Learning to fly Part Deux

[Mudge]

OK...I need some opinions.
I asked the instructor at the flight school I'm considering, about classroom instruction. He said they don't do a "formal" classroom. That all instruction is done while flying. OJT, so to speak. I got the feeling that, since this is a small school, they have probably used this method before.
How successfully it's worked is another question.
I haven't had a chance to talk to any of their students or graduates yet.
(They've got a goodly number of graduate "certificates" on their wall so that shouldn't be hard to do.)
While the idea of flying instead of sitting in a classroom is kinda' appealing, I'd like some opinions from youse troops as to what you think of the plan.

Mudge the educable

[Bill Greenwood]

Mudge, It is not unusual for a small school to not have formal classes for the written test; you can prep for that on your own with the Sporty's or King interactive DVD as I wrote before, if you have discipline. For the flying part, you need some prep BEFOREyou get in the plane. The plane is a very poor classroom, noisy and expensive. Prep on your own-free except the DVD or book, prep with the CFI on the ground, perhaps $45, prep in the air-$45 plus another $75 for the plane. How well can you fly and also try to listen and learn at the same time?The first 10 flying hours of learning are very important, the basics of being a "good stick".

[Bill Greenwood]

Mudge, here is basics of one lesson: STALL& recover: What's an Aerodynamic stall? Means not enough airflow over the wings to give lift to support the plane; i e the wing is going too slow through the air to lift enough. Nothing thing to do with engine stoppage. Signs of stall approach: 1Controls may feel sloppy, less bite in the air, 2May feel buffeting as the air is no longer smooth(detaches) over the wing and "bumping" the elevator, 3 Engine and wind noise may? be less, 4 warning horn or red light may activate. You may avoid stall by letting off back elevator (less pulling on stick or yoke) or adding power. If you fully stall,there is a "break" then the nose falls and may roll or yaw. You can recover by releasing up elevator, letting speed increase and may add power. If you are in a Spit it will be prompt, if in some behemouth diesel smoker you may have time on the way down to try to bargain with your maker. There are many stall versions, conditions; But through your study and the instructor Pre-brief ON THE GROUND, you need an idea before you go up. Also a Post-brief On THE GROUND. If the CFI only wants to talk to you when the engine is running(and your bill) he is doing a disservice.

[King]

I agree with Bill about the aircraft being a poor classroom for other than learning to fly the aircraft.

At our FBO, the instructor has seperate one-on-one groundschool instruction, which I believe to be very important for preparation of your written and oral testing.

[oscardeuce]

Back in the day, we would brief the lesson before entering the plane. Then go fly the lesson. After we'd debreif. So about 1.5 hour on the ground to one hour in the air. I agree not to use the aircraft as the classroom.

I also took a separate ground school. You could use the DVD version too, but they barely had VCR's back then.....

[T33driver]

If you fully stall,there is a "break" then the nose falls and may roll or yaw. You can recover by releasing up elevator, letting speed increase and may add power. If you are in a Spit it will be prompt, if in some behemouth diesel smoker you may have time on the way down to try to bargain with your maker. There are many stall versions, conditions; But through your study and the instructor Pre-brief ON THE GROUND, you need an idea before you go up. Also a Post-brief On THE GROUND. If the CFI only wants to talk to you when the engine is running(and your bill) he is doing a disservice.[/quote]

Great points Bill...right up to the diesel smoker part which aired your doggedly blind loyalty to all things piston, prop and chitty chitty bang bang, but made me laugh out loud nonetheless. You need to be published man...I guess that's sort of happening here. Anyway, yes, the flight instruction will only be as good as the preflight briefing and postflight debriefing so that when you make things happen at the controls, or things happen to you, you'll understand/retain the concepts much better. If in a behemoth diesel-smoker (Bill, I'd never talk about your girl like that), it may stall honesty like a T-33--tickle, burble, buffet, clean break...or like a T-38--tickle, buzz, burble, rumble, fall straight down in stall pitch attitude like an anvil, no perceptible break. Again reinforcing a good preflight briefing to paint a picture of what you can expect to see/feel and for that matter, negotiations with your Maker. Mudge, every lesson your CFI should "chair fly" you through your flight profile beforehand and rerun and break it down afterwards. Come into each lesson studied up, overprepared if you will, with questions to ask the CFI. His preflight breifing should be a review. Conversely, you should be given a study assignment to beat to death before the next flight lesson, or even a flight profile to "chair fly" in your mind. I think a lot of pilots will agree that visualization or "chair flying" is a helpful learning tool. You probably know this, but to some degree the quality of your instruction will depend on what you ask/demand of the instructor, how much initiative you have.

[Bill Greenwood]

Good to hear from you. Man I wimped out. We have more snow than a Merlin has parts,but it is kind of a grey Imc day, pretty cold and I talked myself out of skiing, must be getting old. Actually I wasn't referring to a T-33 as a behemoth. You could put a prop on a 33 and it would look like an airplane. The only real way to convince me is to take me for a ride. Do you have a standard charge? Or we could both go to Santa Fe, I could fly ther basics and you could go Mig ing! Larry is a friend of mine, I almost went the last time I was there. Do you have any L29-39 time? It doesn't have any "aura" for me, so I think I prefer the 33. It's a lot of money for a short time. I do sometime fancy I can write, it's really hard to condense info into a short post. Whatever we fly, safe is all that counts.

[Lynn Allen]

Back in the day, we would brief the lesson before entering the plane. Then go fly the lesson. After we'd debreif. So about 1.5 hour on the ground to one hour in the air. I agree not to use the aircraft as the classroom.

I also took a separate ground school. You could use the DVD version too, but they barely had VCR's back then.....

Your instructor should line out for you what is going to be the next lesson. The old Cessna books had a flow chart and you could see what is coming and read about it. The new Jepp system is something like this. Just like the lesson plans that instructors have to make up I would brief my student on what we were doing that day, where we were going and what I should see. After the ride, I would help him tie the A/C down, and we would debrief and I then would tell him what we were doing on the next ride and what to study for. He is there working for you......

Hope it helps,

Lynn

[planeoldsteve]

Mudge

I used The Gleim's Written Exam book ($20.00) that has an explanation for each question on the test, till I would understand the answer or ask an instructor to explain it to me. Then I would use this link ($FREE) http://www.webexams.com/ to a web page that helped me pass the practice test on the computer. When it came time for the FAA instrument written test I passed with a 98%. The test is allot of short term memory and the book will teach you how to pass the written test. You can do this before you take your first flying lesson but you do need an instructors authorization to take the test.

Steve

[planeoldsteve]

Mudge

Flying Lessons, Before we would ever get in the airplane, we would brief the lesson and fly it on Microsoft Flight Simulator ($50.00) till the lesson was understood. This was for the instrument rating and you may not have to do all that for the private pilots rating but it did help me and saved alot of money and time.

Steve

[Duane]

Mudge,
I would first recommend the Jeppesen Private Pilot material. In my discussions with other CFIs, this seems to be the best material out there. And this is what I also bought for my son.
And as previously stated, most schools do not run formal ground schools.
The first thing your instructor should go over is any questions you have from your last flight or from your studies. Next your instructor should have a lesson plan for that days flight. That lesson plan has objectives on it that need to be discussed with you and what contstitutes succesful completion of said task. That way you have a clear understanding of what you will be doing in that days lesson. And that is the time for you to ask any questions you might have about the lesson not while you are in the plane going 120 MPH.
Time spent in the airplane "teaching" a lesson is 3 things. 1. More flight time for the instructor. 2. More money for the flight school. 3. Less money in your pocket at the end of the day for nothing.
The debrief is as important and the pre-flight brief. This is the time for you to find out what went right, what went wrong, areas that need improvement and to have your questions answered in such a way that you walk away satisfied with your insturctors answer and have no further questions. The debrief is also when your instructor will give your your next text assignment in preperation for your next flight.

Do not rely on books that teach the private pilot written to give you all the knowledge you need. They do cover the written quite well and give decent discriptions of the answers. But you need more.

[O.P.]

Hi Mudge!

Here is some advice from a newbie.

Go take a ground school that has a class once a week or so for awhile thats purpose is to pass the written. Do this before you even get into a plane. Pass the written before you take your first lesson. That is good advice dude. It was given to me, and I ignored it. As has been said earlier, if you are going to do it on your own, you have to be very disiplined about it and do it. I did neither.

I am a high time student now who still hasn't taken the written. I got a ton of excuses for everything, but mostly, it is turning out that I have a lot more money than common sense, in this respect anyway......

Flying has been and will be, first and formost, fun for me. I never put myself under any pressure to do anything and neither have my instructors. They tried, they warned me, "It is wasting time and costing you a lot of money", they were and are right. And they are cool enough to let me do it "My" way. Sooooooo, after 3 1/2 years, a half a zillion hours, and >20k into it, I have been having a ball...and still don't have my ticket.

So now, I am going to shake and bake school next month to finally finish up everything, to the tune of more thousands of dollars....heheheeeeeee

Sooooo, if you got a lot of time and money, I highly recommend doing it my way. If you don't then,,,,

1. Do a ground school and finish the written.
2. Take lessons.
3. Fly once a week minimum.

You will finish in no time and not have spent an arm and a d1ck doing it.

Orvis

[bdk]

If I had to do it all over again I would go to ground school and take the written and then do one of those accelerated schools. I got my commercial that way- single and multiengine commercial both in two days. It really helped that I reviewed all the ground school stuff before I went.

I went to Sheble Aviation in Blythe. Now they are in Kingman (graveyard to many thousands of WW2 planes):

http://www.shebleaviation.com/private.html

Actually, if you live back east, a month in Kingman doesn't sound all that bad!