Although it is common for learners to imprint on their instructors, the fact of the matter is that the training connection is a business relationship. There needs to be communication about goals, how to achieve them, progress made, what has been accomplished, and what needs to be done. 

When you are a novice pilot, it can be a challenge to determine if progress is being made. When it becomes clear that it isn’t, it is time to make a change.

Flying Once a Week—Or Less

To make progress you need to fly on a consistent basis. This can be a challenge given limitations on instructor availability, airplane availability, learner availability, or finances.

There is no way anyone can make progress when you fly just once a week or a few times a month. You need a minimum of two lessons per week, three would be better, for learning to take place.

If you don’t have the money or time to fly at least twice a week, now may not be the time to pursue flight training. Save up the money and carve out the time to train. 

Flight Lessons Longer Than Two Hours

Just as flying too little hampers learning, so does flying too much.

Flying is fatiguing both mentally and physically. The cognitive demands, noise, and vibration of the aircraft can wear you out. Learning will not take place if you are tired.

It is not uncommon for pre-solo novice pilots to book five-hour lessons in the aircraft thinking they can knock out huge chunks of training in one lesson. This usually doesn’t work due to the fatigue factor.

You will need to build up endurance in the cockpit just like you do when learning to play a sport. For flights out to the practice area and back, two hours of flight time might be on the ragged edge.

While the FBOs gladly take your money and the CFIs will rack up the hours, you probably won’t get much out of it after about an hour in the air. Flying is too expensive to become self-loading ballast, so consider keeping the pre-solo flights to the practice area and in the pattern no longer than 1.3 hours. When your endurance increases, lengthen the lessons.

Too Early for Ground School?

It is never too early. Most of what you do in the airplane is best taught on the ground in a classroom than practiced in the air. The rules, regulations, and airspace are best taught on the ground as aircraft make terrible classrooms. 

If the CFI doesn’t recommend ground school, insists you self-study, and/or doesn’t make time to review what you have learned, ask why they are reluctant. If you’re not sure about a concept or an aircraft system or how to use a piece of equipment like ForeFlight or the E6-B, and your CFI can’t show you, find someone else to work with.

The CFI Doesn’t Use a Syllabus

A syllabus is the best way to keep a learner on track as it lists the tasks to be performed for certification and the order the tasks are to be learned.

Flight instructors train their clients as they were trained, and sadly many CFIs don’t use a syllabus because the person who trained them didn’t. “No one here uses one,” is a tepid excuse and unprofessional.

Minimal Preflight and Post-Flight Briefings 

“Did you check the weather?” and “See you next week,” are not pre- and post-flight briefings.

The preflight briefing consists of what the planned lesson is, how it will be conducted, and completion standards. The post-flight briefing consists of how you performed on the flight, ways to improve if required, and what will be done on the next flight.

Reluctance to Teach Basic Navigation

If your CFI is all about GPS, and says that no one uses the VORs, magnetic compass, pilotage or ded reckoning anymore, know that this is not accurate.

The basic method of navigation is using outside visual references. You also need to be able to determine time, speed and distance calculations using the E6-B—either analog or electronic—rather than relying on an app to do the work. 

For your check ride, you will need to know how to perform a divert in midair, and it is likely the examiner will disable the electronic devices to test your skills.

Reluctance to Use Paper Charts

While the electronic flight bag is a marvelous tool and reduces cockpit clutter, it can overheat, run out of power, or disappear from your flight bag or airplane.

Learn to use paper as backup. Also, you may find it more expedient to use paper for certain operations, such as looking up an airport tower frequency.

Instead of tapping on multiple tabs, a quick glance at paper gives you the information you seek.

No Introduction to the FAR/AIM

The Federal Aviation Regulations/Aeronautical Information Manual (FAR/AIM) spells out the knowledge and experience required for every certificate and rating. Your CFI should tell you about this book on day one of your training and demonstrate how to use it. 

The FAR/AIM is a tool to be used to “trust but verify.” There are far too many learners going on flights that are more for the benefit of the CFI building their hours.

How many times have you heard about a low-time, pre-solo private pilot candidate doing an IFR flight or night cross counties at the insistence of their instructor? 

Remember this is your training, and it’s supposed to benefit you. If you ever feel like that has not happened, you are well within your rights to make a change.

The post When Flight Training Stalls appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Do you remember getting this admonishment before your private pilot check ride? I do. It meant picking up the appropriate text—more often than not the FAR/AIM—and going to the back of the book to the index. The index was pretty easy to use as the words are arranged alphabetically. Sometimes it took a few tries to find what you were looking for—would the airspeed indicator be listed under airspeed or required instruments for VFR flight?—but with a little patience you could find it and follow the page number to the appropriate section.

As we have progressed to a digital society, fewer and fewer learners and even instructors know how to use the index in a paper book. In an e-book, it’s easy. An algorithm does the work for you.

In a paper book, it is a little more involved, starting with the introduction of the user and the concept of an index. I have added this to the list of things I teach my clients, and occasionally, my coworkers.

I use the paper version with learners that are tactile and kinetic and learn better by holding a book in their hands and turning the pages. When the new versions come out, we make a game of making tabs to make it easier to find certain things—such as FAR 61.87 requirements for solo. You can buy the books pre-tabbed, but many learners find the task of making tabs and placing them in the book aids in the learning process.

That is not to say I don’t also use the digital version: I do. Frankly, it doesn’t matter if you get the information from paper or digitally. The important thing is you know where to find it.

Analog Clock

Can you tell time from an analog clock? The ability to read one is becoming a lost skill. I recently met a freshly retired high school teacher who told me that most of the kids in her classes cannot tell time from an analog clock. “They use their phones,” she said.

This is concerning, because in aviation the analog clock is used as a reference to determine position, i.e. “traffic at your 3 o’clock.” It is getting more difficult to convey this concept to learners, so much so that one CFI I know has taken to having learners set their smartwatches to an analog display or obtain a cheap analog watch to help them learn the directions that correspond to the numbers.

Aviation Weather.gov Gets a Makeover

Flight instructors have learning curves too. As I write this, I am learning how to use the redesigned version of NOAA’s weather page, AviationWeather.gov. I have relied on the webpage for years for supplemental weather information.

• READ MORE: NOAA Changing Weather Site

For years, my day began by tapping on the icon on my smartphone, putting in “@WA” and clicking on TAFs and METARs, and in an instant the weather from every available airport in the state of Washington was displayed. That told me if the day was going to be spent in the air or on the ground. When it was an air day, Leidos briefings followed before each flight and ForeFlight followed us into the cockpit. Weather is a hobby of mine, going back to my fledgling television career where I figured if I was going to report the weather, I needed to know something about it.

The new AviationWeather.gov site offers a great deal of information on climate, severe weather, fisheries, etc. I can imagine it being a good resource for studying these topics. But it’s an awful lot to wade through for a supplemental weather briefing.

Learning Takes Place

I watched the video tutorials. Because the new one has so much information, you need to go on a scavenger hunt to find what you want. The TAFs and METARs are buried under layers labeled “Tools and Resources.” A few times, I got the NOAA version of the “spinning beach ball of death” as I searched for things. There are more colored graphics on the new site, and if that is how you like your weather information presented, you’re going to be a happy camper. If you prefer black and white text, the graphics are a lot of noise. The Terminal Weather Dashboard is confusing and hard to read, and although the redesign was supposed to make it easier to use on smartphones, I have not found this to be so.

I am not the only person having a challenge. The day the site went live hundreds of pilots, including many instructors, voiced their displeasure. A colleague noted that the weather is presented in the decoded form and predicted that this would “throw a monkey wrench into the knowledge tests” as learners are asked to decode weather reports.

There is no such thing as an FAA-approved weather briefing, but some products are better than others. I am partial to those that require a discreet login and can be customized so that a few keystrokes take you to the place you need to be. Some pilots find the app-based subscription products not worth the investment when they only fly a few times a year. Same goes for the budget-minded learner who’d rather spend the money on flight lessons.

I am still compelled to show the learners how to use 1800WXBRIEF.com to get a briefing and file flight plans since it does not require a paid subscription.

When was the last time you called 1-800-WX-BRIEF for a weather briefing? With the development of online applications, calling for weather has fallen out of favor. But until that option goes away, I want my learners to know how to get a weather briefing by phone, just in case their iPad, tablet or smartphone fails or goes missing. If the internet crashes or cell towers are jammed, you’ll know how to use pay phones as well—granted, the most challenging aspect is likely finding one. You may end up borrowing the phone of the FBO in some cases.

Don’t be intimidated. Follow the voice prompts and when you get the person, explain you are a student pilot, and they will walk you through the process. It is not that difficult, and you can check that off your “have to try it at least once” list, treating it like it is the aviation version of going to the L.L. Bean store in Maine and getting your picture taken in front of the giant boot. If you have the opportunity, make it happen. 

The post Teaching Analog Skills in a Digital World appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

What Is Normal?

On your first preflight inspection, your instructor will likely teach you how to perform it, checklist in hand. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been flying, use the checklist. In addition to providing a logical flow to the inspection, it often offers metrics for normal and safe operations, such as “minimum oil level 5 quarts”.

It is OK, in fact encouraged, to be extra cautious when it comes to potential discrepancies found during the preflight inspection. If you have never flown a particular airplane before, and it is your usual slightly beat-up flight school rental, you will probably find things that give you pause. For example, that crack on the plastic wingtip that terminates in a drilled hole. A good instructor will use this as an opportunity to explain stop-gap drilling.

• READ MORE: Make the Most of the Checklist

Sometimes you will find more than one thing on an airplane that concerns you or have a question about, but you’re so focused on the inspection you may forget that you had a question. This is common. During my student days, I got into the habit of leaving the left wing tied down as a reminder to myself that I had a question for the instructor. Pretty soon my instructors were trained to recognize this symbol. Today my learners use this technique.

There may be a situation where the CFI calls a mechanic for their opinion. The first time I did this was when my learner found a nick in the propeller—a piece of sharp metal sticking up. The mechanic came out and inspected the propeller, then used a file to dress the crack and blade. It was an excellent teachable moment for both the learner and myself, and it taught the learner not to be intimidated by mechanics.

I don’t remember a single time a mechanic became cross with me for asking their opinion on something. One mechanic explained it to me by saying, “These are our airplanes too,” and they’d rather have it be a nonissue than something that creates a problem in the air.

The best flight schools are the ones where the CFIs and mechanics work as a team. This begins by respecting each other’s space and skill sets. I rather enjoyed being called upon to assist the mechanics when they have a task like swinging a compass or taking them up on a diagnostic flight. 

If the school is Part 141 only mechanics can touch the aircraft. I’ve been told that even the replacement of a screw in the cowling by someone other than a mechanic can result in sanctions from the FAA. Under Part 61, this apparently isn’t the case, but you should never borrow a tool without permission. The mechanics I know keep their toolboxes very well organized. A missing tool—or one not put back in the right place and therefore perceived as missing can make a mechanic wonder if they left it in an aircraft—is not a good thing.

I can’t borrow tools without permission. I just can’t. One of the worst punishments I received as a child was when I borrowed my father’s hand tools without permission. I was 7, and let’s just say learning took place.

One mechanic I worked with said I could borrow his tools, but he asked that I return them on top of his toolbox with a note indicating that it had been borrowed and now returned. I respected this.

It is extremely disturbing to find a tool where one is not supposed to be—on the ramp, on the runway, or in the airplane. A former colleague found an Allen wrench on the battery of Cessna 172 during a preflight inspection and, for reasons that still escape me, thought it had been put there for him to find as some sort of joke. I am still not sure why he thought it was about him, and I was horrified. I still don’t get how leaving a tool in an engine could be a joke. 

• READ MORE: Flying Checks: Private Pilots Best Practice Before Takeoff

That being said, I do use colorful plastic toy frogs on the exterior of the aircraft and in the cockpit to check a learner’s preflight inspection and start scenario dialogues. For example, a frog on the fuel selector valve might mean the placard of the valve is missing. Is the aircraft still airworthy? Learning takes place. I always collect the frogs after the inspection. 

Most often, though, the learner’s discoveries of potential issues during the preflight inspection are not serious but are quirks of the airplane. It is often a relief to learn that the dent you found along the empennage has been there for months, and it is important that the instructor validate the learner’s observation, especially when it’s tied to their use of the checklist. During the run-up, the learner observed a rough-running magneto. There was too much of a discrepancy between the magnetos, per the checklist, for a safe flight, and I admit I was proud of my learner when he stated this. That was the day he learned how to clear a bad magneto.

When You Find Damage

Sometimes learners are reluctant to report damage they find for fear they will be blamed for it and billed for repairs. I witnessed a pre-solo learner near tears when she found a wingtip light hanging by a wire. Her CFI called me over to take a look. It was obvious the wingtip had collided with something.

“There’s no way you did this,” the CFI told her. “Something hit it.”

A little bit of sleuthing revealed that the line worker pulling the aircraft to the fuel pump had misjudged the distance between the aircraft wing and fence line. The line worker said he thought he felt it drag, but then it came loose so he didn’t think anything of it.

As it was a daytime flight, the lesson took place. However, a placard was inserted and a note made on the dispatch binder advising renters that the aircraft was for daytime VFR only. The lesson for the day included how to report a squawk. At this school the form included what aircraft, who found the squawk, when, were you solo or with a CFI, phase of flight, and action taken, as in which mechanic or administrator did you notify. Sounds like a lot to do, but, as I was told, there was precedence when squawks were verbally reported to the dispatcher, who wasn’t a pilot and often didn’t understand the issue and its impact on airworthiness. The detailed squawk report addressed this.

Squawks Don’t Just Disappear

Just because something is squawked doesn’t mean it gets addressed. If it doesn’t impact airworthiness or safety of flight, it may be deferred until the next inspection. However, be wary of a school that encourages instructors and renters to fly aircraft with known squawks, such as oil leaks or flat spots on tires with cords showing. Big red flag: If the local designated pilot examiners are reluctant to fly in those aircraft, take note.

If you feel uneasy about the mechanical condition of an airplane, remember you are not being forced to fly it. That apprehension could be from a lack of experience, or you could have a valid concern. It’s always best to err on the side of caution.

The post Knowing What’s ‘Normal’ Is a Big Part of Preflight Inspections appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The numbers change from year to year, from one report to another, but they generally agree. Roughly 20 percent of airplane accidents occur during the takeoff and climb-out phase. It is a deceivingly short period—one that leaves many pilots vulnerable and unprepared.

Your hypothetical flight will last two hours. The first 90 seconds of that time, which is less than 1 percent of your total flight, is where two of every 10 accidents occur. That departure now takes on a different character. But you don’t have to blithely accept the odds. You can easily stack the deck in your favor. All that is required is some simple planning using a using a specific framework.

The Departure Profile

When the takeoff power goes in, the clock starts running. You have entered the departure profile. This phase of flight lasts roughly 90 seconds and is comprised of four distinct segments. Each presents a unique scenario with its own risks and mitigations.

The Takeoff Roll: The takeoff roll lasts roughly 15 seconds in most single-engine airplanes. The aircraft is on the runway surface and is accelerating to rotation speed.

Rotation/Runway Remaining: At rotation, the short climb phase with runway remaining begins. In most airplanes, on most runways, this period also lasts about 15 seconds. After that, there is no remaining runway ahead and the initial climb begins.

Initial Climb: This is the most dangerous segment of the takeoff profile. During this period, approximately 60 seconds in duration, the airplane is relatively low to the ground in a climb configuration. Neither time nor glide distance are in your favor. A loss of thrust here carries the highest degree of risk.

Departure Climb: The initial climb segment ends when the aircraft has reached a previously selected altitude that we’ll call “the decision height.” This is where the departure climb begins. Increasing altitude creates reduced risk.

It is important to reiterate that each of the departure profile segments carries different risks and requires different mitigations. There are two key points that will massively reduce your risk during the entire departure profile: First, understand the four segments and scenarios, and second, adhere to a carefully planned safety briefing performed immediately before takeoff.

There is very little of this that isn’t at least mentioned during you primary training as a private pilot. The problem is, it is usually glossed over and not taught as an integrated concept. Rarely do I see pilots address these issues before they cross the hold-short line. There’s no briefing—they just taxi out, add power and go. Failure to brief this model before every takeoff massively increases a pilot’s risk.

Cognitively, pilots know it. They understand that if the power fails right after rotation, their only option is to land straight ahead on whatever remains in front of them. They just fail to brief it. This failure to brief guarantees that they will respond to the emergency more slowly. If your engine fails at 50 feet agl, you have about 15 seconds—at best—to transition to a landing attitude and touch the tires to pavement. On a short runway, you have even less time. Foul this up and you’ll still touch pavement, but not as gracefully as you would like. Briefing this in advance is the key to success. It will save you valuable seconds, and in a 15-second window, every moment counts.

The Takeoff Roll

Starting at the initial position, the takeoff roll begins the instant that the appropriate power setting is applied. The airplane accelerates to rotation speed, but it’s still on the ground. Obviously, some airplanes will lift off more quickly than others. Generally speaking, though, the takeoff roll lasts about 15 seconds for single-engine general aviation airplanes. During this period, any dangerous situation should be recognized and responded to with a rejected takeoff.

Troublesome symptoms include any loss of directional control, unexpected sounds or smells, and roughness felt in the airframe. External factors may come into play too. Perhaps you see debris on the runway or an airplane taxing out in front of you. Fifteen seconds is not a lot of time, so recognize the problem, quickly kill the power and brake to a stop.

Rotation and Runway Remaining

Once the aircraft has rotated, there is a brief amount of time in which runway remaining in front of you is sufficient for landing. This time window varies based on the airplane and the runway length. Assuming a garden-variety Cessna 172 on a 5,000-foot runway, the window exists for roughly 15 seconds. After that, it is unlikely that you can descend and land on runway pavement. As always, the better prepared you are, the more quickly you can execute the proper response and get safely on the ground.

This maneuver may appear deceptively simple. I suggest that people practice this with an instructor at an airport with a sufficiently long runway at a time when there is no traffic inbound or in the pattern. It is better to experience this in a controlled environment than in the heat of a real battle.

The trick is to quickly transition from a takeoff configuration to a landing configuration. This involves a swift change in attitude. Nose-up with decaying airspeed must change to nose-down with a stable airspeed. Pitch down too much, and you find yourself accelerating toward the ground too quickly. A finely controlled change in attitude is required.

Immediately after pitching down to a landing attitude, pull the throttle to idle. This isn’t the time for an engine to suddenly roar back to life—you are trying to land. Turning off systems and setting the mixture to the idle-cutoff position would be an even more thorough solution, but time likely won’t allow it. Pitch down, power off and land.

Initial Climb

This is the highest risk segment of the entire departure profile by far. Visualize it: You are in the air, climbing away from the airport, but still relatively low to the ground. An engine failure here offers you no more in options than it did during the rotation and runway-remaining segment. In both segments, your option is to transition to a landing attitude and configuration, and land essentially straight ahead. The big difference here is that landing on runway is not one of your available choices. Whatever is in front of you, that is where you are going. Paraphrasing Bob Hoover: Fly it as far into the crash as possible.

At the lowest of altitudes in the initial climb segment, you really are limited to straight ahead. But with increasing height above the ground comes an opening of the “pie slice.” A widening triangle of available landing spots appears.

As always, altitude increases your options. If possible, land into the wind. The amount of force your aircraft will absorb in a crash is a quadratic function of groundspeed, which boils down to this: Minimizing groundspeed radically improves your odds of survivability.

In this segment, under no circumstances should you attempt a return to the airport. The “impossible turn” lives here (a term I detest, by the way). There isn’t enough bandwidth available in this article to address this properly, so let me simply make this assertion: The turn-back (the proper term for the maneuver) is impossible when it is impossible. When it is no longer physically impossible, you are no longer in the initial climb, and you have reached an altitude where the departure-climb segment begins. And even then, it is highly unlikely that you should attempt the turn-back.

The turn-back may be an option—and perhaps even your best option—but only under a tightly defined set of circumstances. If you aren’t properly trained for it, or if you failed to brief it before takeoff, don’t attempt it. (I appreciate that this is a controversial topic. Please refer to my series of short articles about the turn-back on groundschool.com. No login required.)

Departure Climb

At some predetermined altitude, you may have the ability to safely turn up to 180 degrees as you descend toward the ground. This is your decision height. It should be determined in advance by testing at altitude. For most piston singles, it will be roughly 1,000 feet agl. This does not mean that the turn-back should be executed at this altitude; it simply identifies the point in your departure profile where you can glide to a forced landing in any direction. Also note that the decision height may be significantly
higher than 1,000 feet in some airplanes.

Once in the departure-climb segment, your risk level has returned to moderate. Remain vigilant, but appreciate that your increasing altitude is providing greater glide distance and time aloft that translates into more options for you.

Executing Your Survival Plan

After completing your pre-takeoff checklist and run-up, at some point before you taxi onto the runway, run through a quick emergency briefing. It should be a bullet- point list with little detail, covering each of the four departure segments. The goal of the briefing is to set the trigger in your head, queueing up your emergency responses for quick recall and execution.

Well-known airline captain and flight instructor Brian Schiff suggests that pilots should go one step further. Brief the takeoff emergencies, he says, but additionally, develop a series of callouts for each of the critical phases during the departure. It is one more simple habit that can reduce your risk dramatically. I recommend that you take his advice.

Embrace the pre-takeoff emergency briefing. Apply it to your everyday flights. The departure profile is a high-risk model yet one that is easily defined, understood and addressed.

This article originally appeared in the October 2021 issue of FLYING.

The post Your 90-Second Survival Plan for Takeoff Emergencies appeared first on FLYING Magazine.