Git R Done

Just two flights today, and what a gorgeous day to do it.  If I could find a climate where it was like today year-around, I'd be there.  :)

Not too long ago I had a great flight with a student.  I have a lot of young, teenage students right now, and almost all of them are being raised in a pretty strict background, several are homeschooled, etc.  They're all great kids, very polite and sweet, and doing fine.  One struggle that many young folks like that have though is the ability to...take charge.  Sometimes they have a hard time making decisions, they second-guess themselves, ask permission to do everything, don't speak up if they have a question or a concern, don't communicate well, etc.  I understand that, and when you're 16, 17, and raised that way, when your parents are the one setting your flight schedule, the ones communicating with me instead of having you do it directly, etc., well, that's just the way it goes.  But it's my job to turn people into pilots, and to be a good pilot, you have to take charge, make decisions, work problems, trust your instincts, think and act quickly, and do that without having your mom, dad, or me there to tell you what to do.  So after awhile, I will start shutting up, and tell the students I expect them to take over and start doing what they need to do without my input.  There are students who can't do that; we will be in the pattern and they will ask me prior to turning every leg.  "Downwind here?"  "Should I make the radio call?"  "Final now?"  Every single time around, even if we go around 10 times that day.  Even when I say "Just go ahead and do it when it looks right to you", they'll still ask.  After awhile of this, with a couple in particular, I would flat out say something like "You tell me".  I had one student that I had a particularly hard time with in this regard.  They just were not confident at all, and while I eventually soloed them, and got them off on their first solo cross-country, we still struggled with this issue, and I wasn't overly confident in their ability to handle anything out of the ordinary that might come up, and in aviation that's not great.  All that background to say that not too long ago I had another flight with this person, and it had been months since they'd flown, and I expected it to be a very shaky flight, and I was ready to be patient.  ;)  Instead, they got in the airplane, and they took charge.  Everything was smooth, confident, and well-done, better done after a several month break than it was before, which is pretty unusual.  I was really pleased about the whole thing, and I pointed it out and asked what happened to change their attitude.  They said that they decided if they were going to do this, they needed to DO it, that they knew they could do it, and they were just going to get over it and get it done. They'd studied, chair flew maneuvers and pattern, prepared as best they could, then went for it. A proper amount of quiet self-confidence and self-reliance is there now, and in one flight I got to watch someone become Pilot In Command for the first time.  That was fun.  Usually it's a more gradual process, a slow growing into it, so this headfirst jump into big boy pants was just...enjoyable.  :)  The smile on their face when I told them that today they took charge and truly became PIC was pretty fun too.  From here on out, I have no doubt this person's going to progress rapidly through to the checkride, and do just fine, too. Moments like that are part of what I enjoy about being an instructor.