Thank you all for the valuable input!
I would like to add to one comment about doing things “my way”. Of course I have to stick to the Training Manual and the syllabus :) However, our club is affiliated to the national aero club, therefore we use their TM and in my humble opinion I guess the exercises could have been explained much better.
It basically says “Student has to demonstrate Steep Turns, slow flight, etc. pp”. However, looking through it I do not find that many hard facts that help assess every air work/maneuvre. By reading the TM, the student is not really able to assess for himself how he has to fly the maneuvre and within which parameters in order to pass the exercise. Wouldn’t it be more helpful if the TM explained each exercise summing up the reason for it, aerodynamics involved , how to fly it and within which parameters?
Of course I would stick to the official TM and do a proper briefing/debriefing before each lesson and all that, but I think this way the student would know much better how he is performing and progressing.
I guess the actual TM gives much more options for each FI to do the things “their way”.
Not trying to be a smartass :) I haven’t had a student yet to “torture”! However, as you all said, it is all about giving the student as much added value as possible.
RobertL18C wrote:
unconsciously incompetent, consciously incompetent, consciously competent and unconsciously competent
Absolutely one of the best quotes I’ve ever heard… Thanks for that beauty!
Congratulations and maybe see you around at the field sometime! 
I have little counsel or suggestions to give about piloting, much less about teaching the same – please accept my congratulations, and do keep up the good work (as amply described above ) !
From the student’s point of view, I well remember the instructor who touched the controls as little as possible, but who did, after one particularly poor landing, dryly say “had you done this on a hard runway, we would be upside down now”. That bit of learning went deep!
Congratulations! I’m not an FI, just a lowly PPL who had the enjoyment to fly with 13 different instructors in the my first year / 100 hours, so my insight could still be useful.
- How did you develop a sense of “letting the student make a mistake before it gets unsafe”? Was it just experience? Of course we went a lot into this during the course, but doing sim hours in the FNPTII or flying with another FI-cadet is not the same…
First of all: do not ride the controls at all. It is either you or the student in control. Make it clear if safety dictates that you take over and then do so, but not otherwise. Being a bit conservative in choosing this takeover point is much more acceptable than trying to control the plane simultaneously with the student. If the student can consistently expect that they will be in charge of the situation until they screw it up beyond their own skillset, they will also do things much more predictably and you will be able to judge more accurately when to react. And if the mistake is small enough (i.e. most radio comm mistakes), try not correcting the student at all, but debrief the situation later on the ground.
- Do you let the student “do everything” from the beginning?
Let them do as much as possible from the very beginning. A demonstration once (or at most twice) should be enough for everything, but there are also many things that can be perfectly taught without ever showing them yourself, but thoroughly briefing your student.
Firstly, well done and welcome to a great new era in your flying career! My top tips:
- Either you are in control or the student is, there is no cross over or grey area ever. If you need to use the controls, take control.
- Don’t skimp on demonstrations or teaches (i.e. student is following through) – repeat if required as well. Far too many instructors leave students struggling to practice with incorrect techniques being displayed when a reteach is required.
- Don’t skimp on pre-flight briefings / debriefs – they are an absolutely critical part of the learning process.
- Your risk tolerance for letting students make mistakes will grow over time with experience, you won’t always get it right but leaving it too late can be bad news, so don’t worry if you are a little conservative at first. Also my absolute pet hate is idiot FIs who talk about ‘student nearly killed me / trying to kill me’ etc.. even in a misplaced humorous way. That kind of language has no place in flying training and will just unnerve the student and those around the environment.
- Really think about your language – it is easy to forget how aviation abbreviations and saying can be completely missed by students etc.. This week after me talking for a while briefing, an air experience student asked me what I meant when I kept saying ‘sortie’…. obvious to me, but not to a lot of others!!
- As others have said, the mentoring will vary. I always backseat a couple of trips with my FI(R)s and get them to backseat some of my trips during the restricted period and this has proven to be very useful for both of us!
Mistakes – if you brief and demonstrate properly these are not a regular occurrence. About the only time you really need to be on your game is during the latter phases of landing. Don’t ride the controls (this is very un-nerving for the student) but make sure your hands and feet are close enough. Personally, I always make sure I can instantaneously stop the student from shoving the nose down during a flare; my right hand is on my right knee but close enough to the yoke to act as a ‘backstop’. Another good tip is that you only need to cover one rudder pedal, the right one. A student is almost never going to get into trouble for not applying left rudder (assuming clockwise propeller motion). Basically, just ensure you know your own boundaries such that you can take control and, in the eyes of the student, demonstrate you Sky God skills.
Student doing everything – as much as possible. Despite my previous comment about Sky Goddery, you’re not there to demonstrate this. Demonstrate the particular element of the lesson and then let the student find his own way through which, sometimes, means he doesn’t realising you are assisting. A really good instructor orchestrates the lesson such that the student feels he has flown the entire trip.
Mentoring – very little. That said, you are doing your PPL student a dis-service if you start doing things your own way. The difference you can make is in developing the best possible relationship such that the student is in the right mood to learn. Please please please do not teach him to land, turn, climb, PFL etc ‘your way’. Many people before you and I, all of whom have far greater levels of experience, have decided that the most effective way to learn-to-fly (PPL) is in accordance with what you have been taught on the FI course. The aim is to produce a safe pilot – effectiveness, efficiency and elegance comes with experience after the issue of PPL.
Finally – your student (more likely his mum/dad) is paying a not-so-insignificant sum of money for the privilege of flying with you in a tatty old C152, or equivalent. They need to feel value-for-money.
Enjoy. :)
Glückwunsch, Alex!
Let me give you some pratical advice: remember that on every instructional flight, you will be the PIC and only you will be responsible for anything that happens. The student is like a passenger in this regard. I have seen many instructors, and even examiner who don’t really seem to have grasped this. Always check that the aircraft is airworthy and fulfils all conditions for the flight. You need to make sure W&B is OK. You need to check fuel is good. You need to adhere to airport restrictions (the dreaded Landeplatzlärmschutzverordnung comes to mind). Always duly check all NOTAMs. And so on.
For the rest, be humble. The FI thing is just a course. You are not really a different pilot than you were before. Don’t ever insist on certain ways how things must be done (unless it is safety-critical). What I learned as a young instructor is that many things can indeed be done in many ways and the instructor shouldn’t take himself too serious. Don’t become that type of instructor that “insists” on how things should be done, just because you do it that way.
But also make sure that the students (=the customer) gets value out of your presence, on each and every flight.
Congratulations the industry is short of instructors at the moment and your debut is in the peak PPL teaching season.
Demonstrating some of the maneuovres while the student follows through is a sensible approach. You need to set a standard of precision, and some exercises, for example, the stall series or landing, self evidently require a demonstration.
I was lucky to have some very experienced colleagues (Test Pilot School, RAF instructors, Airline Training Captains) so discussing teaching methods or students which needed special attention was always encouraged. The school had a system for students who were struggling to fly with an FI examiner (also Aeros and display pilot), who is incredibly experienced and patient. He could almost always detect what was missing to help the student acquire a skill.
Another colleague described the four phases of instructing somewhat like: unconsciously incompetent, consciously incompetent, consciously competent and unconsciously competent. I fear most humans oscillate between phase one and two, with occasional good days in phase three. You will find that you learn an incredible amount about your own knowledge gaps when instructing.
You will also develop your own way of explaining things and your personal teaching style, which hopefully makes lessons challenging and fun. Keeping up the enthusiasm and not becoming jaded is essential.
