote:

I left this morning for my first supervised solo. My flight
instructor is a new guy, about 25 who's never taught students before a
month ago. But he seems to know his stuff, so I've put up with him
for this long.

Until today.

We take off from Addison to McKinney TX airport, arrive at McKinney
and begin pattern work. Apparently my pattern wasn't tight enough so
my instructor who I guess is having a bad morning starts yelling at
the top of his lungs, "90 KEEP IT AT ****ING 90 ON DOWNWIND!!". I
look down at the airspeed, which is at 87. He slaps my hand away from
the throttle, and mashes it in. The nose comes up and he hammers the
yoke with his hands so the plane pitches down suddenly. "Watch your
altitude", he says.

We come in for a landing, on a regular runway with no displaced
threshold. He's yelling to keep it at 70 and pitches the yoke down.
We're headed directly for the grass in front of the runway. I ask if
we can land about fifty feet farther in because at this angle we'll be
right on the grass/lights. McKinney is over 6k long, so we have room.
And it's 2 days before Thanksgiving so hardly any traffic is present.

He says no (seemed like a reasonable request), yells, yells more and
my landing which is now low because of our airspeed and him not
allowing me to slightly power it to make it farther in, sucks. We
stop on the runway, and next pattern he simulates an engine failure. I
pitch for about 70, and get, "SIXTY-EIGHT. WHAT'S YOUR ****ING BEST
GLIDE? SIXTY-EIGHT!!". There's no way to make it to the runway, at
all even with 68. I get yelled at for being too far away, but the
tower asked us to be because of incoming traffic.

Jake smashes in the throttle and yells "GO AROUND!", forcing the yoke
forward because the nose pitched up (thanks to him hammering the
throttle in) then yelling at me for that.

At this point, I'm ready just to go home. But I consider it wasted
money, and probably better to let him scream for 10 more minutes and
I'll probably get to solo.

Sure enough, after two more landings I solo. "DON'T RUN ME OVER WHEN
YOU ****ING COME BACK", he says.

90 downwind, tight pattern, smooth landings. The McKinney tower guy
even told my instructor after he got back in that my pattern and
landings looked great, but I forgot to announce my callsign once, I
didn't center line all the landings, etc etc all announced on the
tower frequency. Thanks McKinney ATC guy! *sigh*

We return to Monarch Air, he says tie up the plane and hurry up.
Coming into the "office", there's 4 instructors standing there, all
not talking, avoiding eye contact and Jake in a chair looking down
with his hand outstretched for the key. No good solo (which is was),
congrats, nadda from anyone. And thus I left, no happy Thanksgiving,
see ya when I get back, almost like Jake just wanted me to get the
hell out of his face.

So should I get a new instructor? Mine seems like a miserable human
being. If I was a bad student, maybe I could understand. But the
senior instructor that's flown with me on progress flights called me
"significantly better than average".

How much of a hit would I take changing instructors this far in? Does
asking for a new one (preferrably with some experience) label me as a
problem student with the school?

Is it too much to ask, to be allowed a few feet into the runway if I'm
more comfortable with it?

Any advice would be appreciated. I'm beginning to hate flying, which
is sad because I began learning thinking it would be fun.

At first I agreed on all of the above opinions, namely to get rid of that A$$H*LE and find a new flight school. However, the more I read on, the more fishy this whole little story seems. As one person inferred, why did he say he made up the name of the flight school and location when they turn out to be real. I fly out of Addison and am familiar with Monarch and also know that McKinney is the standard training flight from Addison. Why on earth would he say that he made this up???

Get a new instructor.

Three of us shared the same instructor until we each were private
pilots but there were sessions when each of us was not comfortable
with him. Later, we learned that he hated our profession...engineering
and therefore was not pleased to fly with us.

After getting the private, I had to do transition training in tailwheel
planes and so a new to me instructor was assigned.

Like night and day!! Incredible how quickly he picked up on things and
how readily they were corrected.

Flying with and being instructed by him was a real pleasure so the
benefit to all of us was that I went on with him through a Commercial
license.

The only regret was that I or we three had not changed instructors
after the first "realization" hours with the first one.


Best of luck and you will!! enjoy the ride with other instructors.

Neal

"Monarch Student" wrote in message
...

the top of his lungs, "90 KEEP IT AT ****ING 90 ON DOWNWIND!!". I
look down at the airspeed, which is at 87. He slaps my hand away from
the throttle, and mashes it in.

Time for a new instructor. Somebody who conducts himself like that with a
student is likely missing other critical instructional skills that a more
level-headed and positive instructor is more likely to possess.

How much of a hit would I take changing instructors this far in?

Not much given you've just soloed. Consider that what you're learning
concerns matters of life and death for you and your future passengers, and
if an instructor has to swear at you on the day you solo, he's irrational.
That might make you question his decision to sign you off to solo in the
first place. In terms of the money you might lose, I think it's better to
reward a good instructor than enable the behavior of a poor one and if you
don't, in the long run you'll be spending a lot of money trying to enjoy
something being taught to you by somebody you don't trust.

I dated a girl who had an instructor like that in Baton Rouge. He made her
so uncomfortable in the cockpit she "quit flying for awhile" and never
picked it up again.

Any advice would be appreciated. I'm beginning to hate flying, which is
sad because I began learning thinking it would be fun.

It is and for the money you have to pay to do it, it should be.

By the way, CONGRATULATIONS.

-c

If this is typical practice, then without a doubt your flight
instructor is unprofessional and violating the FAA's guidelines on the
fundamentals of instruction (FOI) Never, ever, ever pay $50/hour for
someone to treat you like crap.

Find a new instructor, preferably one who enjoys instructing. You are
a client, he is providing a service and under no circumstances should
you be reduced to anything less.

Incidentally, "slamming" the throttle, or any other aircraft control is
a bad idea, and on more than one occasion results in broken cables,
linkages, and can even be the straw that breaks an engine, not
something you want to have happen with 20 hours in your book.

Check our website, there is plenty of information on CFI's, jobs, and
the basics of VFR instruction.

www.pilotweb.org