Boring Flying Stuff

Cross-country work today in KS for 1.7, followed by a quick lunch at Culvers with friends, followed by take off and landing practice in 19R for 1.7, followed by running Kaylee to Awanas (and then back) and a few errands in between is what today was made of on my end.

Kaylee woke up cranky and came home cranky-hopefully she gets a good night's sleep and feels a little more cheerful tomorrow. :)

Steve did the flight yesterday with the videographer who is doing a documentary thing on the Wildcat Creek. Unfortunately the poor guy got motion sickness pretty bad from looking through the viewfinder of a video camera while flying along a creek. That's a very common problem--in fact, occasionally I do aerial photography for companies or people, and if I'm the one using the camera when someone else does the flying, it gets to me too, and airplanes don't make me sick. Looking through a camera lens with things zoomed in and in motion differing from what your body is feeling can get you easily. The guy was supposed to go for about two hours, but called uncle after one. Steve went looking for a sick sack in the airplane, found an envelope for one, but it was empty. Now we have some questions about that. Who pulled out the sick sack and left the envelope empty, for one. Why would you do that?! That way we didn't know we didn't have a sick sack until we needed one, at which point it's too late. Thankfully the guy held on to his lunch at least until after they landed.

I enjoyed the flights today, because good progress was made on both of them, leaving both people feeling accomplished and excited, and that's always a rewarding part of being a teacher of any kind I'd suppose. Watching a lightbulb go on and a skill mastered, particularly when someone has been working so hard at it, is just satisfying. There are students who pick things up quickly and students who take a little longer, but many times the students who take longer end up being better pilots in the long run. For one thing, they end up with more overall experience than people who shoot right through it, and say what you want, experience counts for a lot. For another, they have to work harder at it, be more dedicated, want it more, study harder, and they know it doesn't come "naturally" to them so they exercise good judgment, patience, and care. Considering that the vast majority of aviation accidents are purely poor choices made by pilots, them being careful and conscientious goes a long way towards making them a good, safe pilot. As someone once said, "Being an exceptional pilot means using your exceptional judgment so you aren't forced to actually use your exceptional skills."

On my long drive home from the last flight today, I was kind of drained, though in a good way, and I was thinking about instructing, obviously. :) Being a flight instructor is more complicated than just teaching somebody how to land. You're a salesperson, a cheerleader, a boss, a friend, a coach, and often times a therapist-marriage and personal. When they get down, you encourage them that they can do it. When they get cocky, you teach them what they don't know yet. When they're afraid, you have to judge what the real issue is and whether to push them through it or back off and ease them into it. When you explain something and it doesn't click, you have to come up with another way to explain the same concept...and sometimes you have to come up with three or four or five ways of explaining one thing, because everybody learns differently. When someone says they understand something, you have to be able to tell if they do, or if they're just saying that because they're embarrassed to admit they don't yet. And if they don't, you have to find a way to impart that information that won't make them feel weird about it. You have to know when to push through a bad flying day and when to call it quits so they don't get discouraged. Some people like to go up in rougher weather and get excited about the challenge while others would throw in the towel and quit flying unless you take it slow and calm. Some people need to be spoken to bluntly about risks to get it through their heads for their own safety and others are only too well aware of the risks and need to instead be encouraged about all the safety practices in place for their peace of mind. Meanwhile, you're evaluating what they are doing in the airplane, what they know, how they're handling it, and coming up with ways to help them that fit them specifically. Why are they landing flat all the time when you've given them the tools to get the nose up in the flare? Why do they keep losing all that altitude in the steep turn to the left? Where are they looking? How is their trim? What are they thinking? Do they not feel the plane start sinking at this point? What is next in the training? One example from a former student-he'd always have a jerky flare. I convinced him to trim his nose up on final, which made his flare just perfect...except now his airspeed control went down the drain. It took about two landings for me to figure out he was so used to holding a certain amount of back pressure on the yoke down final, that once he'd trimmed off that pressure, he was automatically pulling back that hard anyway, even though he didn't need to any more, making him get too slow, pushing the nose down, pulling it back up, and chasing his airspeed. Once he knew what he was doing, he could fix it, but for a couple of trips around the pattern there, he was frustrated at why something he used to do fine now was not good while something he used to have trouble with was dialed in great. That's the learning process, and it takes a lot of brain bandwith sometimes, and not just for the student.

More than anyone wanted to know. Sorry Mom. I'm done now and going to bed. ;)