To follow up from the instructor meeting on Monday, I want to emphasize a few points. First, is to thank you for the work you keep doing! We are producing some good pilots out there and at a consistent and healthy pace. While we received some criticism that doesn’t imply we are doing things badly. If we were, students would not be passing. They are!
To follow up on the “teardrop” issue. I agree with much of what Dave said on this. I have mentioned it often in conversation, too. I don’t honestly know where the term came from but it doesn’t really matter, to me. It’s how it is executed that matters. Truthfully if you want to call it a teardrop or a turtle doesn’t matter - it’s irrelevant. What is relevant is standard phraseology and safe piloting. The term “teardrop entry” doesn’t appear in the literature. What is more of issue, though, is how folks are reversing course and entering on the 45 to downwind. Dave is correct. I see it too. Too often people feel locked into crossing exactly 500 feet above TPA then execute the turn way too close to the pattern and often turn into traffic. The recommendation is to go at least two miles from the runway. Use the tool in ForeFlight that draws the pattern as a guide as it provides a great template to follow. Yes, ForeFlight calls that a teardrop but shame on them. The short story on this is that it is wise to practice all pattern entries and show their strengths and weaknesses. I’m not a big fan of “never” or “always” in any context with flying except in terms of gravity or running out of money. Each scenario has several respectable executions that work at that moment. It’s being dynamic that counts.
On the cross country topic, efficiency is important in our instruction. Let’s face it, Lovelock is a great destination for us! Bob made a great point that it also is one of the few accessible routes that has great opportunities for VOR navigation - a skill I’d argue most of our PPL candidates are lacking at some level. From a risk perspective, it’s a lot less risky than destinations over the Sierra. I am not a fan of sending the average PPL student into eastern California. That’s an average, though. While Lovelock (and its long xc iterations) may seem redundant for the instructor, I still think it is one of our best choices for a solo cross country. That said, there is no reason you and your student cannot fly to another airport for the cross country training - especially if there is an intrinsic motivator on behalf of the student (family lives there, favorite vacation spot, etc.). There is no requirement that the airport they fly to on the solo cross country is the one you trained them to for your dual. There is also no reason a student must go to Lovelock. If there’s a good reason to train them to another airport, that’s part of what aviation is all about. Embrace it! So, the short on this, we want all cross country flights to be with purpose, safe, meeting the regs and requirements for instruction. I encourage you to stir it up a bit but not too much. If you have an idea for a cross country for a student that you think would work great, run it by me. In the meantime, Lovelock can still be our fall-back standard destination. I want to encourage folks to branch out but only when they are ready.
Regarding follow up to authentic assessments, we’re about 50/50. I’d like to see that ratio increase. We’re doing good with getting things posted but we need to do better with making the assessments mean something usable. Remember we need have specific, quantifiable “look-fors” with the tasks we are marking students on. Saying, “That’s a pretty good landing” versus “Good landing. You were on the ground within 200 feet of the aiming point, airspeed on final was right at 60, maintained centerline, and smooth control during braking.” Those are two different bits of feedback. Most of that can be in the oral debrief of the lesson but the written narrative should reflect that in an abbreviated way, also. Again, some of you do great with that but some of you need to beef it up a bit.
Emergencies continue to be just so-so as a whole. Pilots need to get bold items on the emergency checklists committed to memory! Yes, checklists should be used IF THERE IS TIME but the emphasis should be on saving lives first, not pulling the checklist first. It’s a judgement call but I can guarantee that a lot of the simulated emergencies I introduce on mock checkrides would end in people getting hurt or killed if they were real. They’re not that crazy, either. Emergencies are probably the finest example of thinking outside the box. Personally, I have never had an actual emergency introduce itself like the worst case scenarios we typically teach in flight training. They are usually somewhere in-between. Also, for emergency landing spots, I often see people ignore great landing areas in favor of dangerous spots, for example. We’ll get to where we run out of altitude, recover, then I’ll ask what was wrong with the dry lakebed they ignored four miles back. You get the point.
Last thing, I know several of you have been eyeballing other professional flying gigs as your hours build. Would you please keep me in the loop as you are looking? I need to keep a good eye on the future and predict needs for instructor staffing and knowing when you are looking will be helpful in that process! Also, it’s easy to develop ‘short timers disease’ as your horizons change. I know this is a tough gig and commend everyone for the hard work you put in creating safe and competent pilots that may very well fly you or your family to far off lands one day. If you do get a case of STD… wait… (just seeing if you read this far), please keep in mind the big picture of what you are doing as an instructor. It’s a huge responsibility and, in my biased opinion, one of the most important jobs in aviation - bar none. Thanks for all you do! Feel free to reach out with any questions.
