CFI The Legend and Lore of Flight "It is better to break ground and fly into the wind than break wind and fly into the ground." So you wanna be a flight instructor? Why? Looking for hours? Need money to pay for your training? Do you hang out at the airport anyway and might as well instruct? Or do you just love teaching? Whatever the reason, you're reading this, so you must want to do it well. This is the key. No matter what your motives, if you seek to improve your teaching, you will be a good instructor. I can't tell you what to do to be a good instructor, but I can tell you what I've done, and you can pick out what you think works for you. For me, instructing has been a series of breakthroughs and disappointments. I'll lead you through these and hope you'll gain some insights. I began CFI training six months and 500 hours after finishing my private pilot's license. Looking back, I was fairly well prepared to start the CFI training. Many of my hours had been solo, including a bit of night and cross country time. Several memories were still clear in my head. I remembered three lessons I had taken ten years earlier. My instructor was so focused on me keeping my hand on the throttle. I was also intimidated by the radio calls at El Paso International. I don't remember being taught the preflight. I hated it. I took up lessons again ten years later at Watsonville airport in central California. My first lessons were with a retired airline captain. He was calm, friendly, and easygoing. He showed me a methodical, unhurried preflight, and had short lessons on 3 x 5 cards before each flight. The first flight was a half hour demo with me in the right seat. I felt very comfortable with him. The proprietor at the flight school was a straightforward, forthright, 50ish man named Bull Cloverdon. The walls of the place exuded romance, and tokens of times past, some involving shrapnel or the hunger of the men who had been there before, adorned these hallowed walls. One could learn a lot about flying, including the weather, by just sitting and observing, and I received the respect due a devoted customer. **EDITORS NOTE: the original paragraph above was previously incorrectly written as - "The proprietor at United Flight was a gruff, loud, 60ish man named B**l C*******n. The walls of the place dripped and relics of past wars, some involving paper clips and jelly donuts, littered the walls. The roof leaked, it had drafts like a barn, and I got a discount for paying ahead of time." I have since spoken with Mr. C*******n and he pointed out things which helped to jog my failing memory, so that I could properly rewrite the above paragraph. The cheif CFI was a former Vietnam F4 pilot named Don Mc D***ll. With 35 years as a CFI there and tens of thousands of hours in a 152, he had earned the role. After five lessons, I was hooked. As a grad student, I had lots of time off and spent it hanging around. I flew once or twice a day, and just read and hung out on the bad weather days. After the sixth lesson, the retired airline pilot decided he wouldn't instruct anymore, so I was scheduled with F4 Don. Don wasn't much into ground sessions. On the day we did spins, we simply went up in the air, he demonstrated a stall, and then we were spinning. I was feeling mighty queasy and after we landed, I told Don I was quite ill at ease. I was a passenger, and wasn't prepared for that surprise. Our next lesson we went to nearby San Martin airport, a narrow strip with frequent crosswinds. I ran off the side of the runway and my instructor then demonstrated sideslips left and right at 20 feet. So those were my mistakes, but I've seen many that I myself haven't made. Students haven't put in full throttle for takeoff, used throttle for stall recovery close to the ground, pulled flaps up all at once, hit nose first and porpised, slammed on brakes, drifted and hit with side load, used the wrong rudder on landing, wandered all over the sky without glasses on, bounced landings, stalled on landing, made very late go-arounds, and steepened bank past 60 degrees. The hardest things to do as an instructor are to let things go far, but not too far. I know these aircraft well and can tell the difference between a full stall landing and a crash. My hands are always ready to add full throttle and push on the yoke during landing and takeoff. I don't grab the throttle, I just take the whole mess of a student's hand and mash it to the firewall. I let students fail to retrim for level before takeoff at night. Then I make them hand fly the plane after takeoff to a safe altitude before bowing down to retrim. I let them takeoff with a lean mixture, then cut the throttle on takeoff. I let them leave the flaps down for takeoff, and then watch the plane sink as they retract fully at low altitude. These self-induced intense experiences allow the student to learn. As an instructor, I don't let it go past safety, but I don't coach the student too much. I always tell students about a practice emergency before I simulate it. I also tell them what to study before the next lesson. Frequently they don't, but I'm honest with them about the cost. They can read on their own, or with me at $40 an hour. I tell them ahead of time to expect four times as much study as flight time, or about 280 hours for 70 hours of flight. Students who come prepared do well, quickly. I won't let students fail repeatedly. After a bad landing, we head back in and wait for another day. If the stall recoveries are poor, we'll rehearse them again once the engine is off. I don't do the same manuever repeatedly. I also use the demo, student tells, then student does technique. It really works. I also let the student do the spin entry and recovery right before solo. If you notice a theme in all of this, you've been paying attention. The training is only half the responsibility of the instructor. Students fail or succeed partially on their own. It is my job to teach them, not coddle them. They need self-discipline and they need to enforce their own high standards, or their progress will be slow. I think the two things that are most important and often overlooked are teaching aerodynamics and judgement. I think students need to understand that the controls are more effective with more airflow. Also that the plane is nose heavy (positively stable). Also that as airspeed decreases, lift decreases up to the stall. If they know this, they understand why to continuously apply increasing back pressure for landing. If they understand, they can do it. I think teaching side slips for crosswind landing is super important also. Have them land in so much wind they must fully deflect the controls for landing, then keep the inputs in during taxi. Aerodynamics really help. Judgement is harder to teach. Take students up in actual IFR once or twice. Then they understand why it is so difficult. Teach them how to judge cloud distances. When to go-around? I solo students after they have shown me good landings, good stall recovery, an OK crosswind landing, and have initiated at least one go-around on their own. Recovering by adding power, and knowing how to cross control for crosswinds, they are mentally just refining skills on further flights. I also put lots of limitations initially on their solo. Then I gradually remove the limitations. This allows me to solo them much faster, and emphasizes crosswind component, cloud clearances, and unfamiliar airports. I have found that egotistical private pilots are less safe because of inexperience and boldness, but for instrument training, more ego pays off as they are better at radios and being in charge of the airplane. It's harder to mold a pilot out of soft clay than to chip a pilot out of stone. At the end of the day, however you teach, have fun and have a sense of humor!