PandA Povenmire & Associates Aviation Safety Consultants Training Design, Evaluation and Instruction

Seven Golden Rules of Instruction

 

FIVE - VERBALIZE THE CUES THAT YOU USE

 

     This is a skill that expert pilots do not need, but instructors do.  There is a poem that makes this point very well.

 

     The centipede was happy quite until a frog in fun

     Said pray, which leg comes after which?

     This raised her mind to such a pitch

     She lay prostrate in the ditch considering how to run.

 

               Anon.

 

     Instructors have to be able to explain how they do something.  One time I watched an instructor from the back seat.  On the downwind leg of the traffic pattern his student was slowly losing airspeed and altitude.  The instructor tapped the throttle.  The student looked the throttle, then at the instructor. 

 

     The instructor should have pointed to what he was looking at that told him that the throttle needed attention.  Ask yourself "How do I know that an error is being made?"  That is what you should point out to the student.

 

     When I was a budding pilot, Charlie Cordell was my aviation hero.  He had flown many different types of fighter aircraft, and continued to fly his own silver Navion for both business and pleasure simultaneously.  One day he invited me along to look over some property in the coastal mountains.  As we headed for the mountains he asked me whether the distant mountains were becoming more, or less visible behind the nearer ones?  It looked to me that they were sinking behind.  He chuckled and said  "That's how you can tell that you can't climb over them." and began a slow circle to gain altitude.  I have used that cue many times, and have passed it on to all my students.

 

     How do you describe the cues that tell you that you need to add back pressure in a turn?  What tells you that the airspeed is going to start bleeding off on final before it actually does so.  The problem is that these cues have been internalized to the point that you can't even describe them.

 

     Frank, one of my best friends, was a helicopter instructor pilot with the Coast Guard.  We ere discussing an article about helicopter pilots becoming disoriented while hovering over open water at night.  (It sounds scary, but they do it.)  He told me that he could tell when a student was going to start backing down even before the aircraft started to move.

 

     "That's good, Frank.  How do you tell?"

 

     "Over the years you develop a 'feel' for it."

 

     That was my cue.  "That's not good enough, Frank.  You only have five senses.  You have to be sensing something that you have internalized.  If you think about it a little, you should be able to tell me about it."

 

      "You don't know what I'm talking about unless you've been off shore at night - until you develop a feel for it.  It just comes to you."

 

     After a half hour of this type of argument, he finally looked at the ceiling and said,  "I guess it feels like you are leaning back in your chair."

 

     "Very good Frank.  If I'm ever off shore at night (fat chance) I will be conscious of that feeling.

 

     The next day Frank came into my office.  He said that he had had a student out off shore that night, and when he pointed out the cue, the student stopped backing down! 

 

     As it was with my friend, Frank, this is a difficult thing to do.  For example, most people know how to ride a bicycle.  I hesitate to use this example in print, because several of my audiences have gotten so belligerent that they have resorted to mob action, carried me outside and put me on a bicycle to prove it.  The problem is posed:  "If you are riding fast enough to be fairly stable hands-off, and you put just a little bit of forward pressure on the left handle bar, which way does the bicycle turn?  (Remember, just press the handle bar, don't lean.)  Unless you have analyzed this, or have been taught better, most people will say "to the right."  Wrong.  Nearly eighty-percent of the people I have asked get it wrong. 

 

     Well now that I have destroyed my credibility with eighty-percent of you, let me try to redeem myself.  Have you ever been so close to the right curb that you had to use "Body English" to get away?  If you try to do the normal thing - push the left handle bar a little bit - you will climb the curb.  If you push the right handle bar, you will fall into the curb. 

 

     One guest at a friend's house stood up abruptly, and stormed out of the house.  (To add the proper emphasis to this story, it was winter in Kodiak Alaska.)  I apologized to the host, and we went on to another topic.  A few minutes later, the guest came back into the house with a bicycle!  He had been riding around outside and still didn't believe me.  I declined his offer to demonstrate in the living room, and helped him get the bike back outside.  Before I got on, I showed him his tracks in the light snow.  Before a bicycle turns left, the front wheel makes a big loop out to the right.  He finally had an insightful realization.  He said "Son of a gun!"  Then we went back in and finished our coffee. 

 

     Frank had moved away for four years and had been promoted to Commander.  When he returned, he recalled our argument, and said that this concept was the most important thing he had ever learned about teaching flying.  He explained how he applied it to other maneuvers, and told me how he extended the concept.  "If I can't tell why a student is messing up, I will fly the maneuver and ask myself how I know when to move the controls."

 

     That's all there is to it.  In fact if you do not do this, you are wasting your student's time and money. 

 

 PASSIVE REHEARSAL

 

     Imaginary cues can be as valuable as real cues.  If student can visualize themselves in flight, they can practice a maneuver while waiting for a green light, or during TV commercials.  We have all used this "armchair flying" to imagine our responses to serious emergencies.  Students should be asked to practice specific things in the privacy of their own mind.

 

     When Bob came out for his weekly instrument lesson he always began as if he hadn't learned a thing during the last one.  We would start over.  His cross-check was as slow as it had been at the beginning of the last flight.  I told him about the famous experiment where two groups of boys were taught to shoot basketball free-throws.  One group was given daily practice on the court, while the other was given the same amount of time sitting in a quiet room, trying to imagine themselves at the free-throw line, aiming and shooting.  At the end of the experiment, the real practice group did better, but the imagination group had improved without ever having touched a basketball.

 

     I told Bob to imagine himself in this airplane on a heading of 030 flying over a familiar landmark at 3000 feet.  Imagine what the attitude indicator looks like - the altimeter - the heading indicator.  Every time you look at the altimeter, it is 20 feet off.  Look at the attitude indicator and make a correction.  The same with the heading indicator. 

 

     At the next weekly lesson, he had not only maintained what he had learned that day, but had improved greatly.  I use this on any student that can only fly once a week.  I call it Mental Homework.

 

 

NONVERBAL CUES

 

     In addition to identifying your cues, it is important not to become a cue yourself.  One time on a dual cross-country, I noticed my student looking down at his chart.  I sat curiously waiting for him to notice as the airplane turned slowly to the left.  After a time, he looked over at my knees, then looked up and returned to level flight.  I realized that I was trying to push the plane back on course by pressing both of my knees hard against the right side of the cockpit wall.  All he had to do was wait until his instructor became uncomfortably contorted to tell when to look up.  I have since learned to sit comfortably, and just go where the airplane goes.

 

     Once there was an airline pilot who had failed the vision test for his FAA medical so badly that the doctor said: 

 

     "You can't see anything past the windshield!  How have you managed to fly?" 

     "Simple" he said.  "I just watch the instruments.  These young copilots can see really well and they look outside." 

     "But how can you tell when you're going to touch down?"  said the doctor.

     "That's the easy part.  I just follow the ILS all the way down until the copilot takes a quick deep breath, and then I flare." 

 

 

I'VE GOT IT - YOU'VE GOT IT

 

     There are very few times that an instructor must make control inputs during student practice.  It may be appropriate during short final when speed is decreasing, or just prior to touchdown,  or during tail-wheel ground operations.  In most cases it is better if the instructor takes over total control at that point.  If the student feels you on the controls there are two messages that come across.  One is "I don't know what the airplane feels like without the instructor."  The other is "I'm not good enough to keep from killing us.  The instructor always has to save the airplane."

 

     Instructors often ride the controls subconsciously.  They try to coach the performance with their hands instead of their voices.  Even FAA inspectors must guard against this.  My friend, a Designated Pilot Examiner was taking a standardization check from an FAA inspector in the Stearman.  As they taxied out, my friend felt the inspector on the controls, and let go.  Without any input from him, the Stearman taxied smoothly to the run-up area, turned into the wind and stopped.  The stick came back, the throttle was advanced to 1700 RPM and the mags and carb heat were checked.  After the trim was set, the Stearman started rolling again, and took off.  Passing mid-field down-wind, the inspector hollered into the Gosport for my friend to do a wheel landing.  My friend in the front cockpit nodded his head as the carb heat was turned on, and the Stearman made a beautiful approach to a perfect wheel landing.  When the inspector commented on what a good landing it was, my friend turned around with both hands in view and said "It ought to be, You did it!"  There was a little sashay because the tail was still in the air, but the inspector mentally "took over" and brought the big biplane to a safe stop.

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