Assessing Students IMSAFE and base prior to lesson?

WheatonPilot68

WheatonPilot68

Well-Known Member
Hey guys,

I'm working on my CFI initial and should be finishing up within the next 3 weeks. I'm wondering if anyone has some really good questions or assessments they make prior to each lesson to see if the student is actually satisfying all of his or her hierarchy of needs? For example, if you saw a student with bags under their eyes would you go straight out and ask "how much sleep did you get?". Im wondering if there Is a question you guys use that indirectly covers one or more of the IMSAFE checklist?

Also looking for some good questions that have worked well for others in determining a new students , who could have from zero experience to a 10k hour plus pilot looking for a BFR, level of knowledge and foundation before any instruction takes place.

Again, I can come up with bland vague questions but I've been trying to come up with questions that not only answer what I want but also allows the student,or examiner :),to feel comfortable and open up. Any tips?
 
I have PAVE and IMSAFE as the first items on the custom preflight check list I use. I expect students to brief me frequently, they know they will frequently get quizzed on how they slept, how they feel, how work went, etc...so usually by the time I sit down they are already saying "I slept well, work is good, no family stress, drank a bottle of water before our lesson". I also explain on our first lesson that if they are tired, sick, etc then I do not want to fly with them, and they do not want to fly with me, so we cancel if there is any question and if they do then I commend them on their decision making and never bitch or moan about a cancellation if someone just feels off. I believe the whole point of having these acronyms is to raise awareness, so the student needs to understand why we care. It might seem common sense on the surface, but I've had students at the end of the lesson who had skipped a meal in a rush come back and say "man I get it now, I'm completely spent".

Honestly, nobody covered stuff like that for me when I first started flying, and when I came back to it and started reading up on it I thought it was idiotic common sense BS overkill, then as I studied accident reports I saw that it's the simple/stupid crap that pilots ignore that almost always kills them, so now my goal is to make things like this automatic and expected behavior so it's quick and convenient and when things are quick and convenient and expected, they are just normal and it doesn't seem excessive at all.
 
I also require them to show up with print outs of METAR/TAF, NOTAMS, and TFR map for every lesson. It's all about building habits.
 
You'll know when they're not safe. Usually, If they are going to do that, I let them go hang themselves, then catch them right before they kill us: "Congratulations, you just killed us. Lets go back to the airport and talk about what just happened. They need that Intensity to rub in the fact that bad decisions will kill you.

However, in a 141 environment, I find students are unusually good at making excu... ahem... the decision not to fly.

When they graduate to the commercial level, I sit down with them again, and have a talk about rethinking IMSAFE/PAVE. This is along the lines of "you're a commercial pilot now, and just like any other job you are going to have to fly when you are tired, hungry, sick, pissed off, etc. And, you are going to have to do it in less than ideal weather conditions. So, now it becomes really important to know exactly what your limits are. If I'm your employer, I'm not going to keep you around long if you won't go flying anytime you have a sniffle, or if you just don't like flying in less than 5 and 5."
 
First step in professional aviation is forgetting IMSAFE, well I guess the only one followed is "A".
 
My general dislike for acronyms aside, I have problems with the quality of one where the proponent of the acronym can't even figure out what one of the letters is supposed to stand for.

Compare. One of these is from the FAA's Aviation Instructor's Handbook. The other from the FAA's Risk Management Handbook. So, do they want to know if you're fed? Or just fed up?

IMSAFE-FaaInstructor'sHandbook.jpg


IMSAFE-FaaRskManagmentHandbook.jpg
 
Bleh...I'm a little tired this morning since I had kind of a late night at my second, non-aviation job and I'll be leaving for the airport in a few minutes...guess I'm dangerous.
 
A150K said:
Bleh...I'm a little tired this morning since I had kind of a late night at my second, non-aviation job and I'll be leaving for the airport in a few minutes...guess I'm dangerous.
Click to expand...
But I made sure to have my shift drink (bartending job) more than 8 hours before I'm scheduled to fly, so I guess I'm good to go:-D
 
Hammertime said:
You'll know when they're not safe. Usually, If they are going to do that, I let them go hang themselves, then catch them right before they kill us: "Congratulations, you just killed us. Lets go back to the airport and talk about what just happened. They need that Intensity to rub in the fact that bad decisions will kill you.

However, in a 141 environment, I find students are unusually good at making excu... ahem... the decision not to fly.

When they graduate to the commercial level, I sit down with them again, and have a talk about rethinking IMSAFE/PAVE. This is along the lines of "you're a commercial pilot now, and just like any other job you are going to have to fly when you are tired, hungry, sick, pissed off, etc. And, you are going to have to do it in less than ideal weather conditions. So, now it becomes really important to know exactly what your limits are. If I'm your employer, I'm not going to keep you around long if you won't go flying anytime you have a sniffle, or if you just don't like flying in less than 5 and 5."
Click to expand...
A lot of students know me as the guy who announces, " We just died" whenever they do something extra stupid that requires my intervention.
 
I know some of this is in jest, but you do know it's not "oh I'm tired, I cannot fly"...it's about identifying risks and managing them. I expect most of us know (at least know of) people who've died where there were some pretty clear indicators that the pilot could've/should've identified some significant risks yet seemed to ignore them. There's a very large thread regarding an experienced member of this forum who died along these same lines (possible meds in system and possible poor preflight). Yes acronyms can be somewhat dumb, but again the point isnt literal and rote regurgitation, it's a tool for helping people with awareness...teach them that way and it takes an extra 30 seconds to think through and it's no big deal at all. Finally, what does having more experience have to do with being reminded of basics you may have forgotten or not use regularly on a BFR? You do know that's one of the main reasons we have BFR's right?
 
rframe, I don't think anyone doubts the issue exists and there's a problem with risk identification, assessment and management among pilots.

And, of course, identification of a risk doesn't automatically mean grounding. The assessment and mangement piece could very well mean the pilot takes steps to mitigate the associated risk in some way.

Aircraft autopilot has been acting up a bit? You might decide to fly without it or pay extra close attention to what it does. Same for most of the others. If it's a personal stress issue, assessment may consist of the pilot paying extra close attention to herself as mitigation.

A couple of comments notwithstanding, I would expect 135 jockeys to be quite heavily into the actual process of identifying, assessing and mitigating (mitigation doesn't mean elimination) their risks, although probably not with silly acronyms.

That's a lesson I feel very comfortable teaching.
 
I agree, and I think that gets to the meat of what the OP CFI candidate was asking for help with.

Whether one uses an acronym or some other tool isn't important (well unless you happen to get a DPE who says "what does IMSAFE stand for?"... and, of course, we all know that's a very real possibility, lol).... but having some systematic and consistent way to spend a minute assessing the risks of a flight is really important. How does the green CFI teach that in a simple easy to repeat way when it seems like very common sense stuff but can be very cloudy and a lot of grey areas in the real world?

When I teach on risk assessment I generally start with, "look I know this stuff sounds very common sense right now, but you need to realize many people die each year because they ignored these basics for one flight...so we need to come up with a way to seriously consider these areas before every flight".
 
A lot depends on the aircraft. A capable aircraft with reliable avionics means the world to my decision making. Workload management is the key. IMHO

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2
 
The way we do it on the USN side is the ORM portion of the admin brief. If I'm briefing the flight, I will first throw out the biggest risk factors we can anticipate in the flight (bad weather, mid-air, unfamiliar area/field, etc etc) and how we will specifically mitigate those factors. Then I will ask around the room if anyone has anything else to add. Then I will mention if I have any personal ORM (so stuff from the IMSAFE list)....then I will go around the room and ask if anyone else has any personal ORM/IMSAFE. This method works well and is a quick way to bring up potential hazards. I'd say don't overthink it....you don't need to interrogate a guy, just ask if they have anything and that should be it. If they can't be honest, they are dual'd up for a reason. Don't die and talk about it afterwards.
 
I have had the worst time with this with one of my students this past week. I can't emphasize enough how important it is for a student to be taking care of themselves eating and sleeping right.

One of my students that I'm trying to get to a presolo stage check before the school shuts down for the summer, keeps showing up to my blocks without eating or sleeping properly. I detect it a mile away. My student looks groggy, spaced out, and he describes symptoms that match him being tired and hungry. He had an off day the other day, and I called the flight after many mistakes. The real problem, is this student LOVES to fly and he always wants to fly. I let it be his decision to fly even after the red flags so he can realize why that's a bad decision.

Well yesterday took the cake. The day before yesterday, I told my student to go home, get plenty of rest, and eat well. So then yesterday morning, he shows up. I ask him how he's feeling. He says fine, he got good sleep.... I ask if he ate something. He paused, then said yes. I asked him what he hate. He hesitated and said, "Uhhhh.... ........yogurt." I had a feeling either he was lying, or he knew that wasn't enough to eat for breakfast... So we go fly, and as I suspect he is spaced out. There is little learning taking place during our landings blocks, and it only gets worse. We get back from the flight, talk about things. I tell him to go eat, get some rest, and we will fly later in the late afternoon.

Student comes back for the afternoon block, and the dispatcher is already commenting to him on how tired he looks... I ask my student how he's feeling and if he ate lunch. He says yes... I ask what he ate for lunch. After a long pause and a hung head of shame......"An energy power bar." I see him then about to open up a big can of monster to drink. We fly in unairconditioned planes in 100+ degree heat. This is the last thing you want to be drinking! I told him not to drink the monster, and told him the flight would go very poorly if he drank it because his mental performance will suffer greatly.

So I give him criteria for the flight, and I basically told him if he messes up on so many things I am calling the flight. This is the best I can do when all these red flags are popping up, and the student is trying to finish a syllabus and he wants to fly really bad.

So we go fly, and once again. Nothing improves and each landing in the pattern gets worse and worse. I call the flight to his dismay. We had a LONG talk about proper rest, and eating. I then find out he lied to me about how much sleep he got, and he had almost zero sleep. Had I known that I wouldn't have even bothered flying with him at all that day. I was very frustrated.

I learned from this experience myself, I have had students not take care of themselves in the past, but usually they will call the flight on their own. Sometimes I will talk with them to feel out their symptoms, and they will realize what a big mistake it would be to go out and have an expensive unproductive flight. I have up to this point never had a student who wanted to fly so badly that he is willing to lie/ignore the IMSAFE foundation of decision making. I'm going to be more vigilant and put my foot down when I have a student exhibit such blatant behavior of malnutrition and fatigue.

;TLDR Crowd: Student loves to fly so much that he is willing to ignore his needs to eat or sleep. He is not honest with his self evaluation of IMSAFE. As a result we had unproductive flights, and it is a very frustrating experience for both student and instructor. Just cancel the flight, and make sure the student gets the proper sleep and meals that he needs... Learn from my experience.
 
JustinS,

I once saw a DPE walk out of an FBO shaking his head. I asked,"Bad checkride?" He responded, "Kid may be the best pilot in the world but he doesn't know why." Your story reminds me of that.

FWIW I think you're doing the right thing. There are probably other strategies but going up with the understanding that if he doesn't perform as he should at that stage of instruction, you'll simply terminate the lesson seems like a good one. Maybe add that he still has to pay you for the time you blocked out for him. It sounds like you're doing your best to show him you're only doing it because you care, which is the only way this kind of "tough love" strategy can work.

Maybe the result will be good and he'll figure out that he may be on his way to being a statistic. Or maybe the result won't be so good and he'll find his way to an instructor who doesn't give a crap.

You can only do the best you can. I wonder what other types of strategies others have tried in this situation.
 
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