Advice for the New Student: How to Maximize Your Training and Minimize Your Cost

Part 4: Being Self-Reliant

By Gene Benson

Now that the flight school and the instructor have been chosen it's time for the training to begin. Who's in charge? While in the airplane, the flight instructor is the pilot-in-command or "PIC". At all other times, the student must be in charge of the training. The flight school and the instructor may or may not take an active role in structuring the training. Whether or not they do, the success of the training program is up to the student. The student must ask the right questions and be prepared to steer the training program. In other words, the student must be self-reliant in guiding his or her own training program.

The very first area in which to take charge is ground training. Becoming a competent, safe pilot is as much an academic exercise as it is a skill-oriented one. Either by design or by ignorance of effective training methods, some flight students are not provided with an opportunity to take a ground training course. It is much more lucrative for the instructor and for the flight school if ground instruction is charged by the hour on a one-to-one-basis. Adding a few "tenths" here and a few more there can really add up to a sizeable sum by the time the training is finished. Even worse, sometimes the explanations are done in the airplane with the engine running so that ground training is being billed at the flight training rate.

Students should demand a ground training program. This might be a classroom course offered one or two evenings per week or it might be a set of VHS tapes, CDs, or DVDs designed for home study. Students shouldn't fall for the line, "Get started flying now and a ground school will be starting in a few weeks." The class may or may not get started, but it is important to get a complete ground training program started very early in the training process. The flight lessons will have much more meaning when the theory is thoroughly understood.

Whether the ground training is best done in a classroom setting or by independent study is an individual matter. Each person has his or her own best way to learn. If a classroom environment is best suited to a particular individual, then one should be found. If that means taking flight training at one school and ground school at another, that's fine.

I would offer one caution regarding classroom training. Some instructors set their objective to be that of having their students pass the FAA Knowledge Examination. While the exam must be passed, that should not be the training objective. These instructors will use a test prep book as the text and will structure the class around discussion of the exam questions. I have flown with students who have had this kind of training and it's pretty sad. Aviation doesn't always present its challenges in the form of multiple choice questions. Mastery of the material must be the primary goal.

Regarding the actual flight training, I said previously that the flight instructor is PIC of the airplane. That means that the instructor has the final authority as to how the airplane will be flown. It does not mean that the student must blindly follow what the instructor does with the flight training time. A common complaint of primary students is that the instructor flies the airplane more than the student does. This isn't acceptable. In my opinion, there are only two times that the instructor should handle the controls. The first instance is to demonstrate a maneuver and the second instance is to save the airplane. If the instructor is doing most of the flying by the time the third lesson is done, it's probably best to change instructors.

Along the same line, some instructors want to maintain their own proficiency or serve some other selfish cause at the student's expense. The prime example is the instructor who decides to demonstrate instrument approaches to pre-solo students. There is no training basis for this other than to meet an instrument flying requirement on the instructor's behalf. If this happens, it is a clear indication that the instructor is not acting in the student's best interest and it's time for an instructor change.

In a previous section, I recommended choosing a school that used a training curriculum. Here is a prime example of why that is true. A deviation from the syllabus on a lesson that called for ground reference maneuvers or stalls to fly instrument approaches should certainly raise a red flag in the student's mind. In fact, any deviation from the curriculum should require an explanation from the instructor.

The next area is a little more difficult for the student to be self-reliant. In which weather conditions should a training flight be conducted and when should it be rescheduled? The beginning student does not have enough experience or knowledge to make this decision. The instructor will rightfully make that call. Rarely will and instructor conduct a lesson when it should have been cancelled. More commonly, the instructor will cancel a lesson when it should have been flown. One would think the opposite to be true because the instructor probably only gets paid while flying and the instructor is probably trying to accumulate flight time to move on from flight instructing. But, my experience is that many instructors are simply too quick to cancel. It's more comfortable to sit in the lounge and have another cup of coffee. While it isn't desirable to put the airplane and crew at risk, students who do not experience some adverse weather conditions while training will not know how to handle them after they become certified. Canceling due to wind is my pet peeve. Certainly there are days when the airplane is best left in the barn, but even an abbreviated lesson on a day with a gusty wind can be very valuable. The same is true for flying on days with legal, but limited visibility. If nothing else, a good healthy respect for adverse weather is developed. After all, flight into adverse weather is still the number one killer of general aviation pilots.

So, if the flight instructor seems to be canceling whenever the weather isn't perfect, the student should ask for an explanation. Sometimes asking the question is enough to turn the situation around. If not, the next time a weather cancellation occurs, the student might considering checking on weather or not other instructors have also cancelled their flights. Even other flight schools in the area can be called and asked whether or not they are conducting student flight operations. If the evidence points to a reluctant instructor, it might be time for a change.

In summary, the flight student should be self-reliant and take charge of his or her own training. Policies and practices should be questioned whenever they don't seem to make sense. Any instructional material should be thoroughly understood to the student's satisfaction. If the training program isn't sound and properly administered it is the student who ultimately loses so it must be the student who steers the process.