What Should You Expect From Your Instructor?
                                    Einstein, Dear Abby and Superman

There aren’t too many learning/teaching environments that have the dynamics, restrictions and intense nature of the cockpit? Learning to fly is not learning to crochet. The student has a perfect right to expect more from his or her flight instructor than they do from their crochet teacher.

The student should expect certain levels of personal behavior in addition to quality instruction from their Instructor. At the same time, however, the instructor has a right to expect certain things out of the student. In fact, if you look at many of the characteristics you expect in your instructor, you’ll realize you should be expected to toe the same mark.


The Instructor as an Educator
A flight instructor has to be many things, but at his very core he has to be an educator. This means he should see his mission as much more than simply teaching a skill. He wants his students to understand that skill, not just be able to do it. This isn’t easy and the Instructor often has to re-evaluate his or her approach because every single student reacts to aviation differently and learns via a different combination of stimuli.

If you were to pick a single characteristic that makes one Instructor better than the next, it would be a willingness (an eagerness, actually) to recognize the unique nature of each student and structure his approach to match each student rather than using a one-size-fits-all form of instruction. Other factors are important too, but none are as important as trying to find exactly the right way to reach inside your head to make the whole process work.

An Instructor is Empathetic
At the same time that an instructor is striving to be an educator, he has to recognize that his student is human, complete with all the fears and anxieties that characterize the breed. For that reason, besides the anxieties endemic in any intense learning situation, the instructor has to deal with the fear brought about by introducing a third dimension to a brain that has spent its entire life in a two-dimensional world. It’s easy for an instructor to forget what it’s like to step into this new, frightening, fast-moving environment.

Every time an instructor straps in with a new student, he should try to picture how he felt when sitting at the controls for the first time himself. He or she should be trying to remember how it felt to know nothing while being expected to learn everything. He should remember those instructors he liked and those he didn’t like and try to model himself after the good guys.

As a student, you can tell when an instructor is making no effort to understand what you’re going through. If you feel that and it contributes to your frustration level, tell him, as a student once told this author when he was just starting to instruct, “Hey, when you’re new student pilot, all you see is sky and dirt. This is all new to me, so give me a break.”

The Instructor Must Play Psychiatrist
It’s not at all unusual for a new student to be awestruck by the apparent complexity and seriousness of the endeavor. A few are apprehensive, bordering on fearful. No matter what the reaction, this all gets in the way of learning and it’s up to the instructor to play psychiatrist and try to bring the student to an emotional level that will let learning proceed.

If the Instructor is doing his job, he’s trying to evaluate his student’s mental state, constantly monitoring it for warning flags that indicate all is not well. On those bad days, where the student can’t find his personal empennage with both hands, it’s up to the instructor to pat him or her on the back, expounding on all the good things that happened that hour and playing down the bad while explaining how to fix them. In this area, and so many others, the instructor must get inside the student’s head and play cheerleader. This is where it helps if the instructor is also a mind reader.

A few instructors don’t have the patience to play confessor, social worker and psychiatrist all at the same time and their impatience shows through. If this becomes a pattern, either find another instructor or sit this one down and have a talk with him about it. Otherwise it’ll make your entire learning experience more difficult.

The Student Pilot Bill of Rights
Okay, now that we know a flight instructor is supposed to be a brilliant combination of Einstein, Dear Abby and Superman, what is it that we realistically have a right to expect of him or her? And we underscore realistically.

As a student you have the right to expect the following:

Punctuality
No instructor has the right to keep you waiting. Even though it is nearly impossible to keep a tight schedule in a flight-training environment, the operative word is nearly impossible. Not absolutely impossible. Just as an instructor asks his students to plan ahead, a good instructor plans his
schedule and keeps one eye on his watch. Besides, that’s what cell phones are for. If one of you is running late, call the other one and let them know.

Personal Hygiene
We seldom talk about it, but being trapped in the claustrophobic environment that is the cockpit doesn’t leave room for bad breath or body odor. Yes, flight instructors are under paid, but there’s no excuse for not smelling civilized. If you get stuck with an instructor who makes you want to fly with your head out the window, send him a gift-wrapped bar of soap or mouthwash. Or, if that fails, show up wearing your gas mask.

Professional Appearance
It doesn’t do much for your confidence if the guy who is supposed to be imparting death-defying skills to you looks like an unmade bed. He doesn’t need to be wearing a suit and tie, but clean jeans, a shirt without mustard stains and a shave in the past 24 hours would be nice.

Being Prepared
It’s really discouraging to greet your instructor and have him say, “Now, what was it we worked on last time?” In the instructor’s defense, most Instructors are working with a bunch of students at one time and should not be expected to remember every flight. That’s why some instructors keep journals in which they jot notes about each student, “…has habit of pulling nose up too high in
turns….drags bottom rudder…” This eliminates that awkward period at the beginning of a lesson where the student is struggling to remember what they did last time while the instructor is doing the same thing.

Calm Instructional Manner
Loosely translated, a calm instructional manner means no yelling. None. Aviation is full of legends about “character” flight instructors who can be heard yelling at their students as they orbit the pattern. Regardless of an Instructors frustration at a student who can’t get something, there is no reason to show impatience. If a student isn’t getting it, it’s for two reasons and two reasons only: the student has a learning problem in that area that the instructor hasn’t yet diagnosed or developed the correct way to treat. Secondly, if the student isn’t getting it, the instructor obviously isn’t doing a very good job of presenting the concept. Whatever the reason, when something isn’t going well in the cockpit, the only person the instructor should be yelling at is himself. In these cases, it is the instructor who is making the mistakes, not the student.

Yelling or an obvious show of impatience builds apprehension and resentment in the student at a time, when that’s the last thing they need.

If an instructor is loud and abusive to you, first, have a calm discussion with him about how he is treating you. If that doesn’t work, tell him or her to pound sand and go looking for a new instructor. “Character” flight instructor or not, there’s simply no excuse for that kind of behavior in the cockpit.

The Instructor Should Know the Material, Concept-to-Application
Instructors should not be expect to be geniuses, but they should know the subject they are teaching well enough to be capable of teaching more than just the basic skills. They should be able to make the underlying concepts understandable, as well. This means having a command of both the academics (FAR’s, aerodynamics, etc.) and the practical application. In the area of
practical application it’s nice if he can fly well, but it is far more important that he can instruct well and the two skills don’t necessarily come in the same package. In fact, it’s normally easier to find a good pilot than a good instructor.

Being able to demonstrate something correctly is not the same thing as teaching it. Teaching by demonstration-only is a hit or miss endeavor in which the instructor hopes the student is astute enough to see what is happening and can develop the ability to mimic it. But that’s all the student will get out of that kind of instruction—a shallow facsimile of what he saw his instructor do and he or she may or may not understand why it is being done.

It’s important a student know the “whys” as well as the “hows.” A solid understanding of the concepts of flight gives the student something to build on as they move forward in their flying career. Otherwise, once they master the demonstration method by rote, everything else they do will be self-taught and often without solid reasoning behind it because the concepts aren’t understood.

On the flip side of the coin, it is important an instructor be able to fly well enough that he can correctly put the concepts into action. A student remembers what he or she sees and words alone can not offset seeing it repeatedly done wrong. Images remain in the mind long after the words disappear.

You have the right to be taught to fly, not pass a test
If an instructor ever says, “That’s good enough to pass the flight test”, pack up your bags and split. An instructor who flies with a Practical Test Standards guide in his pocket and uses that as a measuring stick of what is right and wrong is NOT the person you want teaching you to fly. Passing the flight test should be nothing more than the happy by-product of good flight instruction. If a student is trained correctly from day one, passing the flight test is a foregone conclusion. Most examiners aren’t the ogre’s they’re painted to be and they recognize a well-trained student even as they are strapping in. They can spot the poorly trained ones just as quickly and those are the ones likely to get their butts worked off during the flight test.

Pre-flight/post-flight-—What will you do and how did you do while doing it?
It is the right of each student to expect both a pre-flight and a post-flight briefing. They may only be ten minutes long, but for learning to flow smoothly, it is much easier to set goals and directions for the lesson while on the ground then in the subdued confusion of the cockpit. Words said in the cockpit are meant to re-enforce and amplify on the words that were said during the pre-flight briefing. Basic concepts are hard to get across in the cockpit, when they are still in their raw, not-fully-explained form. There is simply too much going on for you, the student, to realize that you don’t understand a concept the instructor has just tried to explain. The concept should be gone through on the ground and once you’re in the cockpit, the instructor should be explaining
how to put that concept into action.

The post-flight brief is critical because it acts as the bridge between this lesson and the next one. It clarifies things that happened during the flight that you may not have totally understood and it opens the door for you to ask questions that won’t occur to you later. As you get out of the cockpit, you are likely to say, “Oh, yeah, I just remembered. Why do you use elevator to…”. A
few hours or days later, your comment will be, “There was something I wanted to ask you, but I can’t remember what it is.”

He Lets You Make the Mistakes
You don’t want an instructor who is always on the controls and you can feel him herding you in the right direction. The learning game is always one of making mistakes, being given the time to make the correction, and only then having the instructor steps in. To understand airplanes, you have see their dark side as well as their lighter side, otherwise you won’t know a mistake when you see it and won’t know how to correct it. If the instructor is always doing the correcting you see only the good side of the airplane.

You Should Expect Your Lessons to be Sprinkled With Reality
When learning to fly, too many times the maneuvers being taught are separated from the way in which they are going to be applied. Rectangular patterns and turns-around-a-point, for instance, are meant to help us fly the pattern more precisely. When we start flying that pattern, however, how often are the principles discovered in those maneuvers mentioned? Not often enough. How often do we say, “Remember back in turns-around-a-point? See how our ground speed is
picking up on downwind because of the wind behind us and how it is effecting the turn to base?”

Stalls, another example, are usually nose-high-now-we-are-stalling exercises that you’d have to be blind to get yourself into in real life. Accidental stalls happen in the pattern, usually during the base-to-final turn, when the nose is allowed to drift up to, not over, the horizon. Some inside rudder that is being used to coax the airplane around the turn may aggravate the situation.
Accidental stalls are very subtle events, not the dramatic maneuvers we see out in the practice area. The instructor should show you flight as it happens in reality, not as it is explained in the test guides.

Your Instructor Should Strike a Balance Between Saying Too Much and Too Little
You want an instructor who knows when it’s necessary to tell you what to do but also knows when it’s time to let you do it on your own. At the same time, you don’t want a bump-on-a-log instructor, who says nothing, grunts once in a while then takes over the controls to show you something. The strong, silent type acts as if saying too much will give you too many keys of knowledge and will make your task too easy.

A Pleasant, Fun Instructor Makes Learning Easier
As a student, you have a certain amount of apprehension about flying in the first place. A pleasant instructor who appears to be enjoying your time together makes it much easier for you to relax while you learn to pat your head and rub your tummy at the same time. An instructor who is gruff, judgmental and generally not a pleasant person raises your apprehension level considerably,
which makes learning much more difficult.

The Right Instructor Makes Safety an Engrained Part of Every Lesson
Safety in aviation isn’t something you learn. It’s something that’s part of you and that comes from an instructor who uses safety as the bedrock for every statement he or she makes. If, as a baby bird person, you hear safety woven into every single word of wisdom that’s passed down to you, you can’t help but make safety the core thought of your aviation career. Safety is not supposed to
be an instructional after thought. “…And oh, yeah, don’t get the nose too high right here and then we turn and…” It should be “…remember the wing loses vertical lift as the bank angle increases and the stall speed goes up as well. Be careful about making the situation worse by letting your nose move towards the horizon…”

There are about a thousand other attributes you want to see in an instructor and which reflect the rights you have as a student pilot, but these will do for starters. However, we have one more list you should know, most of which should feel familiar

The Instructor’s Bill of Rights
Here’s what the Instructor has the right to expect of you, the student:
• Punctuality—He’s trying to make a living so give him or her a break
• A Shower and fresh breath—Instructors aren’t the only ones who smell
• Be Prepared—Flying isn’t a replacement for golf. Come ready to learn
• Be Willing to Come Early and Leave Late—Pre/Post briefings don’t work, if you’re in a hurry to get home.
• Be Willing to Make Mistakes—You don’t have to be aggressive but don’t be afraid to try what he’s telling you.
• Ask questions—the instructor isn’t a mind reader. If you don’t understand something completely, ask about it. Carry a pocket card to write down questions when off the airport.
• Don’t be a Sour Puss and Respect Your instructor—First of all, flying is supposed to be fun, so enjoy it. Second, there is no doubt that you’re making more money than your instructor is (everyone does), just don’t act like it.
He’s doing something that not many people do and he’s not doing it for the money. How many of us can say that about ourselves?
• Don’t Pooh-pooh Safety—This is serious stuff. Act like it.

Written by: Budd Davisson

Budd is an aviation writer/photographer and magazine editor who has written over 2,200 articles and has flown more than 300 different types of aircraft. Budd has been a CFI for more than 36 years and instructs about 30 hours a week in his Pitts S-2A Special.

Check out more of Budd's great articles at: www.airbum.com

The other day a mother called the office to set up a birthday ride for her son. I wrote up the gift certificate while cautioning her never to go flying, or let her loved ones go flying with someone without checking their references and their credentials. She checked mine. Then she asked, "Is it dangerous?"

I quipped back, "Ma'am, if it was dangerous, I wouldn't be doing it."

I go out of my way to keep from lying to anyone but, as she was walking away, I knew I had just lied. I had, without meaning to, applied my own definition of danger and the risk it implies to another's life. And I was wrong for doing that.

The concept of risk and how to define it is probably one of the most subjective subjects in the world. In the first place, there are lots of different kinds of risk, lots of different kinds of danger. Some of it is part of the package we call life and we do what we can to control it. We can't avoid crossing streets, so one of the very first phrases our tiny mouths learn to repeat is "look both ways before crossing the street." There are thousands of things we learn in the act of living that weave themselves into a fabric we call survival.

We learn quickly not to touch things that are hot. We figure out how high is too high to jump. After a while, we learn to project ourselves far enough ahead that we don't actually have to jump off the cliff to know it will hurt. We become smarter and smarter, if we're lucky. That may be what anthropologists (or some other equally erudite profession) call developed-instincts. They become our guide lines which, if followed, will let us live a normal life span.

And then comes a simple question. "Is it dangerous?"

If I was to be honest with my customer, I would have turned and said, "Damned right it's dangerous, lady! We're going to be several thousand feet in the air, held there by an engine that has thousands of explosions per minute going on inside it. The wings are held on by wires and bolts I hope have no flaws. The wooden spars held together for the last flight, but I don't know if termites have gnawed just a little too far since then. Then to top it all off, the skin is nothing more than painted handkerchief material."

Knowing all of that, how could I, in all honesty, say it's not dangerous? The very concept of aviation is dangerous. It's entire goal is to get us high enough off the ground to bust our fragile little behinds.

Subliminally, we all know that. Why then, do we do it? Why do we willingly do something we know can fold, spindle and mutilate?

In the first place, the concept of danger is open to definition, which itself can be subjective. We are willing to fly because, in our minds, the element of risk isn't so high that it can't be managed. The risk can be controlled to the point that it is a valid trade-off for the myriad of pleasures and utilities it gives us.

A lot of "normal" people judge pilots as missing some part of our thought apparatus for taking the basic risk of aviation. Those same people, however, will go to a job every day where they make decisions affecting thousands of other people, involving millions of dollars, all of which generates so much stress, their health is at risk. Or they will climb in their car every morning and dive into the stream with thousands of other bleary eyed commuters headed down town. It never occurs to them that every time a two-ton chunk of metal driven by a complete stranger of unknown competency passes them going the other direction, they are no more than five feet from instant death.

Risk is very much like insanity: it is a matter of degree and definition.

What we have been hinting at here is an "acceptable level of risk"; Something that is part of living that can be managed down to minimum levels.

What then, can be said of those who occasionally push the risk envelop? They drive too fast, fly too low, zig in and out of traffic, fly the canyons and generally step outside of the "accepted" level of risk.

We often call them idiots, when they are endangering others on the road or on the ground.

What we fail to call them, is uncaring, inconsiderate and so self-involved they have totally forgotten that all they are risking is their life. When it's gone, it's gone. What they are perfectly willing to ignore is that their life is not a free-standing existence. It doesn't hang out there in space all by itself and quietly disappear as darkness closes in on it. Live isn't structured that way.

There are no lives that stand alone. All are part of a complex web of relationships and those relationships are what make illogical risk-taking irresponsible. That kind of risk means a person may die, but dozens, hundreds of others will suffer even to the far reaches of the relationship web.

Let's look at an example. You're a great pilot. One of the best. You know your airplane and what it will do. You're on a cross country and home is only a hundred miles straight ahead. You know the territory but the weather is going down. Fast! You know a gossamer decision point to turn back hangs somewhere out in front of you, but it is so vague that very likely you won't know you've passed until too late.

You take comfort from the road below. You know where it goes. So why not follow it? Why not? So you do. You've made the first decision. At that point, you're mind is in the cockpit, staring at the map. Checking it against the road. Yes, there is a damp spot developing in the palm of your hand. Yes, that internal warning has gone off. But now home is only 80 miles away and getting closer.

Visibility drops and you crowd closer to the road. You're a good pilot. Your flying is superb. The ball is right in the middle. The road is a dark slash through the haze below. You know where you are. You think.

Home is only 60 miles away. You've calculated all the possibilities. You just have to stay over the road. The weather gets worse. You go down lower. You know what you're doing.

Hey! Wake up! Like hell, you know what you're doing!! Home is just ahead and you've completely forgotten what "home" means. You've become so involved in the game of playing pilot that you've forgotten what's really at stake. You've made the ultimate arrogant mistake of thinking the only thing you're risking is your life. Well, partner, that's the cheapest, least valuable thing you're risking.

Losing your life is an easy, and many times, painless thing to do. It's a cheap ending to a glorious book. And when it happens as the result of mis-managing risk, it is also incredibly stupid. Much more than that, however, it is criminally cruel.

While you've been pushing to get home, your wife, your kids, your parents, your friends have all been going about their lives. Somewhere ahead in the klag, however, is a house with a kitchen. There's a phone on that kitchen wall. That's the phone she'll probably answer after they strain your wallet out of what was left of your trousers and find a phone number. The barely readable card clearly states, "In emergency, please call......" So, they call.

And she answers.

That, my friend, is the risk you're taking. Every time you decide to buzz a friend's house, push the weather, or do anything that increases the risk factor outside the limits of acceptability, you're risking The Phone Call.

The thing you have to remember while you're out there playing hero is that The Phone Call won't hurt you a bit. Not a bit. If you're dead, your pain is over. If not, if you've squeezed through to spend months in a hospital bed, you're going to see your pain multiplied in every love-one's face, when they come to visit what's left of you.

Either way, the results of your risk taking will touch others for a lifetime. When the risk has a negative out-come it is a giant boulder tossed in the middle of a glassy pond. The waves at the core are so huge, they capsize and upset entire lives. Many of those closest can't manage a swell that big and drown emotionally, never to recover. The ripples go on and on. There is no shore to stop them. The ripples move on, touching every one you've ever known, leaving a smudge of needless emotion on those you've left behind, regardless of how far removed.

While you're looking down on that barely visible road, trying hard to see the hazy outline of hills ahead, try to think of some of the details others will have to deal with.

Someone is going to have to pick out your coffin. Is that something you want your wife to do? Or maybe your best friend would enjoy it more. Or maybe your father.

She will ask what kind of suit they will need for you. Oh, a suit isn't needed she is told. For the rest of her life she will be haunted by the image of what they wouldn't let her see inside the closed coffin.

Am I shocking you? Am I making you mad? Are you saying I shouldn't be saying such negative things about something we all love so much? Why, may you ask, am I being such a worry-wart and playing on the horrible aspects of aviation?

I'll tell you why. Because too many of us have lost too many friends and lovers. More than that, I want to hear myself saying these things out loud so I won't be tempted to push the envelop too far.

But, what is too far? What is acceptable? This is another highly subjective concept. One of my good friends is Patty Wagstaff. Just yesterday we were talking about her getting her head back into the game for the new season. She was working at building up her "G" tolerance and becoming "...comfortable ten feet off the ground inverted..."

Is that acceptable risk? To her it is because that's what she's trained to do. Is my falling at the runway at many thousands feet per minute in a bi-winged hockey puck with a student at the controls acceptable risk? To me it is, because that's what I've trained to do.

I wouldn't do what Patty does for anything. I don't do aerobatics low. That's not part of my managed-risk profile. That's taking me outside of my comfort zone which is defined by having been there, where ever "there" may be, and practicing it over and over.

I'm not certain that Patty would do what I do, the way that I do it, for the same reason. It's not her thing. We recognize certain risks and accept them. Much more important than that, however, we are controlling our risks. We have eliminated as much of the unknown as humanly possible through training and practice. In the case of something like failing weather: There's an element of unknown risk that can't be managed. The same with an individual who, on the spur of the moment, decides to buzz a house, even though they've never been below 500 feet in their lives except on approach. The unknown element is huge. The risk commensurate.

Risk, however, is part of expanding the envelope. Of getting better at what we do. But it should always be part of a plan. Part of a gentle probing of the gray edges of unknown territory while still keeping the path back very close and open.

Almost without exception, risk skyrockets when it isn't part of a planned and managed program. In much of life, when we do something impulsive and it back fires, we can look back and say, gee, it looked like a good idea at the time. Aviation doesn't give us that option. And the pilot isn't the one paying the highest price.

The highest prices paid in unnecessary, unplanned risk-taking are paid by those closest to emotional ground-zero. Wives, kids, parents, friends. These are the ones who pay for a pilot's momentary lapse of judgment. They are the one's who carry the scars the longest. And they are the ones who don't deserve it.

So, the next time you start to do something and you feel your pulse racing and the damp spot building in the palm of the hand, listen to your subconscious. It knows when you're about to do something stupid which is out side your normal risk envelope.

Then think about the phone on the kitchen wall and picture your wife/kid/mother taking The Call. Isn't it better to just do a 180° and wait it out or forego the buzz job? No one will ever call you stupid for doing the right thing.