grecoaj

Thanks everyone! This is gold. I'll post after our lesson on Friday.

meeko031

lots of useful info given, which approach will you be using? Just another suggestion, you should give him a call soon and tell him to chair fly now(credit to the poster)til Friday. flight simulator on the pc maybe?

FlyingChipmunk

Flash Cards with a flow of the procedure and like the others said chair flying.

grecoaj

I wont break out the champagne yet, but the word of the day is "progress".

Ahead of time, I emailed my student a list of things I wanted to do during the flight, it included stalls, steep turns, short/soft field takeoff and landing, etc. I told him to review all the maneuvers ahead of time, either chair flying or with MFSX. When he arrived (late, but forgiven) I went through the list with him and tried to put his unsatisfactory checkride in the past. I told him that we were simply going up in the plane for a flight and that these are the things I wanted him to do. I said "This isn't a checkride, I can't/wont kick you out of the school. Let's just go flying as if you rented the plane today and you were going to show me (your passenger) these maneuvers". I said that I wouldn't be much more than a passenger and enforced the idea that all the decisions and responsibilities were his. (By the way, if you fold your arms in a 172, your hand is right next to the window latch. He handled that well on the climbout.)

Here we go

The Good:
Preflight inspection
He noticed the pax shoulder harness wasn't latched and instructed me on how to use it as well as the doors
Good radio communication
Excellent short field takeoff - stable airspeed, good centerline tracking
Slow flight - excellent airspeed and power control, altitude was within PTS
Simulated emergency engine failure procedures
Excellent lost procedures with a failed gps/comm 1
Good normal landing

The Bad:
He never mentioned the weather. There was precipitation over 50% of the practice area
Using the breaks to steer on the ground instead of rudder pedals
Terrible rudder coordination throughout the flight
No Cruise checklist performed
Slow flight - not coordinated, heading deviated +20 degrees, trying to correct heading with rudder only, the ball was almost to the limit
No Pre-landing checklist
No Shutdown checklist

The Ugly:
No clearing turns
No checklists
No rudder control

We debriefed and went over the whole flight with a fine-toothed comb. I praised him for the things he did well and really drove home the rudder problems and the checklists.
The original problem - not being able to make decisions seemed to subside somewhat when I told him that all the responsibility was on him. Other than missing the weather, he did well with the decisions. He asked less questions. The ones he did ask, I never answered, or I would respond in a way that lead him nowhere. I really needed him to decide what to do and I think he walked away with more confidence.

2 more ground lessons and another flight and I think I'll send him out again.

love2av8

Hooray that sounds like a huge improvement!

jedinein

Best of luck with that. I've several more ideas in one of my books and we haven't hit the million dollar mark yet.

jedinein

For the next flight, it's time for a rudder coordination exercise. You can tell him on the ground and in the air that you are "putting on your instructor's hat," conduct the clearing turns, then have him line up on a handy landmark, and start working the rudders. Make sure he is sitting upright in his seat, remind him to feel the aircraft weight down his spine and to his tush. Step on a rudder pedal hard. Ask him which cheek has the weight on it. Re-center. Ask again. Step on the other pedal, hard. Ask again. Now direct the focus outside. What is the nose doing as you step, center, step?
Have him try it.

Clearing turns.

Now, lined up on a good landmark, go from cruise to slow flight, clean. Keeping the nose lined up. Then change configurations, each time, "don't let that nose move! It's moving! Stop that nose!" Back to cruise, start a descent, 500 fpm down. "I saw that nose moving!" Recover, climb, recover, down again, rinse & repeat until the nose is wired to where it belongs.

Then add configuration changes to the climbs and descents. Then, airspeed, configuration, and climbs and descents.

Think he's getting good, then have him roll in and out of turns. The first time, you'll have to look carefully yourself, but if he's turning left, you'll probably see the nose walk off to the right. "What's causing that?" The answer is not "not enough rudder," the answer is "adverse yaw" and the action is "more of the proper rudder."

If the nose does not initially walk off in the opposite direction, you may need to demonstrate, even exaggerate with the other rudder to get the nose to walk.

Practice that skill for awhile.

Now, if you've been an especially devious instructor, you're now out of the practice area into a somewhat unfamiliar area away from nasty airspace. At the appropriate time, "Great job. I'm taking off my instructor's hat now. Let's go home." And fold your arms, lean back, close your eyes, and shut up. A yawn is optional. After counting to sixty, you can open your eyes and pretend to be a passenger, albeit not a too distracting one.

Let us know how it goes.

Cubdriver

The whole rudder indifference thing is based on not having seen what airplanes can do when you get slow and uncoordinated on a turn-to-final on a windy day. Load the airplane with CG forward (nobody in the back) and tell him we are going to do some uncoordinated stalls today. Don't say spin or incipient spin or he will get scared. Then you show him a power-off clean stall and gently kick the rudder to one side at the break. An incipient spin will occur depending on how long you hold the rudder down. No need to scare the crap out of him, warn him the wing will drop a bit soon. I promise he'll get the idea.

I used to teach for an airplane manufacturer and one of our standard teaching tasks was a cross-controlled demo stall to show what a wing drop looks like. It works because it is the only way to connect rudder input with wing output on an airplane. Otherwise the whole idea remains abstract and in a few days they forget all about it. The cross-controlled stall is particularly valuable because it simulates those windy day, late-turn-to-finals that can kill. Until they understand it they are probably thinking rudder coordination is a pain in the butt with no connection to safety.

MusDg

It was said plain as day up there a little bit earlier - chair fly! When I have a student like this I ground them if I can so I don't waste a sortie. Then we sit in front of the poster or in a cockpit simulator and we go over the demo/do. Then I have them take me throught the maneuver until they have it or are getting close. I've found it builds a great deal of confidence back to the student once they get in the moving aircraft again.

Badkharma

Here's an off the wall suggestion (assuming it's available nearby), from a guy that was recently there and now has his PPL:

Send him to spin / upset recovery training. I'm not talking mushy slow, Cessna spin...I'm talking Citabria / Decathlon holy-crap-*** spin. I know it's not required for the PPL. It was required at my school. I did it, and it was amazing. It was the biggest confidence booster in the world. I wasn't nearly as bad as your student in that area, but there was lots of room for improvement. That lesson was like a switch. Being able to recognize the spin for real instead of just talking about what happens, and then recovering....it's a huge confidence boost. I felt on top of the world after that lesson and I felt I could conquer all after it (within reason of course). This confidence transferred over to all my other aspects of flying - owning the plane, not it owning you. Owning the radio calls, not clamming up. Flying LAX mini-route was an instant breeze. Crosswind landings, easy. Power on stalls, lemme show you a REAL one, mr. DPE. I literally cruised through the rest of my PPL with ease and my flying skills improved dramatically.

Seriously, only good can come from spin / upset recovery training in a plane made for it.

I highly recommend it.