Hello,
I’d like to ask for your advice on the wisdom (or not) of doing two instruction flights on the same day with a student in his thirties who so far has a total flight time of 10h36?
Some background: my student lives about 40 km from the aerodrome. Due to professional commitments he can only fly in the evenings and at the weekends. He asked me to arrange two instruction flights on the same day (Saturday). I said I was quite happy to provide the flights, but pointed out that he would likely feel tired during the second lesson. He decided he wanted to give it a try.
We did the two lessons. One in the morning, followed by a break for lunch of at least 2 hours, then one in the middle of the afternoon. I was careful to tailor my lessons to take account of fatigue – general handling in the morning, a short local flight in the afternoon to ring the changes, during which I asked him to put into practice exercises we had done previously – changes of speed, changes of altitude, etc.
My student was delighted.
Can anyone see a problem with this?
I frequently didn’t this when I was training. I can’t see the problem.
And the issue is ???
I did that all the time when I learned to fly. In any case, he’s the client and if that’s what he wants to do, that’s what you’ll do (after perhaps pointing out potential overload). In fact, of you can build the lessons in such a way that the second uses the knowledge gained in the first, then that can – IMHO – only be beneficial. I’ve never thought much of this idea to endlessly stretch out learning (no matter what), which seems to be horridly prevalent in PPL training (at least in Europe).
I did it a couple of times too, but would have been grateful for those instructors to be as considerate as Jojo showed herself.
Can anyone see a problem with this?
As an instructor, the only problem I can see would be my own time. If my student does one lesson in the morning, then a break of to hours and then another lesson, I will have to stay at the airport most of the day for three paid hours – or work for half my hourly rate (which is low enough for instructors). What I rather would do is pair up two such students and let them take turns at flying.
During my training I also did two instructions flights on the same day a couple of times. I was only available for training on Sunday and even due to a bad winter where I was unable to fly for about 9 weeks I was able to complete the PPL in 1,5 year.
Yes it is quite demanding in the beginning, on the other hand I think it is also good to experience.
2 flights a day is perfectly fine. It makes a very good use of a day which is otherwise half wasted, and that’s even if you don’t have to travel far. Also it reinforces currency, and makes the best use of suitable wx on a given day. In GA training, one is usually doing 2 steps forward and 1 step back, due to loss of currency. When I did my FAA IR in Arizona I did 2 flights per day and that was fine (and very effective) despite me being nearly 50 then and the intensity of the flying, under the hood 99% of the time.
You have to see how the individual copes. Elsewhere there was a written account by someone else (I think quite young (not that it should make a huge amount of difference)) who was doing 2 or 3 flights a day, almost 5 days a week and got his PPL in 45.2 hours and had the whole lot done in 2 or 3 weeks I recall. I could manage two in one day, but I would need time to consolidate theory against practise, especially if I was making mistakes and was unable to mentally work out the block, so I wouldnt be back the next day ideally.
I remember my QXC was absolutely amazing, but a HUGE drain on me (there was no sneaky iPhone pocket verson of SkyDemon you could really use 8 years ago), so it was 2.5 hours of visually cross-checking small towns and waypoints or pinning some hope on an ADF needle (stressful). Then again I was learning German up until recently but gave up because my head was spinning after my weekly 1.5 hour lesson of being spoken German to, and to the point where it was beginning to stress me out and I dreaded it. I realised I have capacity to learn a lot. but I just cant do languages. Others may well sit there for hours a day. We all cope differently.
If the student can afford it, I can see many advantage to doing two flights on the same day, with an appropriate break in between.
We principally learn the mechanics of flight (as distinct from the decision making) through repition. Being able to avoid week long breaks before repition is likely to help the learning process.
I’m in my 30s and did my PPL within a month and the only way to do that was to take two lessons/day incl several weekend days for solos. It was usually one lesson in the morning, followed by a two hour lunch break (while the instructor would take another student up and/or have lunch himself), followed by another lesson in the afternoon. I was knackered in the evenings but in a very rewarding manner. Wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
