IFR Flight Training – Your Attitude, Your Instructor
Pilots, generally speaking, tend to be an egotistical lot to say the least. And that ego ranges from very humble to the "I am God's gift to aviation" type pilot, who's head alone would weigh enough to over gross a C17 transport aircraft. Unfortunately, the latter seems to exist more at the VFR level. Why? Maybe it is the novelty of joining what is perceived as an elite group. The novelty will fade, yet the ego grows and grows, sometimes out of all proportion like a malignant cancer until you have the group I just mentioned. One known fact about cancer, it will eventually kill you. Along with an oversize ego, comes an ever-increasing bad attitude. You read about it in your textbooks, remember? Macho, It can't happen to me, arrogance, complacency, all of these qualities, a pilot's worst enemies. Yet that is exactly what seems to happen after receiving your PPL.
A condition I have labeled "Privatepilotitus." Ignored, the condition becomes acute, eventually turning into the aforementioned cancer. The symptoms, hazardous attitudes, the belief that the FAR/AIM is to be used as emergency toilet paper, an inability to listen, and take instruction, and finally the belief that you can defy almost everything you have learned, including those lessons on the laws of physics, spatial disorientation and such. JFK Jr was one such as that, his own arrogance, the cause of that tragedy, and unfortunately, the death of his passengers. This is of course the worst-case scenario, but as you can see, a worse case scenario usually concludes in a final cure. If by the grace of whatever force you believe in, you should find yourself in this situation and live to tell the tale, then you have been witness, I hope, to an eye opening experience, because I can tell you this for nothing, JFK et al, did not enjoy their final descent into Martha's Vineyard. Do you as a pilot see yourself on this path? Have others remarked to you that your flying is dangerous, are your taking to many risks? If so, it's time to STOP, take a look in the mirror and see an instructor.
I like to think that instructors, not just flight instructors, are the consummate professionals that their qualifications say they are, that is not always the case, bad instructors do exist. To that end, it is your responsibility as a flight-training candidate to shop around for a good flight instructor, one that you will feel comfortable with and respect. You shop around for the best school for your kids, the best car insurance, why not then, a flight instructor? Your success in flight training will depend on a few variables, your instructor being one of them. Now for the most important variable of all, YOU! That's correct, you are the most important variable in the whole process. You have elected to take flight training; for whatever reason, no one has twisted your arm to do it. What you bring to the rating, your personality, attitude, beliefs, will have a great bearing on your success, or failure.
Remember, your instructor has already achieved what you're after, the next rating, they know what to look for, they know what they want to see, he or she, is there to guide you through the curriculum and mould you into an outstanding pilot. I would like all who read this to consider what I say next. The very nature of the relationship, instructor and student, states that there are two individuals involved, one that is there to instruct, and one that is there to learn. First, an individual that is there to learn, to master the tasks assigned and to study. Make no mistake, it is up to you to absorb the information, understand it and apply it. You cannot blame the instructor for your deficiencies, they didn't raise you, they are not there to hold your hand, mollycoddle you, or perform babysitting services.
You took on the challenge of the rating, it falls entirely upon your shoulders to rise up to the occasion and meet that challenge. In the case of an IFR rating, you are already a licenced and one would hope, responsible pilot. Behave like one. Don't get confrontational with them, don't come off as a know it all, unless you can back it up of course, most cannot. Statements like, "I'm pretty damn good on the instruments" and "I know what I am doing" will not serve you well. I take people up for IPC's, initial IFR training, and when I get these statements, I just know I am in for a splendid time. The reality is, these people who make statements like that are looking for a rubber stamp it seems, they cannot possibly be there to learn as far as I am concerned, and the only way to get them ready to learn is to give them a lesson in their own shortcomings. It may seem harsh to you, and you may not agree with it, but it is effective, and I feel I have personally saved a few people from losing their lives.
My background and former profession was very stringent one, if I had gone up to one of my instructors and informed them I was as good as them at what they do, not having had the training that they had, they would have taken me out back somewhere, and given me a good kicking, my first lesson then, humility. As it was, I learned just how much I did not know; consequently it took me a few years before I even came close to being at their level. My gob (mouth in English terms) proved to be my undoing. The simple fact of the matter is, if you do not have the rating, you do not know as much as the instructor so shut that gob and listen. A good rapport and open dialogue is vital, but your there to learn. Secondly, the instructor, they are knowledgeable, they do the have experience and the necessary credentials to ascertain your readiness for a check ride, and the instructor does have the final say. FAA authorized instructors have their name and CFI number in your logbook attesting to the fact that you meet at the very least, minimum standards or better for that rating. If you take a check ride with an FAA examiner and the CFI have not done their job, it is not unheard of that instructors certificate being rescinded.
A DPE who works closely with the FAA may not have the power to revoke a certificate; they will certainly speak to the FAA about the instructors' negligence, if they deem it necessary. The instructor has a greater responsibility than you could know, as explained to me by an FAA examiner, instructors are the gatekeepers of the air. Instructors are on the front line as far as that is concerned and it is a responsibility that we must take seriously. You as the student defer to their authority, the FAA will ask the instructor first about anything that has gone wrong before they ask you the student, and I use the word student only to emphasize your role here. They are responsible for your safety and to train you to the highest calibre possible. Accept them as your trainers and mentors. A CFI/I who takes their job as an instructor seriously is invaluable to you in your quest to be a better pilot.
Now for the last, I should enjoy relating some events to you that took place just over a year ago. Apart from myself, the other party shall remain nameless, although if he finds and reads this article, he will more than likely break out into a cold sweat and relive a flight that he would rather forget. The thing is, you cannot forget these type of flights, they keep you grounded, and serve to remind us all of our failings as pilots, and in that, improves our attitudes and skills. Anyway, It's called: "Tokyo Direct." I was asked by this chap, to give him IFR instruction. We were to fly over to Maui in the morning, and return later that evening with a little night time flying thrown in for good measure. He was currant, and we were flying a Cessna 182. As he was unfamiliar with the area, I decided to give him a good ground lesson, this included locations, victor airways and a great deal more. As I was talking to him, I noticed he was becoming increasingly fidgety and I could see that I was not holding his attention. I asked him if there was anything wrong, to which he replied, "Look, I don't see why we have to go over all this, I can read a map and I know what I am doing when it comes to the instruments."
This man was a private pilot of roughly six hundred hours, and was under the impression that minimal IFR instruction had translated to mean, qualified to fly on instruments. I do not understand how this kind of quantum leap takes place within a pilots mind, but can only attribute it them believing their own "folie de grandeur." I explained that he would benefit from the ground instruction, but he was adamant that it was a lesson in superfluous ness. "So be it" I thought to myself, and off we trotted out to the plane. As explained in my article, Analogue or Glass, it was abundantly clear that this pilot thought he had more abilities than he actually had. To reiterate, he was, still, only a VFR pilot. He was unable to hold a heading, an altitude, his trim skills, absent. He had regressed into bad habits, and yet he maintained he was flying well. How do you tell someone that what they think is flying well, is in actuality, a complete load of naff? Would he have listened? Was he ready to learn?
He was not, not yet at least. I am going to remedy that situation on the return journey. Moving forward now to the return journey, permit me to set the scene for you. We are taking off from Hana airstrip on the Northeast corner of Maui, it is about half an hour before sunset and we are climbing out to seven thousand feet MSL. It is a beautiful crystal clear night, the Big Island of Hawaii is silhouetted and unbeknown st to him, this pilot is about to receive his eye opening experience, with the safety margin of me by his side. At two thousand feet, I decide to put him under the hood. I had given him a clearance, consisting of an altitude and an initial heading. I now cleared him to the Kona V.O.R direct. It took ten minutes for him to tell me that he was unable to do that, during which time the aircraft had veered through a full hundred degrees of heading, and deviated from his altitude by six hundred feet. After we stabilized the plane, I told him to remove his hood and fly to that big land mass to our southeast, known as Hawaii, the heading now is about one six five degrees.
I asked him if he was comfortable with the situation and then explained to him why the plane had deviated so much. He then replaced the hood and resumed to fly, after a few minutes, I again cleared him to the Kona V.O.R direct, maintaining the heading he was flying until he received a reliable signal to which he was to identify. After much fumbling around, he managed to do just that, but again he had stopped flying to navigate, and again we deviated, not gently I might add. Now what happens next is what amazes me. Remember, the sun has set, he is flying at seven thousand with the hood on and he thinks he's a dab hand on the instruments. Still can't hold an altitude mind, nor is he having much success intercepting a course to Kona. Suddenly, he makes this abrupt turn, about twenty five degree bank southwest, two four zero degrees, away from every landmass there is and over the deep black pacific now, We have full fuel, so I have no cause for concern. I let him go for a few minutes thinking he will soon realize his error and take the appropriate corrective action. Nothing. Not a sausage of corrective action or even an inkling that he is heading for the "final cure."
I permitted one full hour to elapse. I take a gander around the aircraft and it is devoid of lights, except those of the aircraft itself, and land mass, every visual clue has now disappeared and we are alone over the black pacific. I then ask him where we are, to which came little or no reply. Has anyone gotten it yet? This man has been traveling for one hour out into the pacific; he has been in trouble for that long and is utterly oblivious to the fact. He was unable to inform me of our position, with no clue as to "Situational Awareness." I told him to remove his hood and look up. I asked him why he had turned to this heading, no answer, I then asked him if he had a heading of one six five towards the Big Island, and he knew that that heading took him to the land mass, why he had turned away from it, no answer, I asked him if there was any sense to what he had done, no answer, and finally I then asked him if we could make Tokyo given our limitations of speed and fuel. Finally the dim glow that was, shone so bright as he realized that without me there he would have exhausted his fuel and crashed into the pacific never to be seen or heard of again.
I wish all of you who think that you are pretty good on the instruments had been there to witness the nanoseconds it took for him to degrade from a cognitive overconfident pilot with a good idea of the instruments into a quivering panic stricken mass of useless jelly. He was shaking so much; it was changing the CG of the plane. I won't bother you with the subsequent debriefing here, but there is only one natural conclusion here. Anyone who does not have the IFR rating in their pocket and his proficient; has no business telling a CFII that they have a good handle on the instruments. If you have asked for instruction then you're there to learn, so learn, don't compete.
Hello, Jon Pickering here. I am a CFII here in Kona Hawaii. I take flight training very seriously and in particular, the instrument rating. Please feel free to visit my website at Http://www.hawaiiflighttraining.com [http://www.herculesflightservice.com] for more information.
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