The most rewarding activities in life are often challenging to master, and that certainly includes piloting. No wonder I often receive emails and blog comments from discouraged student pilots wondering if they should quit.
The good news is that although learning to fly is difficult, it can and will be mastered by virtually everyone who sticks with it. Are you the only one having a tough time mastering flight? No! Such learning challenges afflict literally everyone who pursues flight.
Rather than write a pep talk of my own, I thought you might be encouraged by hearing from some other formerly-frustrated flight students who overcame challenges of their own to fly, and are now enjoying the benefits. Is it worth the hassle and trauma to become a pilot? Read what others in your shoes have to say in “Greg Brown’s Student Pilot Pep Talk” Facebook Group, and then you be the judge!
I often hear from pilots asking how to prepare for, and what to expect in training for the flight instructor “practical test” (Ie; oral and flight tests.) The subject is little-discussed among the general pilot population so I decided to answer it in this post.
In training for the CFI practical test you will:
master flying the private and commercial maneuvers from the right seat (if you haven’t already)
write lesson plans and use them to teach every maneuver and key aeronautical knowledge subjects to your instructor (and perhaps other CFI students) on the ground, and
teach those maneuvers in the air.
Assuming you have a good instructor, which is critical for CFI training, you will get the opportunity to review the knowledge for each subject area in the course of teaching it. So other than keeping sharp on your flying and aeronautical knowledge, and becoming familiar with the FAA’s Aviation Instructor Handbook, there is little preparation required to start your training.
That being said, I can recommend a few excellent reference books for teaching given maneuvers or subjects. The Flight Instructor’s Manual, by the legendary Bill Kershner, is a must-have reference that answers most any flight-training question that will ever come up. Another great reference is Instructional Methods for Flight Instructors, by Gordon Henrie. And if you can find a copy, Edwin Quinlan’s The Flight Instructor’s Lesson Plan Handbook (currently out of print) offers pre-developed lesson plans for every maneuver. (9/10 update: I see that Sportys is now offering their own CFI Lesson Plan Guides.) For specific tips on passing your CFI practical test, and subsequent guidance on building your upcoming flight training business, consider my own book, The Savvy Flight Instructor Second Edition.
I do have one important “outside the box” suggestion regarding preparing for your flight instructor checkride. Shortly before taking the test, I encourage first-time CFI applicants to teach at least one “real lesson.” Find a friend or relative interested in becoming a pilot, schedule an airplane, and teach him or her an entire first lesson including ground briefing, preflight, flight lesson, and debrief. Of course you can’t charge for the lesson or log it as dual, nor can your “student” log it, but your learning experience in teaching this practice lesson will be invaluable in sensitizing you to the teaching level required by your students, and thereby will prepare you to satisfy your own CFI examiner or FAA inspector.
BTW, at points during your CFI checkride it may not be clear whether the examiner is asking you a question in the role of your student, or in the role of your CFI examiner. Be sure to ask, if you’re not sure!
You will love being a flight instructor, and delivering the dream of flight!
Preparing for your Private Pilot Practical Test (generically called the checkride or flight test] is a whole different matter than the written.
First, there’s the need to understand aeronautical knowledge topics in depth beyond just the simple answers.
Next is the obvious aspect of performance — proficiently completing the tasks spelled out in the Airman Certification Standards (ACS).
A third factor in successfully passing flight tests is attitude; the examiner will be looking for just the right combination of care and confidence.
And finally, there are the potential effects of stress to deal with. Beyond the specific items listed in the ACS, how can we prepare?
The examiner wants you to pass.
Before taking your test, it’s extremely helpful to contact other pilots who have recently completed checkrides with the same examiner. Not only can they share intelligence helpful in preparing for the test, but they’ll generally reduce your stress by relating that the examiner was pleasant and reasonable to deal with, and expressing their comfort with the experience.
If you’re the nervous type, go a step further and ask your instructor to arrange a brief get-to-know-you meeting with the examiner, ahead of time. War stories notwithstanding, you’ll find that the examiner wants you to do well and pass the first time as much as you do.
A Good First Impression
Sure, every pilot examiner is supposed to be totally objective, evaluating with clinical precision each applicant’s performance relative to the ACS without regard to personality, circumstance, or conditions — superhuman, in other words. Hey! Examiners are people, too, and should be addressed accordingly.
As with anyone you want to impress, it’s worth the effort to prepare ahead of time to make a good impression. For example, any applicant who doesn’t dress nicely for the checkride is just plain nuts. Examiners can wear anything they want to the test, because no one’s evaluating them, but your objective is to convey competence, good judgment and professionalism. Looking sharp creates the expectation that you’ll do a good job. That’s a nice way to start any personal evaluation.
Reserve the nicest trainer at your flight school; preflight it the day before in case anything needs to be fixed. The airplane should be clean, and all trash removed from the seat pockets… helps you look like the professional you are.
Required paperwork
Collect and review all your pilot and aircraft paperwork ahead of time with your instructor. Those paperwork requirements are printed as a checklist in the front of the ACS, and any applicant who doesn’t go through it item by item is looking for trouble.
1. Review your pilot logbook with your CFI to make sure all experience and endorsement requirements are met.
2. Review the aircraft logs and paperwork for the specific plane you will fly for the test, with your instructor. Know how to identify current registration, and key maintenance entries such as transponder check and annual or 100-hour inspection.
3. Paperclip all your pilot paperwork, including a check for the examiner’s fee, into a bundle. Now do the same with the aircraft paperwork. When you walk into the examiner’s office, hand over that packet of documents and logbooks following your initial handshake.
4. Organize your planning and cockpit gear in some sort of convenient carrying case (needn’t be a $400 flight bag – just something neat, clean and organized).
These simple actions show the examiner that you and your CFI are organized, and that your paperwork and plane have been reviewed ahead of time. They also avoid the embarrassment and discomfort of searching your wallet, flight bag, and airplane for some errant document.
Weather
Get a thorough weather briefing before the checkride; be prepared to express any concerns to the examiner, and if necessary, to make a go or no-go decision. The examiner expects to see decision-making, so be prepared to unilaterally decide whether the weather is adequate or not, preferably on the conservative side. Keep in mind that after hearing a no-go answer, the examiner may then decide that the weather is adequate for your checkride anyway – in that case don’t worry about it. But if you say, “Sure, let’s go” when the weather may not be safely flyable, or don’t raise the issue when you should, well that’s not a promising start.
Your own biggest checkride weather concerns probably relate to performing within the test standards. Most applicants are petrified at the thought of taking their practical tests on a “bumpy” day. Well, don’t worry too much about it. Examiners have the latitude to flex a little on the tolerances, when justified by conditions. Do your best to fly within the numbers, of course, but if the flight is subject to 1000-foot-per-minute updrafts, the examiner will take that into account. Just be sure to get back to correct altitude and heading pronto. In many cases, it’s actually easier to pass a checkride on a bumpy day since smooth conditions don’t mask any pilot errors.
The oral exam
The obvious key to passing the oral portion of your pilot practical test is preparation; if you know everything there is to know relating to the certificate or rating at hand, the oral exam is likely to work out just fine. It’s not easy, however, to anticipate every possible question the examiner might ask.
Most applicants have two concerns about the oral. First is gaining confidence: after studying so much material and realizing how much there is to learn, how can one confidently go in for the test? A related concern is, “What if the examiner asks me something I don’t know?”
Aside from the obvious technique of having your instructor quiz you in preparation for the oral, several other things can be done to prepare.
First, understand that the oral exam is not a closed-book test. Since few exams in other fields allow the use of reference materials to answer questions, the average pilot applicant assumes the need to understand and memorize every detail of the entire aviation universe in preparation for the test. No wonder we’re apprehensive!
While the examiner obviously won’t let you read the whole oral from a book, it’s perfectly acceptable to look up occasional facts that don’t come readily to mind. There’s nothing wrong with saying once or twice during the oral, “I don’t know that answer off the top of my head, but I know where to find it.” Not only does this relieve pressure on you, but you can use the knowledge to organize your test preparation.
Examiners generally recognize only FAA-approved publications as source materials for answering questions, so familiarize yourself with official materials including the FARs, the AIM, the aircraft’s POH, and relevant advisory circulars.
A great way to accomplish this is to label key sections of each publication with adhesive tabs and highlighters so you can easily find things. In the course of doing this, you’ll learn lots about the organization of the material inside.
Now, if anything needs to be looked up at the oral, you can find it quickly. What’s more, you’ll be more confident knowing that you can easily find answers to important questions. An additional benefit to tabbing your books is that even before asking the first question, the examiner can see that you’ve invested some heavy-duty work into studying the materials and preparing for the test.
Similarly, it is perfectly okay to occasionally refer to keys and legends on aeronautical and performance charts during the test. Again, many people tend to think they’re somehow cheating by looking at such references; that misperception could result in a pink slip.
Finally, it’s helpful to understand the general line of questioning at oral exams. Examiners are guided by the ACS as to topic, but not specific questions. So to cover the material they commonly ask a general question or two on each topic, and then dig deeper into potential problem areas where the applicant’s answers are weak. Accordingly it’s important to have a broad understanding across the spectrum of topics, with additional concentration on problem areas where you feel weak.
The flight test
The beauty of today’s Airman Certification Standards is that they precisely spell out what must be accomplished on the practical test, to very specific tolerances. Instructor, student, and examiner all play by the same rules in this regard, and that’s to everyone’s advantage.
One problem faced by applicants, however, is that they view every individual tolerance as a place to fail. The effect is like trying to plug fifty leaks in a sinking boat with your hand… panic. Sure, we must strive to perform every maneuver within tolerances. But it’s equally important to understand that the examiner’s overall objective is to determine that you can safely and proficiently operate an aircraft. So strive for an overall good performance on the test. If you do a safe, thorough, and credible job, you’ll have a high likelihood of passing. Sure, examiners can technically fail you for wandering a hundred feet off altitude, but they won’t likely do so unless you are consistently off altitude and fail to correct.
The trick is to fly like a professional, doing your best on each maneuver without getting flustered by the details. What’s more, keep in mind that examiners are concerned about the conduct of the entire flight, not just the ACS tasks – so continue to maintain your heading and altitude between maneuvers. And be sure that your habits include clearing turns and otherwise safe and sensitive operations.
Another important checkride objective is avoiding misunderstandings with the examiner. Not every pilot does every maneuver exactly the same way. So don’t be alarmed if the examiner quizzes you about the way you do a particular maneuver, or perhaps uses different terminology. Just listen carefully, and ask for clarification if you don’t understand a request or instruction. The time to avoid confusion is before executing a given maneuver, not afterwards, so if in doubt, ask first. Whatever happens, don’t get into an argument with the examiner; just take the approach of, “here’s an opportunity to learn something.”
Technically, examiners are not supposed to instruct on checkrides, but many still enjoy sharing useful tips. So in general, don’t get concerned if the examiner wants to demonstrate something. Just take advantage of the opportunity to learn. (One guarantee that you have flunked the test is if the examiner must grab the controls “when the outcome of a maneuver is in doubt” – say to rescue the plane from a stall, spin, or botched landing.)
What if I “goof up” in the airplane?
If you don’t like the way a maneuver went, say, “I can do a better job of that,” and ask to do it again. Examiners aren’t supposed to allow you to repeat maneuvers, but often enough they’ll say, “Sure, go ahead and do it again.” Other times they’ll say, “It wasn’t perfect, but since you understand what you did wrong, let’s move on.” Of course, if you get a second try and screw it up, no one can fault the examiner for issuing a pink slip.
Unless specifically told otherwise by the examiner, assume at all times that you are passing. Many applicants fail checkrides because they’re unsatisfied with how they performed a maneuver, think they “might have failed,” and then nervously botch everything that comes afterward. Technically, examiners are supposed to tell you at the moment you’ve failed, so no news during checkrides is generally good news. If something goes poorly, just devote your full attention to the next maneuver. Besides, if you do fail the test, it’s customarily only required on the retake to perform the specific tasks missed on the initial checkride.
Strive for an overall good performance rather than getting hung up on individual details. First, though you might feel that you goofed up, the examiner might have been satisfied, and doing the rest of the test well means you pass. Secondly, even if the examiner is dissatisfied with one maneuver, he or she may still pass you if the rest of the ride went well, and the error wasn’t too far out of tolerance. And finally, by completing the checkride in good form, even a failing applicant benefits by likely limiting what must be accomplished on the retest.
What if I fail?
You’ll probably pass on your first attempt, but what’s the worst thing that will happen if you do fail? Not much! You’ll brush up on your weak areas with your instructor and retake the test a week or two later, a better pilot for the experience. As pilot Sibte Hassan says, “Think of it as a Go Around.” And if you’re an aspiring pro pilot, don’t let the rumor mill scare you into thinking that failing will ruin your career. As the saying goes, “every pilot flunks a checkride sooner or later.” Sure, you don’t want to make a habit of failing, but in general, what’s the big deal? Prepare as well as possible to pass on your first attempt, but don’t let fear of failure stop you from pursuing your dream of flight!
Trust yourself and your instructor!
CFI Gene Bishop on the importance of Trust:
“Trust that your instructor, who by way of signing you off to take a checkride is also subjecting him/herself to the examiner’s scrutiny, knows that you are fully prepared and ready to meet this challenge.
“But most importantly, trust yourself. You know the maneuvers. You know the information. You know where to find the answers. Trust that you are ready and that you will pass this test.
“Nobody is expecting perfection, and the worst thing that can happen is you have to repeat part of the checkride. In the grand scheme, that’s not a big deal at all.
“So by all means study and quiz yourself, but also make sure you eat right and get plenty of rest leading up to your checkride. Don’t let your nerves get the better of you. You’ll do fine.”
“Perfection is not the standard. Safety, good judgment, proficiency commensurate with your experience is what we are looking for. Don’t scare us (I’m only 1/2 joking about that!).
“If we ask you something you don’t know or aren’t sure of, say ” I’m not sure but I know where to find it”…then find it!!
“If we ask you something or present a scenario and you’re not clear about what we’re trying to get from you, ask for clarification!!
“We are in your side, really we are. We WANT you to succeed, really we do!
Accept that it will not be a perfect ride. It might be very good, but it won’t be perfect. Go back and read the 2nd line of this post.
“Take a deep breath and try to relax. Your instructor wouldn’t sign you off it you weren’t ready.
Every aspiring flight instructor studies the “Law of Primacy,” during preparation for the Fundamentals of Instruction Knowledge Test. As you remember, that particular law of learning says that the first method or knowledge taught to a student for a given situation is the one most likely to be remembered. What’s more, that first way one learns to do something is very difficult to replace with something new, which is why it’s so hard to change the ways people do things if they originally learned something different. That’s why it’s so important to transfer the “right” information the first time. Instill the wrong stuff at the beginning and your student may never get straightened out.
I long viewed the Rule of Primacy as applying primarily to student training — never considered that as a practicing flight instructor I too might be a victim of the principle. Then I learned that traditional flight-instructor methods leave much be desired; I’m still scrambling to redefine my teaching methods to do the job better. Man, that old Law of Primacy is fighting me all the way!
My new awakening began several years ago when I attended a seminar given by Dr. Mike Wiggins of Embry-Riddle University. Mike blew the doors off this group of experienced CFIs by sharing fundamental facts about how people learn, and therefore, how we should teach. What an eye-opener!
I admit that not everyone in the room was impacted so strongly as I — many principles Mike teaches are well-known by professional educators. I’d always thought we instructors were part of that group, but in fact school teachers receive a great deal of formal education in principles ofteaching, while CFI training leans almost exclusively toward the aviation technical side. For most CFIs, formal training in how to teach boils down to memorizing a few rote answers for the Fundamentals of Instruction Knowledge test, so they can get on with the “important stuff” on the main Flight Instructor written. Any additional teaching skills are picked up from their own instructors, spiked over time with doses from the school of hard knocks. Accordingly, much of the science of teaching never reaches most of us. Here are a few fascinating insights I learned at Dr. Wiggins’s seminar.
“Transfer of learning” is a key concept in Mike’s work — meaning how well we instructors deliver knowledge into the minds of our students. Like desktop computers, our brains incorporate two kinds of memory: short-term “working memory” (like RAM on your PC), and long-term memory for permanently recording information (call it the hard drive.)
Information first enters the brain via short-term memory for processing. There, if everything’s working right, transient stuff like the radio frequency just assigned is processed and discarded, while information to be stored for future recovery, like input from a flight instructor, is identified and transferred to long-term memory.
Mentally immerse yourself for a moment in the cockpit during a recent lesson; conjure up the drone of the engine and interruptions from the radio. Your student is sweating an IFR approach under the hood, and you as CFI are coaching, cajoling, informing, reminding, challenging, and sharing the finer points of each segment. How much will your student absorb? Will she remember what you’ve taught her? And if so, how much?
Interesting transfer-of-learning fact number one: a person can retain only five to nine bits of information in short-term memory at a time. If we as instructors share more than a small number of facts in short order, the student dumps information overboard without absorbing it. What’s more, information coming from radio, flight controls, and instruments competes for those same five-to-seven slots, so with much going on we may need to relieve pressure by taking the controls before sharing some especially salient point.
For students to remember what we’re teaching, information that does reach their short-term memory must then be transferred into long-term memory. Sounds simple enough — until you learn it takes five to ten seconds for the brain to process a block of information from short term memory, and install it into long-term memory.
So for our student to remember an important point, we must allow five to ten seconds of silence before sharing the next one. Ten seconds to imbue one block of information… “One-one-thousandth, two-one-thousandths, three-one-thousandths, four-one-thousandths, five-one-thousandths, six-one-thousandths, seven-one-thousandths, eight-one-thousandths, nine-one-thousandths, ten-one-thousandths…” Wow! Deliver information any faster than that and… heck, they won’t remember. What’s more, if students are denied that processing time, they can permanently lose the information in as little as fifteen seconds! It’s easy to see that if the busy cockpit a few lines back sported as much rapid-fire instruction as it sounds, the CFI probably worked very hard to achieve very little retained learning in his student.
So now we know to share no more than a few educational nuggets in short order, then program five to ten seconds of silence before contributing more — that’s what it takes for our students to learn the material.
Until now we’ve addressed transfer of individual knowledge bits to our students. Let’s back up for a moment and look at the bigger picture. Based on preliminary research, it appears that students can only absorb one or maybe two major learning experiences per lesson. “Hold on,” you say, “If I teach only one major topic per lesson we can’t meet the syllabus!”
“Could be,” says Mike. “But try to teach more than that in one lesson and you’ll just have to do it again next time.”
What’s more, limiting major topics to one or two per lesson does not in itself ensure that students will learn everything. Important points must ultimately be shared approximately eight times, in order for students to properly absorb, understand, and retain the material. That doesn’t mean saying each point over, eight times in a row. Rather the material should be revisited in a variety of different ways, including verbal explanation, visual presentation, interactive discussion, and when possible, applied logical reasoning. The longer the interval between reinforcement of the topic, the less effective the learning. So it’s best to revisit key points several times in the first session or two, with further repetition soon thereafter.
To demonstrate these principles at our seminar, Mike listed key points to remember, quizzed us, then listed them again, had us write down the ones we remembered, assembled us in groups to share the ones we remembered, then assigned group members to divide responsibility for remembering and meet to discuss them, and finally, asked each group to report on how it was all accomplished. It works! That’s why I remember much of the stuff he taught at the time.
How do we apply this new understanding to enhance student learning?
1. Good lesson planning helps: organize each session around one or two major learning objectives or PTS tasks.
2. Share input and advice only in bite-sized chunks, with silence between important points to allow transfer of learning from your student’s short-term memory to long-term memory.
3. Reinforce important concepts through repetition using a variety of teaching methods.
It’s also important to focus on key learning elements with little deviation — don’t try to transfer all you know about a given topic to your student at one time. We instructors draw from large pools of experiences and knowledge; undoubtedly part of the fun of teaching is sharing them. But as you see, delivering too much information in short order defeats our teaching objectives. Better to transfer core knowledge thoroughly and effectively, and let nice-to-know-but-not-really-necessary stuff wait for another time.
Back to my own Law of Primacy challenges. Now that I’ve learned a few simple techniques for improving transfer of learning from me to my students, I simply cannot believe how challenging it is to change my ways — to formulate and simplify what I want to say ahead of time, to express only relevant information, and hardest of all, to keep my mouth shut between important points.
It’s worth it, though. While still refining my methods, I can already see results. Congratulations and many thanks to people like Mike Wiggins, for challenging the Law of Primacy among CFIs and sharing exciting new tools and insights for teaching. Takes me back… to the wonderful kick as a student of overcoming old habits to grasp a better method, and thereby nailing the sweet spot on the ol’ ILS. That’s what makes flying so interesting — always learning better ways and new tricks.
The foundation of successful instrument flying is in how you scan your instruments. Good IFR scan is similar for every maneuver in that you should focus primarily on the attitude indicator, while scanning the altimeter, heading indicator, and other required instruments for backup. That’s because so long as you hold constant attitude, other instrument movements will remain minor and predictable. But once your attitude begins fluctuating, successfully chasing the rest becomes impossible.
To accomplish a good scan, simply focus on your attitude indicator between everything else you do − meaning never look at ANY OTHER two things in a row. So your scan should go something like this: attitude indicator → altimeter → attitude indicator → heading indicator → attitude indicator → nav display → attitude indicator → altimeter → attitude indicator → heading indicator, etc. No matter what else you check, always return to the attitude indicator between scanning other things. Even checking charts and setting radios should take place one-at-a-time between visits to the attitude indicator. And always use the attitude indicator for any attitude changes, like initiating turns, climbs, and descents, leveling off, and rolling out from turns.
Fly with Your Feet
Now for a tip: Surely you’ve noticed when hand-flying on instruments, that whenever your eyes leave the panel for more than a few seconds the plane drifts off heading or rolls into a bank. Well here’s a secret for addressing that problem – fly with your feet! Experiment a little and you’ll find that with the plane properly trimmed, you can control its bank and heading to maintain straight-and-level, using nothing but rudder. At first that will feel a little sloppy, but flying with your feet is less sensitive than controlling with the yoke, and therefore slower to respond. Along with freeing up your hands to unfold charts, make notes, and tune radios, you’ll find far less tendency for the plane to roll into a bank when flying with your feet.
To practice this technique go up with your CFI or a safety pilot buddy, trim for level flight, and experiment with some VFR straight and level, shallow turns, and course tracking, all flown with nothing but your feet and trim. Once you have the hang of it VFR, put on the hood and try those things again with the addition of the above scan techniques. Flying with your feet effectively slows things down, and it shouldn’t take you more than a few minutes to get good enough that you can more easily conduct cockpit business with fewer and lesser altitude and heading deviations. Just continue your scan through the process and use your feet to maintain wings-level. It’s almost as good as having an autopilot!
Mastering steep turns by reference to instruments is a common pilot training challenge. Presumably you have already mastered flying steep turns by visual reference (VR). (See my post, “fly better steep turns.”) Similar technique is required for doing them by instrument reference (IR), except that now you must obviously draw all your cues from the instrument panel.
As with every IR maneuver, your scan for steep turns should focus primarily on the attitude indicator, backed up by the altimeter, heading indicator, and/or other required instruments.* That’s because so long as you hold constant attitude, other instrument movements will remain very predictable. But once your attitude begins fluctuating, successfully chasing all the rest becomes impossible. (For more on proper instrument scan, see my post, “IFR made easier…“)
For VR steep turns, you stabilized pitch and bank angles using the horizon and your cowl out the windshield. Well, trick #1 on IR turns is to establish similar references using the attitude indicator. Sure, the 45º angle is easy enough to see on the instrument, but the trick here is to precisely nail the pitch indication too — that means using the attitude indicator as a quantitative instrument, not just qualitatively as you would VR.
For those without a flight director, start with a simple “calibration” exercise. Stabilize your aircraft in a steep turn (use outside cues if necessary, or have your CFI fly the aircraft) and note the EXACT pitch location of the central dot on your attitude indicator. Is it one dot thickness above the horizon line? Or perhaps halfway between the horizon line and the first pitch reference line above it? It should be no surprise that with the same power setting under otherwise similar conditions, placing that central dot in the same place every time will consistently establish you in the correct pitch attitude, or very close to it. The attitude indicator is far more accurate in pitch than most people realize − you can indeed hold “half-a-dot” pitch accuracy or better with good results.
Okay, now that your scan is nailed and your attitude indicator calibrated, here’s my recommended sequence for steep turns by instrument reference, with #2 and #3 most likely being your key items to improve upon:
1. Note your starting heading and set power. (If possible, use the same power setting every time.)
2. Roll PROMPTLY into the steep turn using the attitude indicator to establish your 45º bank, and center the slip-skid ball with rudder. IMPORTANT: As you roll through 30° add power and back pressure to nail that pitch dot precisely where you calibrated it.
3. Okay, here’s the big secret to both visual- and instrument-reference steep turns. Once established in the turn, MAKE PITCH CHANGES ONLY; DO NOT TURN THE YOKE LEFT OR RIGHT! (except as necessary to correct for turbulence). This is important because every time you change bank angle in steep turns, you’re changing the pitch attitude and back-pressure required to maintain altitude. So turning the yoke once established in the turn adds the need for pitch adjustment, in addition to the need to correct the bank angle. By pitching and turning you’ve got two variables working at the same time, and you’re all too familiar with the result — oscillating all over the sky! So once established in the turn, DO NOT TURN THE YOKE — ADJUST PITCH ONLY, to maintain altitude; you’ll be delighted at how much easier the maneuver is.
4. When you see your target roll-out heading approaching on the heading indicator, begin a prompt rollout 20-25º ** before reaching your desired heading, using the attitude indicator to level the wings. IMPORTANT: Reduce power and release back pressure as you roll through 30 degrees. If you begin rollout at the correct instant, your heading will be right on when you level the wings.
* If your aircraft is equipped with an IVSI (instantaneous vertical speed indicator) that should be a major part of your steep-turn scan − just keep the IVSI needle “in the doughnut” (centered within the zero numeral), and your altitude will remain constant.
** The rollout rule of thumb is to start leveling the wings at ½ your degrees of bank angle before reaching your target heading. So for a 45º bank start rolling out 22.5º before reaching your target heading. In a 60º bank, start rollout 30º before reaching your target heading.
Crosswind landings are among the most difficult flying maneuvers to master. To improve yours, start by following the principles of “stabilized” landings. (See my post, “make better landings.”)
Here are some tips that specifically address the challenges of crosswind landings.
Once established on final approach, separate your thinking for use of rudder, aileron, and elevator:
Use rudder solely to align the airplane’s nose with runway heading.
Use ailerons (bank) solely to adjust your lateral position left and right to keep the plane on the (extended) runway centerline.*
Use elevator solely to control pitch and implement the flare.
As you’ll see, when the plane drifts to one side of the centerline, banking toward the centerline will move you back where you belong. At the same time, use rudder to keep the nose properly pointing straight down the runway.
In gusty crosswinds, each control will need continuous adjustment – but once you can keep your thinking straight on which control does what, the adjustments become pretty much automatic no matter what the wind does. Your instructor will address related issues like setting your approach speed based on wind conditions. That leads to an additional important point:
Under crosswind conditions, pilots often face some combination of gusts, along with variable wind speed and direction. Your plane may float due to increased approach speed, while simultaneously (or alternately) experiencing increased sink rates in the crosswind slip to landing.
Accordingly, under crosswind conditions you must “fly the plane” all the way down, throughout the landing roll, and not relax your vigilance or control efforts until parked at the tiedown! In fact, loss of control on crosswind landings often occurs after touchdown when the pilot “stops flying” while still on roll-out. The trick is to increase aileron deflection as necessary on rollout to keep the wings level as the plane slows, often to full deflection as you approach taxi speed.
*How much crosswind is too much? If you find the upwind wing must be held dangerously low to the ground to stay on centerline, you’re certainly exceeding the aircraft’s crosswind capability and should go around rather than attempting landing, and proceed to another airport with more hospitable conditions.
(Mastering crosswinds is not easy; frustrated pilots should also read my “Learning Plateaus” post.)
Pilots often have difficulty maintaining the localizer on ILS (or GPS-LPV) approaches:
“I’m always chasing the localizer needle and get so frustrated that I forget to maintain the glideslope needle; then I have to miss the approach.”
In my experience, this common problem most often occurs when pilots make excessive heading changes, rather than because the wind has changed. These pointers should help:
1. Join the final approach course far enough out to allow time to nail down your wind-corrected heading before joining the glideslope. Ask ATC to put you on the final approach course a mile or two outside the final approach fix. That will reduce your workload.
2. Commit to memory the heading you’ve identified to fly, and return to that heading whenever you drift off. Say you’ve determined that, with wind correction, you need 360 degrees inbound heading to stay on the localizer. Now MEMORIZE that 360 heading, AND RETURN TO IT EVERY TIME YOU DRIFT OFF HEADING. If you look away for a moment, your heading has likely changed. If your heading is not exactly 360 when you look back, turn immediately back to 360, level wings, and THEN check the localizer needle to see what it’s doing. This will stabilize your heading on the approach.
3. Limit final approach course heading corrections to 5º at a time. (You’re probably used to using 10° corrections or more to track VOR or enroute GPS.) If you do need to correct the heading, MEMORIZE the new one. So if you’re inbound on that 360° heading and notice the localizer needle drifting to the left, make a CONSCIOUS HEADING ADJUSTMENT of five degrees left (355º), turn to it, and memorize it. Again, if you drift off that heading turn immediately back to 355° before making any other corrections.
4. Make all localizer or LPV heading corrections using ½ standard rate turn. (That’ll reduce the “chasing.”)
5. Throughout the approach, continually reset the heading bug on your heading indicator to mark the heading you want to fly. If you have no heading bug, consider installing an add-on bug, or an indicator that has one. A heading bug helps tremendously in keeping you pointed where you want to go using minimal brainpower.
All this may sound elementary, but it’s not. Most pilots are busy enough on precision approaches that they chase the needle rather than consciously selecting, remembering, and holding a heading. But stabilizing your heading anywhere near the correct one prevents the needle from drifting much, so it’s easier to correct. That’s why it’s more effective to hold a heading (and return immediately to it if you drift off) than to chase the needle without a specific heading in mind.
Obviously, it’s hard to absorb this sort of thing from reading. But try these tips when you next practice precision approaches, and I think you’ll be pleased with the improvement. (See also my post, “IFR made easier…“)
Do you ever feel like you’re not getting anywhere with your flight training? That on some maneuvers your skills seem to be sliding backward rather than progressing? Perhaps you’re suffering loss of confidence as a result. Well if so, you’re not alone. Every pilot-in-training runs into such problems — excelling at times while frustrated at others. Unfortunately, few student pilots hear about the challenges their peers experience, so they often assume that only they are having problems.
Your flight instructor will tell you that every student faces training setbacks, but virtually everyone who sticks with it goes on to become a competent pilot. In fact, what you are facing is so common it has a name: “Learning Plateau.” The phenomenon is formally taught to CFIs because it occurs with every aspiring pilot — the student progresses rapidly for a while, then hits a learning plateau with no apparent progress. Once overcoming the plateau it’s back to rapid progress again!
Here’s a graph of the learning plateau. To quote directly from the Aviation Instructor’s Handbook, “…in learning motor skills, a leveling-off process, or a plateau, is normal, and can be expected after an initial period of rapid improvement. The instructor should prepare the student for this situation to avert discouragement. If the student is aware of this learning platform, frustration may be lessened.”
There are several approaches for overcoming a learning plateau. Step one is for your instructor to tackle the challenge in a variety of different ways. Each of us learns differently, so several approaches may be required to find the one that works best for you. If you feel that you and your CFI have “tried everything” with no results, schedule a lesson with someone else you respect, like your school’s Chief Flight Instructor. A fresh perspective will likely put you back on track.
Finally, if you find yourself getting discouraged take a break from stalls and steep turns and make a pleasure flight — to remind yourself of why you’re learning to fly in the first place. For fun! For adventure! For relaxation! Assuming that you don’t come from an aviation background, your piloting experience is probably limited to an intro flight followed by a series of high-intensity lessons. Other than craning our necks for traffic, not many of us get to relax and enjoy the view prior to solo cross-country. But few pilots learn to fly because they love practicing stalls and steep turns.
That’s why, even though it’s not on the syllabus, a casual “pleasure flight” is sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself. Ask your CFI to schedule an extra “brunch lesson” to fly to an hour-away airport. If you want to make the flight educational, visit a nearby Automated Flight Service Station or radar approach control facility for a tour. Or go to a pancake fly-in. (Fly-ins are great places to learn collision-avoidance techniques!) But wherever you go on this trip, make it long enough for you to do some relaxed flying, and allow time at the destination to kick back with your instructor, relax, and talk.
Your “pleasure flight” objectives are to get some positive feedback on skills already learned, and to remind you of why it’s worth the headaches to become a pilot. Such adventures break the pattern of stressful lessons, and give you the opportunity to realize, “Hey, I may not have stalls perfectly nailed yet, but look at how far my piloting has come! I just flew an airplane comfortably for a hundred miles, all while holding my heading and altitude within Private Pilot practical test tolerances, handling the radios, and having fun to boot.” Imagine doing that a month ago!
Finally, keep in mind that the number of hours it takes for a pilot to earn a Private certificate doesn’t necessarily reflect the quality of the pilot’s skills when done. If anything, those who rush through training are often poorer performers. So keep chipping away at those learning plateaus, knowing you will indeed overcome them, and if necessary, take an occasional pleasure lesson to reawaken your excitement about being a pilot. You will never regret it!
For those too young to remember, “Sky King” was a popular 1950s television series. In it, rancher/pilot Skyler King, played by actor Kirby Grant, flew exciting missions from his ranch airstrip — nabbing bad guys, rescuing innocent victims, and performing good deeds all around.
Particularly cool was that Sky’s exploits took place in general aviation aircraft. His first “Songbird” was a Cessna T-50 Bobcat “bamboo bomber,” later followed by the hottest personal airplane of its day, a Cessna 310. Artistic merit and technical accuracy aside, Sky King’s huge prime-time popularity ultimately motivated many young people to learn to fly, including myself. (My Dad owned a 310 at the time, and my brother Alan and I could easily imagine flying such adventures in our own family airplane. Both of us went on to become pilots.)
So effective was Sky King in popularizing general aviation, that ultimately Cessna provided a new 310 for filming and for Grant’s use in making personal appearances around the country. Compare the general aviation awareness resulting from that series, versus that of today. Not only is personal aviation invisible in today’s popular media, but few people even know a GA pilot anymore. My question is, does today’s public know enough about flying to even consider it as an option? Our marketing challenge may not be so much people deciding, “I don’t want to become a pilot,” but rather that they don’t even think of it in the first place.
Where’s Sky King when we need him? Every pilot knows that once people try the controls, they’re hooked. After all, the adventure, excitement, and personal fulfillment of personal flying are as strong today as ever. We as individual pilots must make sure that people are exposed to the idea in the first place. “Sky King calling Flying Crown Ranch… Come in, Penny!”
“Remember what we did last lesson?”
For those too young to remember, “Sky King” was a popular 1950s television series. In it, rancher/pilot Skyler King, played by actor Kirby Grant, flew exciting missions from his ranch airstrip — nabbing bad guys, rescuing innocent victims, and performing good deeds all around.