New Job

The aviation industry is beginning to move again. Instructors are finally starting to get jobs either flying as freight dogs or for airlines.

Today I accepted a position as a Lead Flight Instructor. I'm very excited about this position as it will allow me to work on some management skills along with my flying skills. This position requires me to oversee a group of instructors and help with any problems they are having, help build their schedules, and provide opportunities for them to grow as flight instructors as well as helping our company continue to be the best aviation training company in the U.S.A.

Wish me luck as I take the next step in my career!

Rightseatpilot

Continuing Development

Continued development is essential for any occupation or hobby. It is easy to fall into bad habits even after a few months. Aviation is an odd hobby, often times your the only person in the cockpit and it is easy to slip. We have checklists to follow but sometimes you just get "sick" of doing the same thing.

In my opinion on of the best ways to stay current/proficient is observing another pilot. Whether your a private pilot or a certified flight instructor this is a good habit to have.

Where I work we are subject to observation flights from our Lead Flight Instructors a couple times a year. They aren't there to punish just to observe you doing your job and offer tips. As an instructor this should be welcomed, not frightful.

But one thing many instructors don't realize/do is that they can observe flights as well. The other day I observed my boss doing a lesson with a student. I wanted to see how he conducted that particular lesson to improve my lesson. Even though I had most of the same information in my lesson plan, it was interesting to see how he "put together" his lesson. It flowed very well and gave me a bunch of ideas on how to make my lesson better.

I would recommend to ALL pilots to observe a flight at least once every 6 months. Maybe you've fallen into bad habits without knowing it. Or maybe you will learn a helpful trick on landings, or radio calls, or managing a flight.

Continued Development is important for all professions, especially aviation. There aren't many careers/hobbies where yours and others lives are at risk. Whether it's observing a flight, using aopa.org's interactive online courses, or doing a lesson with an instructor you are only helping yourself become a better pilot.

Rightseatpilot

Old Habits die hard

First off I want to apologize for the absence. I've been trying to stay busy with work and finishing up school. Secondly, I've decided to go away from my multi part posts and talk about some other things. I've had a lot of good things come up lately that I am more interested in writing about then that. My plan is still to get back to it, maybe re-post all of them at the same time.

So here goes.

Pilots, in general, are very habitual. We tend to do the same things prior, during, and after each and every flight. There are many reasons for this, with the amount of tasks that we have to accomplish each flight if we were to "free ball" every flight something would be bound to go wrong.

One of the most basic ways pilot's demonstrate this is with the use of checklists. Checklists greatly improve the accuracy and performance of pilots. Sure after a while it almost becomes like second nature but you still find yourself using checklists, or verifying with your checklists. I've recently read an article on doctors now beginning to use checklists for surgeries. The study showed that doctors who use the checklists have, in general terms, better surgeries. There are less mistakes, deaths, and infections with doctors using versus doctors not using checklists.

I had a perfect example of "old habit's die hard" just the other week. I was flying with a Stage Check student who just needed to do two landings to complete the stage. The weather wasn't the best, 4 miles visibility and light snow.

Because of the weather we were the only aircraft(other than the King Air) flying at that point, in fact every other aircraft was parked in a hanger. As the student ran through his preflight and before starts he used his checklists as required.

When we got to the engine start, he opened his window, visually cleared left, center, and right then proceeded to yell out the window "CLEAR PROP!" before engaging the starter.

This is when it hit me! There is ABSOLUTELY no one around, no danger to people or property near the aircraft, and possibly no reason for him to yell "clear prop". However, this is something that is shoved into our heads from flight #1. The prop will kill if you walk into it, you have to make sure the prop is clear.

Now if the student hadn't verbally cleared the prop area, there probably wouldn't have been any damage. It would, however, have taken him out of his natural routine and possibly messed up the whole flight.

Moral of the story, don't change things that work. Don't change your routine to save time or because you don't think the situation requires you do a certain thing. Professional, good pilots have put years and years into training and using checklists. Professional, good pilots will use checklists until the day they retire, or heaven forbid kill themselves not using a checklists



Rightseatpilot

Plan Ahead

Now that you've decided why you want to learn to fly airplanes comes the next step. The title is simple enough but there is a lot to think about. You need to know that this is going to take you awhile to accomplish your goal.

Let's talk minimums...40 hours of flying before you can even take the practical, 20 with an instructor. That's it, the minimums. This is a realistic goal, I passed my practical test with 41.5 hours, however I had flown a bunch prior with family.

That's 20 hours of flying paying for an instructor AND an airplane and 20 hours of just the airplane time. It's going to add up quick. You need to know how you are going to fund your training. Try and have as much money ready to go as you can to avoid training delays.

Not only money but time is a big factor as well. Understand that if you only fly once or twice a week you will have to do some review flights. The BEST possible solution is to fly 3 - 4 times per week. I know it seems like a lot but it WILL save you money and worries!

Don't worry, you'll soon enough see the light at the end of the tunnel!

Rightseatpilot

Part 1 - Know What You Want

Should be an easy question shouldn't it. You want to be a pilot, you want to free your feet, surf the sky, hang with the angels. Or is there more behind your decision to become a private pilot? Are you doing it to get a job, to take your family on vacations, business, or some other reason?

Let's take a look at some of the reasons people become pilots.

Are you getting your license for the pure joy of flying? Awesome! More power to you! This is a great reason to begin flying, maybe it's something you've always wanted to do. From your first flight you will have an overwhelming sense of excitement. Be careful though, you are still susceptible to the pitfalls of training.

Maybe your getting your license for business. Again another great reason to get your license. You will quickly realize the benefits of flying to expand your business or meet customers face to face instead of through the phone or emails. You will also realize that it is another expense for your business and you better be ready to make a commitment to your companies "aviation department".

Maybe you just like to travel and want to experience places that are just a little to far to drive too. If you've done any searching about aviation then you obviously know about the $100 hamburger. You know, when you jump in a plane, fly somewhere new, grab lunch and fly home. This could be great way to take the wife(or significant other) and kids new places for the weekend!

Maybe you've accomplished a lot in your life and are looking for the next step. Maybe you want to be recognized as a pilot! That's awesome! People look up to pilots, those who can jump in a small aircraft and take control of their lives and others. BE CAREFUL with this one. If this is the reason you might be falling into a big trap of just trying to get your license so you can be recognized as a pilot.

Whatever your reasons are you need to understand what you want to get out of your newly minted private pilot certificate. If you know what you want then the next steps, and your training will go a lot smoother and you will not have as many pitfalls. Being a pilot is a great privilege and demands that you are diving head first into it! Step one.....complete!

Rightseatpilot

Getting Your Certificate

While I've written about my experiences I've been thinking back about when I was going through my training. I initially got my private pilot certificate outside of the University of North Dakota at a local airport near my hometown. Now that I'm a CFI-I I've read a few books and articles about how to attract, keep, and retain students. One of the best books I've read is "The Savvy Flight Instructor", a must read for all CFI's.

I started thinking on the other side about what students need to do to stay motivated. As is always discussed by CFI's is the standards student, the one who is extremely motivated at the beginning and looses motivation as the training goes on, often times quitting before even obtaining their Private Pilot Certificate.

What can a student do to stay motivated and achieve their certificate? In the following posts I will discuss this and provide some helpful ideas.

Part 1 - Know what you want

Part 2 - Plan ahead

Part 3 - Finding the right school

Part 4 - Stay involved

Part 5 - Understand the curve

Part 6 - The light

Part 7 - continue to learn

So check back and stay up to date! Expect the first post in a few days!

Rightseatpilot

I've Caved

I am embracing technology and have decided to start a twitter feed for RightSeatPilot. The blog and Twitter will be my way of letting everyone know what it’s like to be a flight instructor. I’m not going to abandon the blog, it will still be my primary source for posting stories and ideas.

http://twitter.com/rightseatpilot

However, I thought it would be fun to let people see what I’m doing during my day(and nights) as a flight instructor. Follow the twitter account as I will be posting what I’m doing throughout the day, flight or briefings, which course, any thoughts before or after lessons.

http://twitter.com/rightseatpilot

This is just a more active way for me to stay involved. Hope to see you follow me soon!

http://twitter.com/rightseatpilot

RightSeatPilot

No secrets

"There are no secrets to success. It is a result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure."

~Colin Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - and later, Secretary of State. After a Stunning victory during the first Gulf War

This quote jumped off the page when I first read it in Never Fly Solo. I instantly started thinking about how this is so true in every aspect of life. Whether it's school, sports, getting a girlfriend, or flying. Take college football for example athletes watch film all week on the upcoming team, usually anywhere from 3-5 hours a week. Preparation. They spend summers and off seasons working in the gym getting stronger, more in shape. Hard work. After every game every play is evaluated and graded, the plays that you got wrong are talked about in meetings and adjustments are made for the following week. Learning from Failure.

This quote also made me think about how it related to flying and instructing. As an instructor it is my responsibility to prepare the student, kind of. I am responsible for assigning homework, study items, things to do to prepare for each lesson. If I don't do that I'm not giving my student a chance to prepare for the lesson properly and fairly. Now it is up to them to take it upon themselves to actually come do the work and come prepared.

Flying is hard work. Sure, flying is meant to be fun but to be proficient requires hard work. You aren't just within commercial standards the first time you try a steep turn. It takes practice, work, sometimes it won't come easily to your students. But don't let them give up, find new approaches to teaching/executing a maneuver.

I've learned a lot from failure, and like to let my students fail at things as well. Think about it, which landing do you remember more? The one you greased in or the one you screwed up bad and thought you were going to go through the runway? Which one did you learn more from? As an instructor you need to let your students make mistakes, so they can learn from them. I will always let my students make mistakes, as long as it doesn't put us in a dangerous situation.

Siouxpilot

New Ideas for a New Year

With the new year here and everyone making plans and promises we should find new ways to keep the fire burning for our desire to fly. Here are some ideas for keeping that fire burning, if you have any feel free to post them.

Add a new rating or endorsement: This is a great way to keep you in the airplane. Not only are there certain requirements you need to meet but it also increases your knowledge and ability. If your a private pilot consider adding your instrument. If your a commercial pilot look at adding a CFI, nothing will improve your knowledge more than teaching someone to fly.

Fly a new aircraft: Along the same lines of adding a new rating. Get signed off in a new aircraft, perhaps a high performance or complex airplane. Or just meet new people at your local airport and try to arrange rides in their aircraft.

Go somewhere new: All of our dreams about flying started with being able to go places. Now's the chance to try. Fly somewhere for the weekend, fly to a golf course that's just to far off to drive. Take your wife or family to dinner in a different city at a new restaurant.

Take someone flying: There is no greater joy than taking someone up for the first time. Offer to take up a neighbor, or a best buddies kids. The look of enjoyment on their face will remind you why you first wanted to fly.

There are a lot of good reasons to fly and as time passes we tend to forget about them. Flying should be fun and not just a chore or something you do. Enjoy yourselves, bring joy to others with the gift of flight, and have a safe year.

Siouxpilot