Controlled Crash

It's amazing when you think about the risk that all of us pilots are taking. Trying to land an airplane going somewhere between 50 and 70 kts onto a 100' wide(or less) piece of concrete. Really it is an amazing feat, one that has claimed many lives.

With practice this becomes routine and almost a none event. So what makes it so difficult? Let's add some crosswind, since the wind is never directly down the runway ;), how about a short or soft field, how about an unstablized approach?

How do we get this experience? Practice, practice, practice. Recently I read an article by master flight instructor Rod Machado on letting your students get experience. To put it briefly he talked about how an good flight instructor lets his students make mistakes and learn from them.

He mentioned how he talked to a student one time who mentioned that his instructor had NEVER let the student completely land the aircraft. That is the instructor was always on the controls and helping the student out. Is this good for the student? No.

Rod made the point that a good instructor will let his student make the mistakes and learn from them. Granted a good flight instructor knows the limits of his plane and won't let the student get into an unsafe position but will let him get close enough.

Since I've read this I myself have realized that you need to let students make mistakes. Let them see what happens from control inputs, or lack of and how to correct for it. Like Rod said I believe this is not only beneficial to the student but also shows the ability of a good flight instructor.