slipped

I have never taught a women to fly this is my first go at it. The objective bring her current, she has over 100 hrs and is a private, hasn't flown in 8 years. After meeting her she told me she works for a major airline overseas and is involved with dispatch or coordination. We go flying. I'm pleasantly surprised as she is coordinated, and does not seem to have forgotten everything. Skip foward a few days and a few flights, she is not happy with her landings, doesn't seem to be having a good time in the pattern, I think her landings are marginal to border line ok. Today we go flying and she almost killed me, throughout all of this she flares way too high(I think maybe from jumpseati g on 777's). She keeps apologizing for the smallest mistakes like forgetting carb heat Whitch she does constantly. It is driving me crazy. I can't listen to any more sorries in a British accent. I am a patient
Man, don't think I'm not. I need help I do t know where else to turn. We had a good chat on upwind the other day where I told her her expectations are too high and it is making her unhappy. She is very sensitive I need tips on teaching women. It's very different. I M a good instructor but this is chalanging. I hate too say it but she flies like a girl. E.g. Won't make command decisions,let's the pane push her around, gets emotional when I correct her ect. There is more I'll add later

aviatorhi

As a starter have her verbalize the flows as she does them... years since I flew a carb'd single but when configuring for landing have her say out loud...

GMC - "Gas - Both; Mixture - Rich; Carb Heat - On"

Then while rolling out on final...

"Runway in sight 12 o'clock, will cross threshold at XX feet, touchdown at (specify point on the runway)"

Or something like that.

When you have anyone "male or female" verbalize their decisions they will follow through on them, as if commanding themselves...

Wuzzo

My tips, having instructed various genders, nationalities, and abilities...

1. Chairflying - have her sit on the ground and visualize the pattern - checklists, control inputs, radio calls, etc.

2. Try the old CFI manual trick: Instructor talks and does, Student talks/instructor does, student talks/does (while IP evaluates/critiques). In other words, fly a full "talkie" pattern/landing, then do another, but have her instruct you as you fly, then have her try it.

Finally, don't overcompensate. Tears in the aircraft and debrief are something you sometimes have to deal with (and not confined to female students by any means - if you haven't had a guy cry in the debrief, you either haven't instructed long enough or you're too gentle). If you try to avoid that at all costs, you're setting her up for later failure when she gets frustrated solo (or worse, carrying pax).

slipped

Thanks for he input guys, I like the student talks thing I'll start using that. I do have a problem still if she doesn't know where to round out and flare how can she tell me? How cAn I teach it? It's such a feel thing ya know?

shdw

Having chats at this point in time probably isn't helping you. The pattern should be relatively sterile, especially for someone who is already a pilot. This serves two purposes: 1) You're chats in the pattern assert you as the commander, when she should be the PIC and 2) demonstrate professionalism.

The pattern isn't the place to learn, or be taught, how to operate the aircraft. Full stop and taxi back, talking while you taxi, if there is something so important it must be said before the debrief.

Edit: PS Taxi backs can be a good relief between landings for a more timid student. It can allow time to critique (short 1 or 2 things max) and analyze the previous lap instead of doing that analysis on upwind when the PIC should be thinking about what is next (checklist on upwind to crosswind for me).

jedinein

The downwards spiral is something you'll see again and again as a CFI. The person, not gender specific, makes a mistake, gets mad at themselves, makes more mistakes, gets more mad, and the spiral continues.

Break the spiral. If you can't laugh it off or teach the student to laugh it off, then end the lesson when the person gets too hard on themselves. There's an extremely important lesson the student needs to learn and it is only remotely connected to flying. It may take only a few lessons before the student starts calming down and moves beyond the mistakes. It may take more. Explain that ending the lesson is not punishment, it is simply habit reformation. This student has a habit of self-castigation that needs to be broken and reformed into something more productive to flying.

Make it into a game. Say she only gets 10 "sorries" in a lesson. Count 'em. "That's one.. nine left...." Make light of the situation. Take it to the extreme, make it so silly they have to laugh. Exaggerate cupping your hand over your headset's ear cup, "did I hear a soorrryyy coming out? Aw, blast this noise cancellation, I thought you'd almost apologized again." Or directly confront it, "you'll never get me to believe that" in response to "I'm an idiot" or similar. When the outcry is "I'll never get this" or something expressing the frustration of having tried something only done 100 times before, respond "you can't have it perfect now."

Praise the student's courage for going out and displaying all of his or her imperfections to an audience. Explain that if one is not scared, one doesn't need courage to go out and do this. Let them know constantly that as long as they keep showing up for lessons, making mistakes, going home and blowing it off, then coming back for the next lesson, they will succeed, after all, you're their instructor.

Absolutely do NOT criticize the person. Sandwich the things to work on between the praise of the person. And the things to work on are "when we do this" or "it will work better if we try this..."

Set the bar lower. "Today we're going to scare the runway, working on our go-arounds, the float, and the flare." You control the power, they control everything else including trim. You guide them down to 10 feet above the runway, then 5', then 2', working ever so slowly down. Work on crosswind correction, fly over the centerline, then the left TDZ marker, then the centerline, then the right TDZ markings. Eventually have them work the power, their controlling height, position, attitude based on your directions. Depending on how the lesson proceeds, during one of the low passes, reduce the power enough so that they actually touch down. End the lesson at that point, "That was a great landing (touched on mains going mostly down the runway), we're stopping on that. You can have no arguments on that, it was a great landing." Then go on to the lesson debrief (in private!) asking "what did you learn" and have the student tell you.

For another lesson, write down everything the student did right. It will change your mentality too. Your writing stuff down will definitely increase their nervousness level, but they'll be shocked when you show them your kneeboard with all of the positives at the end of the lesson.

And never let on that you've never dealt with a student like this before. Share some stories of other screwups, even if you have to borrow some of mine, like the fellow that took 5 tries to pass his IFR checkride (now flies a Hawker and is doing just fine), or the fellow that needed over 300 hours before he was comfortable flying a high performance hot rod and ready to take his PPSEL checkride. Whenever the "how long to solo" or "I haven't soloed yet" gripes come up, remind 'em that this ain't a farmer's field in Kansas, it's going to take more than 10 hours of flight time to deal with everything that comes with modern aviation, then list them. Students will perform to your expectations.

Let us know how it goes.

slipped

Wow thanks guys beers on me :-)

shdw

Practice flight in the flare, a few feet off the runway. First, go out in the practice and simulate a descent down to an altitude and a subsequent level off using typical approach entry speeds, power settings, and flap settings. This level off should go all the way through flare, until full stall. The goal is to level off at that altitude and hold that altitude until stall (like a landing).

Teach her to do this level off by using the yoke to give her a 1G feeling (normalcy - since all humans feel this 99.9 percent of the time it is an easy reference point and it always equates to level flight) on her butt, using an outside reference keep heading, and the horizon for attitude information. You watch the altimeter during this and tell her afterwards if she needs to pull back more aggressively or not.

It is a feel thing and will take a few tries, but I find it helpful. The pressures on her butt and hands during this procedure are the most important. Note that having her assess her performance by looking at the instruments is useless, she won't be doing that when she is a few feet from the ground. Not with the instruments at least.

Practice it no more than 5 times (IMO I never let any student practice anything more than 5 times, I find the learning curve degrads for the majority around that point). Take her into the field after this and when she rounds out, don't pull power but put it in. Tell her that you want her to fly just above the runway and then execute a go around, she won't be landing.

Do this a few times at various speeds from a slow pattern speed to a speed just above stall; each time doing a go around. The focus here is on her being relaxed enough so that she can use her peripheral vision to judge height above the ground. Using airplanes on the ramp is a great cue to your altitude over a runway. At altitude she got comfortable with how it will feel, now she just needs to see it.

Finally, when her flare flying looks good have her land. Don't tell her ahead of time, instead, when she is flying the flare just tell her "ok now take out the power and land."

Two final tips: 1) Have a predetermined go around point, don't fly aimlessly through the flare. I typically use a 5,000 foot runway for this and do a go around at a taxi way that is 2,000-3,000 feet down the field. 2) Make sure to keep reenforcing what was learned at altitude: horizon for attitude information and feel on the yoke and butt for climb/descent information. I find this is quickly forgotten when the ground is near.


Now repeat this for a few lessons: slow flight entry, then flare, and finally some landings.

slipped

Wow guys. Thanks for all the input. After reading and internalizing all the responses I went flying and a funny thing happened...I needed none of it. She flew great! I've never seen anything like it. I was like what did u have for breakfast? Did you sleep in the same bed? She couldn't explain it and neither can I. Landings were great.

larso387

These are all good tips, keep them in mind