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Break this student's bad habit

Old 05-09-2011, 06:04 AM
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Default Break this student's bad habit

I was recently assigned a student with about 50hrs total time in an effort to get him through his Private end of course checkride. I've spent about 8hrs with him in a 172, I finished his dual cross country flights and sent him on his solo xc's. Those xc's went fine and he passed his Stage 2 checkride. His flying skills are not terrible, but his procedure is. He cannot remember the PTS for the manuevers and sometimes forgets how to perform some of the most basic; stalls, short/soft field, etc. His knowledge is there but I have to DRAG it out of him. He's not confident.
Most recently, I've noticed something terrifying that I have to get him to overcome. I don't think he can make decisions on his own. If I ask him to perform a maneuver, he asks me about the procedure ("soft field, that's the one where we keep the nose up, right?"), or hesitates. It seems like he wont do anything without prompting. He even looks for non verbal prompts; if I look outside, he says "Oh! I have to do a procedure turn!", if I open my sectional, he opens his sectional.
My next lesson is a local flight with him. I'm planning on giving him a list of things to do during the flight (perform short and soft field takeoffs and landings at a non-towered airport, stalls, steep turns, etc.) and the entire time just sit on my hands, eyes forward, mouth shut. I need to get him to understand what PIC means.
Any advice would be GREATLY appreciated.
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Old 05-09-2011, 07:19 AM
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I've had a few guys like that, but not as bad. I've sat them down in front of PCATD or some sort of fixed based sim with similar controls to the airplane being used, or even in the airplane without them moving things, and had them set up go through the maneuvers. Sorta like a "write _____ 100 times on the chalkboard" deal. When it seemed like they got the hang of it, I'd assign them a wind direction and walked away and told them to repeat every maneuver 10 times (including clearing turns) and when they were done to come grab me so I can evaluate. It's helped and might be a suggestion for your situation. This is the bad side of instructing, watching someone trying to go for their dreams, you know they have potential, but aren't living up to it and no matter what you do, they just don't get it.
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Old 05-09-2011, 07:23 AM
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I'm sure you've already talked to the student about his issues? I had one like this before. Older guy, very nice, competent, but needed prompting all the time for everything. If I didn't say anything, he'd still look at me. I damn near wore out my voice building him up and trying to make him more confident. The 2 things that worked for me were 1. Shrugging my shoulders staring straight ahead and saying "I don't know" to everything... and 2. Telling him flat out that until he starts making his own decisions, nobody will endorse him for the checkride and his training will take longer.

I took a gamble with the second one, but I didn't know what else to do by that point. He quickly learned to make his own decisions. It's amazing the improvement you see in students once money enters the equation.

Nowadays, I would try to curb that problem by encouraging students to make their own decisions early in the training process.
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Old 05-09-2011, 11:12 AM
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This sounds like a case of checkrideitis.

I second the "I dunno" act. The next time you meet, explain how that as he gets closer to the checkride (ooohhh "checkride" that'll fire the nerves up), you're going to get dumber and dumber. Let him know that you're going to start acting like an examiner and be very quiet in the right seat, only jotting down the occasional note.

Then, on the flight, get it headed towards safe terrain and airspace, and shut up. If he asks, you can list what maneuvers he's to perform. But, unless imminent pain is about to occur, don't interfere. On the flight, list everything he does right, including looking for traffic. Once, when he does do something right, or makes a proper decision, you can challenge him, "Do you think that is correct?" If he asks back, shrug your shoulders, do the stupid look, and say "I dunno," and scribble something on your notepad.

On the postflight, you can tell him he knows what he did wrong, and list what he did right.

You can also suggest that if he doesn't know the PTS, then how can he know what he did wrong? Suggest he read the introduction as well, 'cause if he thinks one exceedance of a maneuver fails the ride, then he should fail, but for not knowing the PTS.

Other tricks I've used have included multiple flight lessons in a day, so the person didn't have their family and work life interfere with the learning and remembering; chair flying through a lesson, the student talking his way through it; refusing to fly unless the ground information was learned; and clipping the solo wings - very slowly and deliberately, with good-humored joking as it was done about my being a mother hen. Sending the student up with another instructor and even with the DPE has also worked.

Find the roadblock, and find a way around it.
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Old 05-09-2011, 01:05 PM
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The approach I would use is this:
Explain to the student that his checkride is not that far off. He needs to perform the maneuvers to PTS standards. Start out with him chair flying them and talking them thru on the ground. By now he should know the procedures. Somewhere he should have the procedures written out so he should be able to regurgitate them. Query the student about why we do each maneuver (everything generally relates back to the traffic pattern and landing). Once he has shown he has an understanding of the why and can chair fly the how, go out into the plane and fly them. When he asks you a question, just politely explain that he needs to do it on his own to the best of his ability and you will brief him on the ground when you return. Remember to praise where it is do, not just focus on what needs help. Try to keep it balanced and possibly this student may need it even a little more off balance (more praise) to build their confidence up a little bit. It's okay to tell them "good job" in the plane when they do it right.
I have about 1,800 hours teaching and I have had my share of students like this. I find this method works well with most of them having this issue.
50 hours is towards the quick side of doing a private license so he must have the ability, it sounds like he is just lacking the confidence. Good luck!
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Old 05-09-2011, 05:04 PM
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1800+ hours of dual given here too... here are a few tips.

Do you have your procedures written down anywhere? If you do, your students can use them while training. Your student doesn't need to know the entire PTS, the instructor does. You student needs to know above 1500 feet for stalls, and + or - 100 feet, or 10 degs on maneuvers. I have all my maneuver guides, engine failure procedures, pre-take off briefing, traffic pattern ops, and even radio comms typed up and posted on my website. I tell my students to study them, and ask me if they have any questions or need additional ground instruction on anything.

As for confidence, it comes with practice. Before I sign off any student for a solo, I go up on a flight, push my seat all the way back and tell them "I will not touch anything unless we're having an emergency, and you will be acting PIC for this flight - I'm not here". When they see you not talking to ATC or touching anything, they will get the idea of what PIC really is. You will have to let them go far with their mistakes, if they turn base to final and don't have any flaps on a short field landing, let it ride and let them figure out how to fix things. If he asks you a question about a maneuver or procedure in flight, just say "I'm not here". Don't de-brief until the flight is over and try to remember or make a list of all their mistakes that they made in flight.

I had a student blow through 200 feet of altitude on a steep turn today, but after telling him that he was over-controlling the airplane and pitching up and down too much, he flew it within 50 feet. A simple "Good job" or "that was perfect" from an instructor goes a long way with students to instill confidence.

As for the prompting, it may be that he needs some more time to do things his way. What I mean is that as an instructor, you may want things done in 10 seconds and he may take 30 seconds. Let things roll and see if he gets them done. If he forgets something, tell what he forgot AFTER the maneuver is complete.

Here is an example, fly to 3000 feet, give him foggles and do some BAI, under the hood stuff. Give him vectors (left and right turns) and clear the area (without telling him). Then ask him to do a steep turn. Don't look outside or inside just ask him to do a steep turn and look at the instrument panel. IF he does one without a clearing turn, let him do one. After the manuever is done, tell him "Good steep turn, but you just failed your checkride. Do you know why?" See if he can figure out why... if he can't, then tell him "because you forgot to do a clearning turn". This works, I've tried it with many many students! You can't always just tell students what they did wrong every time, they have to figure things out by themselves before you tell them.

Hope this helps, good luck!
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Old 05-09-2011, 05:10 PM
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when I was learning to fly, i sandbagged alot by riding in the rear seat to learn from the student flying. I witnessed several times from this particular instructor, his technique was removing his headset and just sitting there observing the student's every move. it worked great(only my opinion)especially getting the nerves out of the way for comm skills!!!
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Old 05-10-2011, 05:18 PM
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Great advice to the other CFIs, I learned something to help me out in my endeavors as a CFI
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Old 05-10-2011, 05:45 PM
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I'm gonna steal some of your guys' ideas Then publish them and sell them for trillions.
I am a huge fan of chair flying, so I'd recommend having him chair-fly the maneuvers with the procedures set out in front of him. Have him work up to the point where he can do them without looking at the sheet of paper. This knowledge usually transfers very well into the airplane, especially if he has a cockpit poster he can touch and follow along with.
Let us know what works out!
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Old 05-10-2011, 07:12 PM
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I've never been an IP but:

How about telling him to think about what he needs to work on, then he needs to plan his next flight to include those tasks.

Tell him on his next flight he will demonstrate those tasks and then self critique without your prompting or input. You are either teaching someone to command an aircraft or you are holding thier hands. If he is planning on being a commercial pilot you will be handicapping him by holding his hand.

He will either put the time and effort in to learn the standards or eventually realize that he is paying for his own lack of effort.
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