I've started filming some videos of myself teaching myself maneuvers. Goal of these is to have videos to make available to my eventual students, but also for me to practice teaching maneuvers and get some feedback from others.
First up - soft field approach land landing. Would appreciate any advise on how to improve my teaching here and things I might have missed that would be good for the practical:
Good, overall! I thought your points were well-presented, your communication style was clear and precise, and the structure of your lesson was excellent.
A few notes.
Instruction: You spend a lot of talk-time saying "We're going to do this," "we're going to do this," "we're going to do this," but you're not always verbalizing why you're doing it. I would spend some time describing what you're seeing, what you're looking at, what you're looking for, and why you've decided that, for example, you're high when turning final. This isn't criticism—overall, I like your cadence and I think it's very nice. But I think you could improve by describing the visual measuring process you're using.
"Alright, I'm seeing the tops of the trees moving down relative to my aiming point—the space between the tops of the trees and the runway is growing—so I know I'm going to clear them, but they're moving down more than I'd like, so I'm going to increase my descent rate a little to bring me a little lower on the angle," etc.
Also, there are a few things you take for granted, like "abeam the numbers," etc. There are no numbers on that grass runway. I'm not just being pedantic—you can expect that to confuse students, or lead them to building the wrong idea. You're using a very common approach, which is trigger->response. But by teaching this way, you're teaching them like you'd instruct a line cook at a restaurant. Meat down for two minutes, then flip. Three shakes of seasoning, then cheese. A minute and a half, put it on the bun, one squeeze of special sauce, two slices of lettuce, serve."
In my view, when you're teaching a private pilot, you need to look at them as a future pilot-in-command. You may have to resort to trigger-based teaching, but I'd recommend moving away from it as soon as possible to judgment-based.
We need to teach pilots to be chefs, not line cooks.
But it's minor, and most of your instruction doesn't lean too heavily on triggers. I'd carefully evaluate how you teach lessons at your home airport, though, with that concept in mind.
Technique: Depends on the student and what you're teaching. Personally, I would keep that pattern tighter, and with a fixed-pitch prop, I'd slip the airplane in when I'm trying to have a nice descent that clears trees but gets you right to your spot. You want to fill the student's toolbox full of tools, teach them how to use them, and help them build judgment as to what tool to use when.
Ask yourself, in every given situation, "What happens if the engine fails right now." If you're anywhere but 100' with trees in front of you and the answer is "we die," re-evaluate your technique. Even when landing with power, a power-off base and final should be the platonic ideal of an approach, as far as I'm concerned.
Also, maybe land brakeless the first few times, but I'd discourage teaching "we don't use brakes during a soft-field landing." You just need to modulate the brake usage based on the aerodynamic force of the elevator and how grabby the runway surface is, which takes some work. The problem is that if the student develops a "never during soft field," it could be a negative cornerstone of soft-field landings for them that could get them into trouble later.
I'm big on nuance in instruction, personally.
Minor pet-peeve: I know it's common, but I consider "gear down and welded" and similar things to be harmful. It teaches a rote, performative understanding of checklists that I, personally, think is harmful to development.
What I, personally, do is follow a philosophy of "fly the airplane you're in." You're in a 150/152, so the gear doesn't retract. Keep those checklists simple, focused on the "killer items" for that particular airplane. That way when your student moves to a P210 or similar, they don't have the off-the-cuff "gear-down-and-welded-mixture-rich" thing spring-loaded. You want them actively thinking about the operational differences between aircraft as part of training.
Anyway, like I said, nice job. Some of these are nits, but I thought I'd bounce them to you for consideration. If you don't like what I'm saying, totally fair—you have to teach like you, not like me. ^_^
Keep up the good work!
