pip, by smarter, do you mean an 80 hr work week? I think "Work smarter, Not harder" might be our college's office space equivalent of "Did ya get that memo?"
Feel kinda lame cause after I read about your situation, my advice was the same as everyone else's.
When I taught cross countries to someone who had never done one, I made sure before the flight that the student was able to identify each checkpoint 3 different ways. The conversation would go something like this;
"When you're over Vandailia, how will you know it's Vandailia?"
"VLA, has a highway that goes East-West through it"
"Well, so does Litchfield, how will you tell them apart?"
"VLA has a round lake north of it"
"Well, so does XXX, how are you sure that you're over VLA?"
"VLA has river on the east side that runs north/south"
"Ok, so you know that you're over VLA when you see X, Y and Z"
Using this kind of approach for a beginning student will quickly determine if they know their stuff or not, ensure the first flight is not a "S Show", and instill a lot of confidence in both you and the student when its solo x-country time. In your case, there is not really any way to tell one tower apart from another, so you're conversation may go like this:
"How do you know that you're over that tower?"
"Cause I won't be blown off course"
"Ok, but how will you know that its not XXX tower?"
"Cause there's a major interstate that runs north of the tower"
"Well, so does this tower..." and so on.
If he's hell bent on using a tower, make him determine 3 ways to identify that tower...by that time he'll be using something completely different to determine his location (but he still thinks he's using the tower).
"Sometimes its all about MIND GAMES" - Terry Tate
Last edited by 250 or point 65; 11-20-2008 at 07:01 PM.