Simviation Forums

today me and my flight instuctor went up to do lesson seven, and practice ground manuevers,power on&off stalls,slow flight & landings and emergency procedures and introducing slips to landings, traffic patterns and go arounds. Well what seemed to me to be such a minute thing my flight instructor spent 30mins on, while doing power off & on stalls and slow flight, my heading drifted at the most 5degrees we spent most of the time doing this over the ocean so picking a refrence point was quite hard, then finally we went on to the new procedures, traffic patterns...i was 50ft higher in the traffic pattern when i was suppose to be at 1000ft, i corrected properly...well after the flight during the de-briefing my flight instructor incompleted the lesson. Which really made me mad & upset I knew what I was doing I know how a traffic pattern is suppose to flow and so on...so now i have to pay for this lesson over again and if i don't pass it the next time I have to sit in front of a review board at my school. This makes me extremley upset because I know what I'm doing, i really just want to tell my CFI to shut the hell up and let me do it and stop speaking for me, maybe if he'd shut up and let me do it he might see that i know what im doing. My confidence just begin to come up a little bit now its lower then its ever has been. I can see being in instrument training or multi engine training and having to repeat a lesson but not this soon in my training?!?!?! Today on the drive home and even as i sit here i just want to quit & stop waisting my money and my time, is this one of those things that some people have or don't? i know i have a passion to do it but is that enough? should i talk to my school about a new CFI?

Bam, what all pilots need to understand at one point or another is that in aviation, there is a drastic and extremely important difference between "knowing what to do" and actually physically "doing it." I know how to land a 737 ILS-it does not mean I could actually do it in RL.  You know you're supposed to keep a certain altitude, but that's not the issue-the issue is ARE you keeping that altitude?  You know how to fly the TP, but ARE you flying it correctly?

Granted, not all instructors are untouchable, perfect teachers.  While you should never, ever question what you are being taught, it is perfectly acceptable and normal to have disagreements with your CFI and even switch CFIs at some point in your training. It is also nearly universal that a student questions his or her training-almost every student going through PPL training will question the point. My advice? Stick with it-once your skills are given a chance to develop, things will become much more natural and you will be recieving praise from your CFI, whomever it may be.

I'll be interested to hear other people's views on this.

Pretty much what Beef said. Just remember the examiner doesn't want to hear what you can and cant do. He wants to see you do it. If it isn't to his standards and the standards set you can tell him all you want you know how to do it, but it wont make the slightest differance, you'll fail if you dont actually do it.

My "foot in the door" job in aviation was as a CFI, as it is with most pilots. I've spent many sleepless nights thinking back to the bad advice and training that I passed on to some of my students!

The problem with CFI's, is that the majority are still students themselves.

I'm not sure what your CFI's experience level is, but the unfortunate first few students of a new CFI are flying guinea pigs.

A new instructor is learning and developing techniques and learning about trends and common weak areas. At the same time his own real world flying experience is increasing and he should be improving on his own weak points.

A mature evaluation of your own faults is also crucial. Some elements which you may consider to be petty at this stage of training, you will later find to be deadly serious.

ie: I had a student who couldn't maintain centerline on a crosswind landing. He complained to me that I was being too picky and that "as long as he landed on the runway, near the centerline, what was the big deal?"

On his first cross country, I took him to one of my favorite strips; a crop dusting base in central Florida, with a 15ft (4.5m)wide runway with lots of crop dusting planes and gear on both sides of the runway and powerlines at both ends. (He was used to landing on 100ft wide (30m) runways.) As luck would have it, there was a 15kt crosswind that day.  Just as he had always done before, he touched down and started to skid to the downwind side of the runway. I took control of the airplane as it neared the grass and after we salvaged the landing, we continued crosswind landing practice for another 20minutes........this time with his full attention.

Was it a realistic lesson, to take him to such a narrow runway? Most runways are 100-150feet (30-45m) wide!

In 24 years of flying, I have landed on runways that were cluttered with everything from snowbanks to water buffalos. Not only is it an expected level of professionalism in aviation to exceed the required standard, sometimes it becomes practical and necessary.

Ultimately you're talking about a lot of money out of your pocket. If you truly believe that he is not being realistic, you need to make a formal complaint to the school. If the matter is not resolved through an evaluation of both sides of the story, then I would request a stage check by another instructor or the Chief Pilot.

Has this just happened?  If not, why didn't you go with a different instructor who fits you better, now granted, if you arn't ready for the next manuever then you shouldn't go on the the next manuever.

That sounds familiar... could be the instructor, could be you... if you think review is unheard-of in primary training, you need to talk to more licensed pilots- it's quite common, whatever the cause may be.
And the one thing missing from your account is the part where you confronted your instructor with your opinions... I'm not suggesting you get all up in his face, just ask "why this?" and "why that?" I'm surprised he didn't debrief you post-flight; something along the lines of "I'm marking you incomplete because..."
You did discuss all this with him, right?
Somehow I have a hunch you didn't, and that is a mistake. Trust me, I know. Took me a while to start speaking up, and I'm glad I did- although you'd better be prepared emotionally to be corrected with sound reasoning...
 I almost get the impression from your latest post that you are a little too confident (MCA work, for example, is not something you do once then get checked off on; a CFI may want to see you do it over and over until you can very consistently handle the plane in this most critical mode of flight). Not accusing you of that; just an impression.
 I had an instructor for a while (one of five, over 2 years) who, although very professional and knowledgeable, used to drive me nuts by jumping the gun on me- I was always 0.3 seconds too late with things for his liking, and instead of saying anything, he'd grab the yoke or mess with a radio, etc. I finally had to ask him to just give me more time; my reasoning was that it did me no good for him to complete tasks or make corrections for me: provided safety wasn't an issue (and it never was in those cases), he should give me a chance to either show I knew my stuff, or that I was definitely screwing up and  he should intervene. And I insisted that he interfere verbally only, except in an emergency.
He didn't like that, but he tried it...  my performance improved, and things got a lot more friendly between us after that. Mutual respect, etc.  And if one of us had to run after a lesson, we always took a few minutes to review the last lesson next time we met up.
 So if you haven't already, take a chance and open up to your instructor. Think your rebuttals through carefully before you speak... you need more ammo than "I think I'm ready, I did it OK once, sign me off, etc.".
 For example: your assertion that holding or turning to a heading in MCA  w/o a good visual reference  is very difficult is a reasonable one, however, he may very well say:
 "What's wrong with the DG? Didn't you know your heading when you began the maneuver? What if someday soon after your checkride you find yourself flying slowly, in marginal VFR, over water or flat terrain? Etc., etc.!!" He's done mofre studying and flying than you, and more importantly, he's dealt with more students-and more instructors!- than you have. You're out-gunned, big-time.
You see what I mean...?  Think before you speak, and listen to his answers. But definitely speak up- the debrief should be considered very important (best to not argue too much in flight), and even if you agree to disagree, the rest of your training might be more productive and enjoyable for both of you.
 But... if you try all this (or have already) and you are still convinced he's "milking" you or is just a dumbass, go over his head with a formal complaint.

my instructor does exactly what rotty's did/does...if i'm not doing something within .3miliseconds he grabs the yoke and does it himself, i'm not cocky about this at all and i know i have a lot of improvment I just don't think its fair how today went at all. I wouldnt mind in the debrief if my instructor said to me you know you were off a few degrees on you heading in stalls but you showed me you knew the manuever but instead of moving on to the next lesson tomorrow, i want to go over landings with you before we move on....I would of been perfectly okay with that, I would also like him to point out the positive things that i'm improving on, he doesnt I have to notice them....I go into each and every lesson with a open mind and focused and absorb as much of it as i possibly can, and i ask questions. My flight instructor just became a flight instructor last month I am one of his first five students...I'm scheduled to redo this lesson tomorrow, We'll see how it goes...and thanks to everyoen for your advice

Your flight instructor sounds like he might be inexperienced as a CFI and a little uncomfortable with having someone more inexperienced at the controls during such critical phases of flight.  Imagine going flying with someone and letting them do all the flying during stages of flight where seconds or milliseconds could cost you.  Since he is a new CFI, he probably hasn't developed a confidence in his students to do what they should do, even though they are perfectly capable of doing whatever it is they are doing.  I would be willing to bet that he would not mind at all if you asked him like Rotty asked his CFI, he might even appreciate it.  But if he doesn't like your idea, you should be able to find another CFI if you feel that's the right thing to do.  There is no point in having a CFI that takes the controls over during the most critical part of the flights, if that happens, you would never develop the confidence to do it on your own.  Switching CFI's might also tell your CFI that something is wrong with the way he is doing it and he should change.  But also remember that they don't let just anybody become a CFI.

It is important to get those particular manuevers spot on as well, as other pilots expect you to fly to certain standards, and if you don't, and you're somewhere you shouldn't be, you could cause an accident.

Good luck.

 It's true that a lot of newly-minted instructors are the nervous type, and may actually loathe the idea of instructing, doing it only because it's a fairly good way to build hours, etc.  An instructor who always wanted to instruct is a rare bird indeed.
 But many of these airline-job-seekers start to take instructing seriously after a while (I flew with a coupla those); some even enjoy teaching.  But some just don't care, as long as they stay employed long enough to meet their goal before the next phase in their personal career plan. And if they're really green and really foolish, they won't even try hard to work with you so that you will do well on stage checks and the final checkride, even though a failure on the student's part just makes them look bad.
 If you think you've got one of those, you may be wasting your time trying to clear the air and start working with him as a team.
But assume nothing; have your say, and if things don't change much after that, you'll probably know after your stage check with another instructor if you were right about the first CFI's teaching style and attitude.