Flight Instructing

It's that time again-I've been working on my CFI renewal. Every two years a flight instructor has to undergo additional training, and pass it of course, in order to be able to continue legally instructing. You can go to a weekend seminar and take a test at the end, you can go up for another checkride with a designated examiner, or you can do what I do, which is take an online course. You have to spend at least 16 hours going over the material, and they do time you on it. I have to pass six quizzes and a TSA security thingie (and don't get me started on that dumb thing). At the end of it, you have to print out a bunch of info, make copies of your stuff, send off your flight instructor certificate to the FAA, and they send you a new one in the mail. If by some chance you are one day late on doing this, you lose your entire flight instructor "license", and to get it back you no longer can take a seminar or course, but rather you have to go through the entire CFI checkride all over again. I would rather eat dirt. Once was plenty. So this is one thing I have never forgotten to do on time. It helps that I am an active instructor, and every time I sign someone's logbook I have to put my CFI number and expiration date of 7/07. So every time I see that, I see 7/07 creeping up on me. (And at least once it becomes 7/09 I'll be able to turn that 07 that I will write automatically as I have every time for the last two years into an 09 without too much damage to their logbook.) The renewal really isn't hard in and of itself, since you really should know most of that stuff already; it's just time consuming and a little irritating. Why can't I just take the quizzes, and if I pass, my CFI is renewed? Who says I have to stare at the material I've taught and known and gone over for almost 20 years now for 16 hours first? I really dislike dumb red tape requirements like that. If you know the material, that is all that matters, not how long it took you to study to get there. But "study" I am, or at least I am logging time on their study pages as I am required to do, and I just passed my first quiz for Stage 1, with 13 different sub-sections all about "the role and responsibilities of a flight instructor", with a "shocking" score of 100%. I see Aerodynamics is next. Stalls, spins, drag, coefficient of lift, left-turning tendencies, Vspeeds, gross weight effects...and yet I can't take the quiz until another 90 minutes has passed. *sigh*

Speaking of instructing, starting next week I'll be doing what is called a "Pinch Hitter" course with a couple of ladies. A Pinch Hitter course is exactly what it sounds like: the spouses (typically) of pilots want to come learn enough about flying so that should their husband (politically incorrect but usually accurate) become incapacitated, they would be able to get on the radio, talk to someone for help, navigate to the nearest airport, and get the plane down in a survivable manner. In other words, be a pinch hitter for the pilot. I give them enough ground instruction to understand what keeps the plane in the air and why and get the basics of each of those important crisis items, and just enough flight time to be able to keep the plane in the air, pointed where they want it to go, and get it to earth. It wouldn't be perfect, probably wouldn't be pretty without a lot more time, but as I said, survivable. This gives the ladies a little more sense of control, an understanding of what's happening and why, and the security of knowing they could do something about it if they needed to. Sometimes they get interested in flying too and go farther, but usually not--typically just that little bit is enough. Personally, I think it's a good idea, and even if I happened to not be a pilot myself, if I were married to one and spent much time riding along in the airplane, I'd want to do something like that as well...