Diminishing Returns - Dual Given Hours

thevideographer said:
I thought I knew my job really well when I went to a regional. Then I got in a turboprop flying 121 and felt like I knew nothing. There's a ton of stuff you're just not going to learn instructing nomatter how many hours you have. Something to think about depending on what your goals are.
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There's always going to be a learning curve going into turboprop or jet for the first time regardless of background.


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swakid8 said:
There's always going to be a learning curve going into turboprop or jet for the first time regardless of background.


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How can one best prepare for that going from CFI to 121, without any 135 in between?
 
Counselor said:
How can one best prepare for that going from CFI to 121, without any 135 in between?
Click to expand...

There's three very different skill sets you have to master when you go from a CFI to an RJ Monkey.

The first is related to the actual airplane. Pretty much no matter what you are CFIing in, whether it be a single or a twin, glass cockpit or steam gauge, the RJ is going to move faster, have more complex systems and operate in airspace/procedures, you've never experienced before. Additionally, the way you are going to be taught all of this stuff is via a fire hose being stuck in your face, and them opening the nozzle. The best way to prepare for this is to

a) Make sure your self study skills are solid (which has absolutely nothing specifically to do with flying).

b) Make sure your outside of work life is in order so you can focus 120% on learning the new plane.

c) Start learning about, generalized, more complex aircraft system, often found in RJs (APU, pneumatic, hydraulic etc). There are several good books for this out there including, the Turbine Pilot's Flight Manual. The first time you hear the words "low pressure turbine", shouldn't be in ground school.

d) Make sure you are super instrument proficient because the procedural flying stuff has to come together automatically in the background while you struggle with the new airplane part at speeds WAY faster than you are used to.

The second challenge of going from CFIing to working in an RJ is understanding the multi crew environment and getting a handle on PM/PF and CRM interaction. You can start to wrap your head around this by reading some books and talking to people who fly in that environment every day. You can work it into your lessons with your current students, especially ones that are planning to go fly multi crew airplanes eventually.

The third new thing you'll encounter in your first go at a 121 op will be airline bureaucracy and the labor/management relationship. If you've ever worked for a big company before, you'll have seen most of this, but if not, grasping that you are just your employee number and not much else (to start with) can be tough for people.

I lied... there are actually four things, but one of them won't come into play for a while. When you upgrade, knowing how to be PIC and actually be in command of an aircraft with people in the back (and everything that comes with that), is a skill that can not be taught during 3 weeks up upgrade ground school. The time to build the PIC skills is now, while you are instructing and then once you get comfortable in the right seat of an RJ, start trying to thing like a captain. That doesn't mean BE a right seat captain, but stay involved, try to come up with solutions to problems before the captain does and see if what you thought of, is what they think of. Always be learning and expanding your knowledge.

Going straight from being a CFI to a 121 pilot is very achievable, especially as they've catered more and more RJ training programs to that reality. You've just got to put all your effort in to it.
 
Counselor said:
How can one best prepare for that going from CFI to 121, without any 135 in between?
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If you're an affable chap(ette), willing to learn, in possession of decent flying skills, and humble then it's easy. Doesn't hurt if you like to imbibe and be social either.

But yeah, basically what @BobDDuck says.
 
That huge post makes it sound very scary but most people will pass no problem. Yes it's a transition and the point of my last post was that nomatter how good you are at your current job, the next job is going to have a big learning curve. But being a CFI in the first place had a big learning curve, just for different skills.
 
This post is proof that some people think too hard. A few hundred hours dual is plenty. Or someone with zero dual given can make a great airline pilot. Some people with tons of dual given are still terrible pilots.
 
BobDDuck said:
There's three very different skill sets you have to master when you go from a CFI to an RJ Monkey.

The first is related to the actual airplane. Pretty much no matter what you are CFIing in, whether it be a single or a twin, glass cockpit or steam gauge, the RJ is going to move faster, have more complex systems and operate in airspace/procedures, you've never experienced before. Additionally, the way you are going to be taught all of this stuff is via a fire hose being stuck in your face, and them opening the nozzle. The best way to prepare for this is to

a) Make sure your self study skills are solid (which has absolutely nothing specifically to do with flying).

b) Make sure your outside of work life is in order so you can focus 120% on learning the new plane.

c) Start learning about, generalized, more complex aircraft system, often found in RJs (APU, pneumatic, hydraulic etc). There are several good books for this out there including, the Turbine Pilot's Flight Manual. The first time you hear the words "low pressure turbine", shouldn't be in ground school.

d) Make sure you are super instrument proficient because the procedural flying stuff has to come together automatically in the background while you struggle with the new airplane part at speeds WAY faster than you are used to.

The second challenge of going from CFIing to working in an RJ is understanding the multi crew environment and getting a handle on PM/PF and CRM interaction. You can start to wrap your head around this by reading some books and talking to people who fly in that environment every day. You can work it into your lessons with your current students, especially ones that are planning to go fly multi crew airplanes eventually.

The third new thing you'll encounter in your first go at a 121 op will be airline bureaucracy and the labor/management relationship. If you've ever worked for a big company before, you'll have seen most of this, but if not, grasping that you are just your employee number and not much else (to start with) can be tough for people.

I lied... there are actually four things, but one of them won't come into play for a while. When you upgrade, knowing how to be PIC and actually be in command of an aircraft with people in the back (and everything that comes with that), is a skill that can not be taught during 3 weeks up upgrade ground school. The time to build the PIC skills is now, while you are instructing and then once you get comfortable in the right seat of an RJ, start trying to thing like a captain. That doesn't mean BE a right seat captain, but stay involved, try to come up with solutions to problems before the captain does and see if what you thought of, is what they think of. Always be learning and expanding your knowledge.

Going straight from being a CFI to a 121 pilot is very achievable, especially as they've catered more and more RJ training programs to that reality. You've just got to put all your effort in to it.
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Thanks for this.
 
I honestly think it depends on what kind of environment you're in, and how much you're actually flying. I've heard the magic number is around 1000 hours, where it just starts to become monotonous, but this is in the 141 environment. An environment where you're flying 100+ hours a month, with different students all the time, teaching a set syllabus, the same maneuvers, the same approaches, watching the same problems, the same mistakes, and patiently watching those students make the same mistakes and learn from them. It can get old really quick. You learn a ton in the beginning, and it makes you a far better pilot, but you reach a point especially in the instrument stage, where you're just along for the ride, and don't get to do much flying, leading to a degrade in your own skills. I think that 1000 hours is number, past that I think you can become a better instructor, but you won't become any better of a pilot.
 
FWIW, apropos this thread, I'm back to doing instruction on the side, in the gaps my 121 job leaves me, largely because I want to give back to aviation. (But also because I'm so frustrated with CFIs teaching things poorly because they were taught poorly. Aerodynamics and energy management isn't complicated, and we shouldn't teach people how to pass the checkride before we teach them how to properly view basic aerodynamics.)

We never stop learning.

-Fox
 
I believe its just like any job, you get out what you put in. I work with so many instructors who are only instructing to occupy a seat and watch that hobbs meter tick away, then move on to the regionals. But if you actually pay attention and apply yourself its amazing how much you can still learn even while going to the same practice areas and flying the same practice approaches day after day, just don't let allow yourself to stop absorbing new information.

Being a CFI is probably the quickest way to consistently build time to the regionals, and it has drawn in soooooo many uncommitted instructors whose only purpose for being there is time building, it amazes me what some of these instructors tell their students, or don't tell their students.
 
Not counting being a check airman for a decade, I put in 1000 dual given. Learned a LOT about flying in that time frame. It should almost be mandatory really.
 
Acrofox said:
FWIW, apropos this thread, I'm back to doing instruction on the side, in the gaps my 121 job leaves me, largely because I want to give back to aviation. (But also because I'm so frustrated with CFIs teaching things poorly because they were taught poorly. Aerodynamics and energy management isn't complicated, and we shouldn't teach people how to pass the checkride before we teach them how to properly view basic aerodynamics.)

We never stop learning.

-Fox
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I would love and appreciate you starting a thread in the CFI corner where you discuss this - and what, specifically, you've identified that needs work and how you're correcting it.

I am in the middle of my CFI training right now....I'm hoping to finish up by the end of the month/early March and this is the kind of thing I would love to hear about and learn from.
 
BobDDuck said:
There's three very different skill sets you have to master when you go from a CFI to an RJ Monkey.

The first is related to the actual airplane. Pretty much no matter what you are CFIing in, whether it be a single or a twin, glass cockpit or steam gauge, the RJ is going to move faster, have more complex systems and operate in airspace/procedures, you've never experienced before. Additionally, the way you are going to be taught all of this stuff is via a fire hose being stuck in your face, and them opening the nozzle. The best way to prepare for this is to

a) Make sure your self study skills are solid (which has absolutely nothing specifically to do with flying).

b) Make sure your outside of work life is in order so you can focus 120% on learning the new plane.

c) Start learning about, generalized, more complex aircraft system, often found in RJs (APU, pneumatic, hydraulic etc). There are several good books for this out there including, the Turbine Pilot's Flight Manual. The first time you hear the words "low pressure turbine", shouldn't be in ground school.

d) Make sure you are super instrument proficient because the procedural flying stuff has to come together automatically in the background while you struggle with the new airplane part at speeds WAY faster than you are used to.

The second challenge of going from CFIing to working in an RJ is understanding the multi crew environment and getting a handle on PM/PF and CRM interaction. You can start to wrap your head around this by reading some books and talking to people who fly in that environment every day. You can work it into your lessons with your current students, especially ones that are planning to go fly multi crew airplanes eventually.

The third new thing you'll encounter in your first go at a 121 op will be airline bureaucracy and the labor/management relationship. If you've ever worked for a big company before, you'll have seen most of this, but if not, grasping that you are just your employee number and not much else (to start with) can be tough for people.

I lied... there are actually four things, but one of them won't come into play for a while. When you upgrade, knowing how to be PIC and actually be in command of an aircraft with people in the back (and everything that comes with that), is a skill that can not be taught during 3 weeks up upgrade ground school. The time to build the PIC skills is now, while you are instructing and then once you get comfortable in the right seat of an RJ, start trying to thing like a captain. That doesn't mean BE a right seat captain, but stay involved, try to come up with solutions to problems before the captain does and see if what you thought of, is what they think of. Always be learning and expanding your knowledge.

Going straight from being a CFI to a 121 pilot is very achievable, especially as they've catered more and more RJ training programs to that reality. You've just got to put all your effort in to it.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the quality answer. I'm finishing up commercial 141 right now and going straight to CFI and have been wondering what if anything I could do as a CFI to get ready to be a regional FO. No R-ATP for me so I have to get to 1500.

I was planning to skip multi at the end of commercial (save $) and go straight to CFI, then CFII, then do multi and MEI at the same time. Any thoughts on this? Instructors at my school average 90-110 hours monthly. They also just announced free CFI, CFII, MEI if you make a 1400 hour commitment.

Also, we do have a few King Airs so a goal of mine would be to become one of the instructors for those. I'm assuming getting in those would aid a bit in the transition to 121 as far as speeds and system knowledge? Assuming so that would be a goal of mine.

Acrofox said:
FWIW, apropos this thread, I'm back to doing instruction on the side, in the gaps my 121 job leaves me, largely because I want to give back to aviation. (But also because I'm so frustrated with CFIs teaching things poorly because they were taught poorly. Aerodynamics and energy management isn't complicated, and we shouldn't teach people how to pass the checkride before we teach them how to properly view basic aerodynamics.)

We never stop learning.

-Fox
Click to expand...

What 121 allows instructing on the side? Asked that question at a meet and greet with a 121 only a couple weeks ago and they said that was prohibited in their contract. I was hoping that after getting hired and sitting on my butt for a while before getting on the line you'd be able to still instruct on the side to make some $.
 
Just do exactly what the instructors tell you to do and you should be fine. I hadn’t flown anything faster than a Seminole and passed without any issues. The training is tough but as long as you are eager to learn you’ll be fine. Also ask a lot of questions. Systems, especially electrics was very difficult for me and the instructors were happy to answer any questions I had. Don’t be afraid to speak up if you are confused because 99% of the time, there’s other people that have the same question.
 
GoDawgsGo said:
I was planning to skip multi at the end of commercial (save $) and go straight to CFI, then CFII, then do multi and MEI at the same time. Any thoughts on this? Instructors at my school average 90-110 hours monthly. They also just announced free CFI, CFII, MEI if you make a 1400 hour commitment.
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Thats what I did, just not the MEI part of it, and thats what the majority of pilots I know did as well, seems to work out well. Start getting that logbook filled as a CFI then when you have some time knock to the commercial multi add on.
 
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