New CFI

epilotdream91

epilotdream91

Well-Known Member
so heres the deal, im a brand new CFI and ive been teaching at this part 61 mom and pop flight school. I come from a big organized program at SUNY farmingdale and so im used to doing things a certain way. Now i dont know if its normal when i fly with students i think they are all going to kill me and so i just take the controls from them. Am i a bad CFI for that? I only have about 5 hours of dual given. When should i expect to become comfterble with students? Or should i just not be a CFI?
 
They ARE trying to kill you! That's what students do . . .They don't know any different. BUT if you grab the controls each time they make a mistake, they will never learn why what they did was wrong. You need to let them make the mistakes but always remain vigilant and ready to take over the aircraft if they have literally lost it.

Think back to your primary training, how often did your instructor grab the controls from you? I bet they let you make mistakes and at the last second recovered from that unusual attitude or bad landing you were performing. Then they had you try again.

Sitting on your hands is the toughest thing for a new CFI to learn to do.

Good luck, you will be fine.
 
Do you mean during landing? I hope you don't mean any other time. Other than initial landing attempts, and maybe the first few takeoffs, the only time you should be on, or nervously near, the controls is when demonstrating.
Otherwise, make it obviously clear you are not on the controls.
You have to develop a "fast gun draw" that gets your hands up from the lap to the yoke in lightening fast fashion. Of course, keep the feet cocked over-but-not touching the rudder pedals.
Relax. Look out the side window. Let them fly. Be a passenger.
 
Unless they're doing something truly dangerous or are about to damage the airplane let them make the mistake. Everyone learns by making mistakes. You'll get the hang of it after a few more hours. I wouldn't worry about it.
 
Yeah you'll be fine, it is understandable, but you'll realise you don't need to after a few more hours. Good for you on reflecting on it.
 
I'm right there with you brother. I have my first dual scheduled on Sunday. My grey hair is gonna turn white. Stay with it and im sure it'll get easier with time.
 
I'm so sick of hearing this "my students are trying to kill me" BS.

Im willing to bet you didn't exactly fly like Bob Hoover the first few hours you went up with a CFI. Yet you all managed to survive. Don't infect your student with your newness. Get in that airplane and own it. It'll take a few hundred hours to comfortably stay ahead of your student. And keep your damn hands off the controls. If you're not letting you students figure out their mistakes, they're not getting their money's worth out of you being there.

To make your life a little easier during their first few approaches to landing. On final, positively take the plane from them, trim it up, set the power and then give it back to them. They'll see what a properly configured airplane shoud feel like rather than them fighting it.
 
You have to let them make mistakes. The hardest thing to learn as a new CFI is how to sit on your hands and let them fly the airplane. My rule is I never let them get into a situation I can't get us out of. Always stay on your toes, ready to takeover if it becomes dangerous, but they will get more out of making mistakes than to have you take the controls all the time.
 
There are obviously times when you would need to take controls, but most of the time all it takes is to draw your student's attention to their mistake. For example, if they are getting slow in final, I'll just say "airspeed," and usually the student will correct it. Defensive positioning is key. I personally NEVER have my hands on my lap during takeoffs or landings, I keep my hand right there by the yoke without adding any pressure or moving it. that way I'm ready to grab it should the need arise. You definitely don't want to be adding pressure to the controls however, since they won't learn anything that way.

I agree with the above poster that it takes a couple hundred hours of dual given before you will feel comfortable, you'll get there.

I don't know what airplanes you're flying, but most training airplanes are VERY forgiving and will fly in spite of what your student does. After doing hundreds of stage checks for a 141 school where I can't help the student, I've learned to let things go pretty far before I take controls. That doesn't mean that I enjoy having students do things like try to ground loop the airplane after touchdown or stall it at 50' above the runway, but I don't take controls unless things are getting pretty bad and the student clearly isn't doing anything about it. My tolerance for that is something that developed over time as I gained more experience instructing.

Remember, training airplanes are pretty tough and can take more than you think during landings, just be careful with the nose wheel. You can't really call yourself a CFI until you've had some students try to knock fillings out of your teeth during landing.
 
Thank you all! I appreciate your advice, i went up today with a student and i put some of this advice to practice.. It worked! I didnt die hahaha. Btw for the record at the moment im flying 172s and 152s.. In may i'll be flying piper cadets and arrows! Haha. Thank you so very much again for all this great advice!
 
Glad to hear you cheated death!

Another thing you can usually do instead of taking flight controls is to just make the student go-around. Sometimes verbal cues just aren't enough as the student will quickly become overwhelmed with information if you try to talk too much while they're landing. It's good practice for them to go around at low altitude anyway. I like to ask them if they know why I made them go around, and they usually know! My next question is why did they wait for me to TELL them to do it!?! I think it helps strengthen their decision making since you give them a tool to prevent the bad landing and are showing them when to use it rather than just bailing them out of a bad situation.

If I grab the controls, it was probably not a salvageable landing and would have been a go-around anyway, so why not have them do it. Hopefully before long they'll just do it on their own without being told and will be a better pilot for it. They're student pilots after all, they are going to have some crappy approaches. Sometimes it's better to just go-around and try it again.
 
Great advice in this thread, another way of saying it is let the student continue to the point where you are still able to recover if needed. Just don't let them go further than you're able to quickly recover especially close to the ground.
 
Comfort comes with experience. You should be near the controls during takeoff as students sometimes like to perform immediate power on stalls if you aren't there to stop them. You should also be near and will most likely have to take controls during their early landing attempts. Once you are up at altitude, let them make the mistakes. Only touch controls when you are demonstrating. All normal stuff for both the student and instructor.

The tricky part is early landing attempts. As an instructor you have to recognize a mistake coming, then you have to determine whether letting the student continue will be safe or dangerous. Only get on the controls when it falls in the dangerous column.
 
Unless you are truly about to bend something, do nothing but teach rather than intervene. Relax, it takes a lot to screw up that bad in a Cessna.
 
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