Behind the Airplane

[GADD45B]

Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas about getting students to stay more ahead of the airplane on cross country flights? This includes such things as having to be prompted to use checklists, checking altitude, heading, contacting appropriate facilities, getting the ATIS in a timely manner, beginning descents at the appropriate time, planning the correct type of entry into the pattern, etc. In general, there just seems to be a lagging behind of tasks and not thinking ahead. My strategy to date has involved going through the entire cross country on the ground with the student in terms of when to do what and who to contact and how to enter the pattern, etc. We incorporate when to do specific tasks on the cross country log. Things seem to be all worked out and understood on the ground and then things fall apart on the flight. Any ideas?

 

[Toonces]

I'd tell them that if they have nothing to do at any given moment, then they are probably doing something wrong. Instead of gazing out the window, have them plan for whatever step is next. Try making up a list of tasks in sequential order. I.E climb check, cruise check, find their first checkpoint, ect ect. I guess that would be a checklist for the checlklists.
If all else fails I have found that pain is a great motivator. I kid..........not really.

 

[Airdale]

If I find they are continually behind the airplane, I multi task the crap out of them. Give them all sorts of stuff to do, like cross radials to find our position, have them read approach plates or something. Staying ahead of the airplane I think comes naturally once they become comfortable and confident with their new environment. Until then, I just keep them very busy, I find that this work well, because on the proceeding flights, when I don't multi task them, they seem to be looking for something to do. Or maybe they're just scared I'm going to give them a bunch of stuff to do again. Usually at this point when they're looking for something to do, they don't have to look hard to find out what's important.

 

[jrh]

A couple things that might help...

As a CFI, make sure to prioritize what really matters and what else is just nice and efficient. IMO, using checklists is a big deal and really matters. Talking to ATC before entering Class C or D airspace really matters. Planning the descent and entry into the pattern doesn't. Getting the ATIS isn't a big deal (I fly aircraft with one comm radio, so it's always, "Request frequency change to pick up the ATIS,"...I never have it when I check in).

For checklists, I've found a student's training during local lessons pretty well reflects their checklist usage during XC's. Make sure to be consistent in using checklists during local flights. Also, don't come out and say, "Use your checklist!" Lead them to the answer...say, "Is everything set?" or "Everything's squared away with the plane now?" and try to get them to remember checklists on their own.

For airspace, again, don't come out and tell them to contact ATC. Just ask them what sort of airspace they're flying in to. If they don't get it, ask them if there's anything in particular they need to do to fly in that airspace. Let them get right up to the edge of the airspace before you straight up mention anything about ATC.

For planning the descent and pattern entry...let them figure it out. I'll talk about descent planning on the first XC I do with a student, but after that, I leave them alone. I've had more than one student come cruising up to an airport at 5000 AGL and three miles out. So what? An ear-popping 1500 fpm descent will teach them a lot more about descent planning than anything I can say.

For pattern entries, again, make sure they don't do anything unsafe, but let them figure it out. Don't say anything. As you get close to the airport, just see what they do. If it's going to be something crazy and nonstandard, say, "Hey, whatever happened to the whole 45 degree downwind entry thing? Why are you doing it this way?" See what they say, and talk about it on the ground later, why one way is better than another. A couple days ago I had a student who decided to fly over the length of the runway in the direction he wanted to land, then crank it into a 180 turn on to the downwind leg. Kind of weird, but I let him do it. I later told him it sort of resembled a military break...but a 45 degree downwind entry probably would have been faster and easier.

In general, prompt them for things as little as possible. The best way to learn is to make mistakes in a controlled environment.

One last thought: I don't like the philosophy of "If you don't think you have anything to do, you probably have something to do." That's ridiculous. In the real world, on a VFR cross country, I spend 75% of the time watching the scenery roll by. Cross countries should be relaxing and fun. I've known instructors to make students calculate fuel burn down to the tenth of a gallon at every checkpoint. Come on. Things like that just stress the student out for no good reason. The fact is, in cruise, there isn't much to do. Students need to sit up straight and get their ducks in a line for departure and arrival, but they should chill out and enjoy the ride during cruise.

 

[jrh]

If I find they are continually behind the airplane, I multi task the crap out of them. Give them all sorts of stuff to do, like cross radials to find our position, have them read approach plates or something. Staying ahead of the airplane I think comes naturally once they become comfortable and confident with their new environment. Until then, I just keep them very busy, I find that this work well, because on the proceeding flights, when I don't multi task them, they seem to be looking for something to do. Or maybe they're just scared I'm going to give them a bunch of stuff to do again. Usually at this point when they're looking for something to do, they don't have to look hard to find out what's important.

I disagree with this approach. Make cross country training logical and realistic. Keeping somebody very busy isn't realistic to what 99% of cross countries are like. I think it gives people more confidence to get good at what matters, rather than constantly screwing up things that don't matter (like continually cross checking intersecting radials). Just because something is hard doesn't make it better.

 

[MidlifeFlyer]

Rod Machado poses the following question and answer:

Q; What are the two most important things in aviation?
A: The next two things.

Once the pilot is past basic aircraft control, it's one of our jobs as CFIs to get them thinking this way. it's not about reaching a certain point and then thinking "what do I do now?" It's about thinking =now= about what you need to do when you get there and simply doing it with you do.

In the pattern. it's about being on downwind and thinking "when I get abeam the touchdown point I will bring the power back to XXXX rpm, slow to YY knots, put in the first notch of flaps, etc" and simply doing it once you get there rather than getting to abeam and then trying to figure out what to do.

In your cross country example, it's not about knowing that you need to get the ATIS when you reach a certain point. It's about thinking about getting the ATIS and maybe even getting the frequencies tuned in before you are even near that point, but the radio isn't needed for something else.

The training for it is an annoying barrage of "well, what's coming up next/ what do you have to do then?"

 

[Airdale]

I disagree with this approach. Make cross country training logical and realistic. Keeping somebody very busy isn't realistic to what 99% of cross countries are like. I think it gives people more confidence to get good at what matters, rather than constantly screwing up things that don't matter (like continually cross checking intersecting radials). Just because something is hard doesn't make it better.

To each his own, but my students (Instrument) know what they are supposed to do on cross country flights, sometimes they just get into a zone of not thinking ahead. By tasking them with say, determining our position on a low enroute chart by using vor's (something that is absolutely not useless) , gets them to start thinking constantly and learn to divert their attention between aircraft control and doing something else. On an IFR training flight the other day, my student has had trouble with thinking ahead and multi tasking. I requested direct to our location via GPS and made him tell me our position every 15 minutes. This helped develop his ability to multi task as well as not to just sit there in the airplane and daze off while on a long cross country.

While I agree that multi tasking them does no good towards teaching them the proper way to complete a cross country flight, should the GPS have went out at any point, the student would have to quickly identify our location on the low enroute, and thus divert his attention. I've found by doing this it also makes the student wonder "What will be next?" when things get quiet in the cockpit. Its when they get to this point that I now direct them towards accomplishing other things that need to be done, such as research the destinations approaches, ATIS frequencies and start planning our descent.

I mostly train IFR students, so basic cross country skills they have, its being able to multi task and continually keep the mind two steps ahead of the airplane that seems to be a problem. My method for multi tasking them has worked out quite well, because now every flight they keep themselves busy with things that *need* to be done, rather then sit there and wait for me to give them tasks. Kind of like, " Well I better be doing something important related to the flight, or my instructor is going to give me something to do! "

 

[wheelsup]

In general, there just seems to be a lagging behind of tasks and not thinking ahead.

IMO this person doesn't have an issue with "staying ahead of the airplane", he/she just doesn't really know what to do.

I personally liked to plan a few short flights from one airport to another (maybe 20 miles away), nothing big, just taking off, turn to a heading, cruise up there (no flight logs or anything of the sort), enter the pattern and do some t&g's and then come back.

Once they figured out how to do that on some short flights, expanding it to a large, 'normal' xcty was easy. Everything they did on those repeated short flights is done on longer xcty's, with the exception of a simplistic flight log.

If they are still having problems, do an extra lesson or two. Some people take longer to "get it" than others.

 

[jrh]

To each his own, but my students (Instrument) know what they are supposed to do on cross country flights, sometimes they just get into a zone of not thinking ahead. By tasking them with say, determining our position on a low enroute chart by using vor's (something that is absolutely not useless) , gets them to start thinking constantly and learn to divert their attention between aircraft control and doing something else.

...

I mostly train IFR students, so basic cross country skills they have, its being able to multi task and continually keep the mind two steps ahead of the airplane that seems to be a problem. My method for multi tasking them has worked out quite well, because now every flight they keep themselves busy with things that *need* to be done, rather then sit there and wait for me to give them tasks. Kind of like, " Well I better be doing something important related to the flight, or my instructor is going to give me something to do! "

I think you just highlighted some big differences between private and instrument training.

At the private level, everything is new. Everything. If you bombard a student pilot with a bunch of useless tasks, all you're going to do is frustrate them. A VFR cross country is pretty simple, really, but at the same time, a student pilot can get overwhelmed in the same way as somebody is overwhelmed by taking off and landing on their first flight. I try to show people how flying is a relatively low stress activity, as long as they do it right. How can somebody think ahead when they're busy doing pointless junk in the present? There's no reason to make XC training more work than it needs to be.

At the instrument level, the student should already know how to manage a cockpit and fly cross countries. It's not a new concept to them. All you need to teach them is how to do it safely on instruments. And I agree, you need to think ahead more under IFR than VFR.

So while I don't think loading up an instrument student is necessarily bad for the student, like it would be for a VFR student, I don't think it's the best, either. My philosophy is to make everything as practical as possible. If it's pointless, I don't do it. If I wouldn't do it myself if I were solo on the flight, I don't tell the student to do it.

My style of instrument instruction closely resembles what MidlifeFlyer mentioned...a whole lot of me saying, "What's coming up? Ok, what's after that?"

I'm not trying to keep them busy for no good reason. I just want them to stay on top of things. If the flight isn't busy, it isn't busy. That's fine. I have no problem just cruising along, even if I'm IFR, so long as the student understands what's coming up ahead.

 

[Airdale]

I think you just highlighted some big differences between private and instrument training.

At the private level, everything is new. Everything. If you bombard a student pilot with a bunch of useless tasks, all you're going to do is frustrate them. A VFR cross country is pretty simple, really, but at the same time, a student pilot can get overwhelmed in the same way as somebody is overwhelmed by taking off and landing on their first flight. I try to show people how flying is a relatively low stress activity, as long as they do it right. How can somebody think ahead when they're busy doing pointless junk in the present? There's no reason to make XC training more work than it needs to be.

At the instrument level, the student should already know how to manage a cockpit and fly cross countries. It's not a new concept to them. All you need to teach them is how to do it safely on instruments. And I agree, you need to think ahead more under IFR than VFR.

So while I don't think loading up an instrument student is necessarily bad for the student, like it would be for a VFR student, I don't think it's the best, either. My philosophy is to make everything as practical as possible. If it's pointless, I don't do it. If I wouldn't do it myself if I were solo on the flight, I don't tell the student to do it.

My style of instrument instruction closely resembles what MidlifeFlyer mentioned...a whole lot of me saying, "What's coming up? Ok, what's after that?"

I'm not trying to keep them busy for no good reason. I just want them to stay on top of things. If the flight isn't busy, it isn't busy. That's fine. I have no problem just cruising along, even if I'm IFR, so long as the student understands what's coming up ahead.

Yeah I don't train Private Pilots, they come here already having their private. I see your point, but the tasks I have them do, like read approach plates and brief me on how to do them I don't think are useless. Determining our nearest airport, finding the frequencies and runway information as if we were to divert there isn't useless in my opinion either. My goal with them is to get them to be able to fly the airplane while doing things that are common in the IFR environment, like briefing approach plates. What I've found is that the students are now getting ATIS ahead of time, they are starting to plan their approach into the airport ahead of time and they develop a better sense of situational awareness. They've become used to being busy in the airplane, so when I'm not tasking them, I guide them with things they can do that they should be doing, like thinking ahead of how we will plan our descent, what approach we can expect and start flying it through their head. Also I always like to have my students have a plan of action if things get ugly. Like what would we do if we had an engine failure (twin), what about a radio failure? What would we fly and how would we handle it? These are typical things I make the student go through during their training once they can shoot approaches very well.

Granted I wouldn't do that with VFR Private XC students. I agree, it's useless for them. I haven't taught a private, so I'm not sure where I would start with XC stuff, but I'd figure it out. I'm just crossing the 100hr dual given mark, so I'm still learning how to develop good pilots. There really is no syllabus that gives guidance for getting students to think ahead and stay ahead while managing the cockpit. So I've tried various methods and so far, this one has worked well with my IFR guys. Its just trail and error, but I've found adapting my methods for each individual student develops a much better pilot in the end, and ultimately thats my goal.