ClearedToTakeoff
Well-Known Member
I got my first CFI job back in March. I'm 2 months in, around 150 hours dual given already, and here are some of my findings.
People claim a Private Pilot certificate is a license to learn... CFI is WAY more of a license to learn. I've learned more in the past 2 months about actually flying an airplane then I ever learned through out all my training. Even on my CFI checkride I was nervous about steep turns.... now, I'll do a 60 degree bank, barely moving altitude.... while talking. I had to take a plane on a test flight that claimed issues on bank and just rolled in and out of 60 degree turns left and right so fast I couldn't even count how many turns I did... yet kept on altitude. Since becoming a CFI I've become a MUCH more competent pilot. My landings have improved a trillion fold. Now that I'm the so called, "expert"
bowrofl: starting work at 232 hours TT, barely qualifies me out of the student phase, now i'm so supposed to be an expert???) my landings are much better. Crosswind landing gusting in a 152? Bring it on, so much fun.... All the real learning I've found has come with my CFI cert, not my PVT. Now I can see why people don't like that PFJ way of earning hours. They are skipping the valuable stage of development that can only be achieved through instructing. Today I felt I made a major milestone in instructing, and each day, I usually find a new way to describe something that allows me to perform a flight maneuver with realitive ease now. Every day I learn something new.
Don't do stalls at an altitude you're uncomfortable to spin at. This lesson was learned the hard and stupid way just last friday. This plane is notoriously bad at stalling. I had my student do an approach to landing, straight ahead stall, and as per my previous experience, it broke so violently the tow bar in the back hit the top of the roof. It's a major zero g moment, it's that violent. So my intelligent self said, "Well you did a great job on that, let's try an approach to landing stall, with 20 degrees of bank." Well with the way the aircraft broke, we immediately went into a spin, screw incipient, practically straight to fully developed. So my student thinks to break a stall, add power. So he hads full throttle immediately just aggrevating the situation. I immediately pull power. My mind wasn't thinking fast enough, and i had back elevator. Then in a split second my mind thought back to my spin training, I immediately PARERE'd it... and recovered having only lost 500 feet in a about 3 full rotations. I was shooken up.... we were about 2500 ft AGL after recovery, so it wasn't THAT low to the ground... but it definitely hit me hard. My student asked what happened, and I could barely talk. I just wasn't expecting it. So even though we had enough altitude, it's not an altitude I would have felt safe intentionally entering a spin. Also, now I can THANK the FAA for making the stipulation that all CFI candidates must undergo spin training. If it weren't for my previous training in spins, I could totally see myself not understanding what was going on, only to fail at properly recovering and I would have smacked right into the ground. But thanks to previous training after about .2 seconds of incorrect recovery, instantly the training came back and I was able to recover quickly. So lesson learned, don't do stall unless you feel comfortable spinning. Now I'm contemplating spinning all PVT candidates I may have so they know what it's like and can revert back to training should they find themselves in that situation. Such an amazing lesson that spin training was.
Never be afraid to ask another CFI for help. When you go on checkrides you're so nervous about certain things that you may not retain the information AFTER the checkride. Now in the work force, asking a question, you're now curious because you want to learn it so you can teach it so the retention level is much higher now, thus increasing your ability as a CFI every time YOU ask a question. Don't be afraid to ask.
I know nothing. Coming out of CFI checkrides you might feel like you're king of the world, but now I know I know nothing.
Those are just a few of the things I can properly form a statement about, of course I've learned much much more in the previous two months, but alas, I am still learning, and I'll even learn something tomorrow. So please, post some of the things you've learned since becoming a CFI. Hopefully none of this comes off as arrogant, because now as the instructor, you can't but be anything but humble.
People claim a Private Pilot certificate is a license to learn... CFI is WAY more of a license to learn. I've learned more in the past 2 months about actually flying an airplane then I ever learned through out all my training. Even on my CFI checkride I was nervous about steep turns.... now, I'll do a 60 degree bank, barely moving altitude.... while talking. I had to take a plane on a test flight that claimed issues on bank and just rolled in and out of 60 degree turns left and right so fast I couldn't even count how many turns I did... yet kept on altitude. Since becoming a CFI I've become a MUCH more competent pilot. My landings have improved a trillion fold. Now that I'm the so called, "expert"
bowrofl: starting work at 232 hours TT, barely qualifies me out of the student phase, now i'm so supposed to be an expert???) my landings are much better. Crosswind landing gusting in a 152? Bring it on, so much fun.... All the real learning I've found has come with my CFI cert, not my PVT. Now I can see why people don't like that PFJ way of earning hours. They are skipping the valuable stage of development that can only be achieved through instructing. Today I felt I made a major milestone in instructing, and each day, I usually find a new way to describe something that allows me to perform a flight maneuver with realitive ease now. Every day I learn something new.Don't do stalls at an altitude you're uncomfortable to spin at. This lesson was learned the hard and stupid way just last friday. This plane is notoriously bad at stalling. I had my student do an approach to landing, straight ahead stall, and as per my previous experience, it broke so violently the tow bar in the back hit the top of the roof. It's a major zero g moment, it's that violent. So my intelligent self said, "Well you did a great job on that, let's try an approach to landing stall, with 20 degrees of bank." Well with the way the aircraft broke, we immediately went into a spin, screw incipient, practically straight to fully developed. So my student thinks to break a stall, add power. So he hads full throttle immediately just aggrevating the situation. I immediately pull power. My mind wasn't thinking fast enough, and i had back elevator. Then in a split second my mind thought back to my spin training, I immediately PARERE'd it... and recovered having only lost 500 feet in a about 3 full rotations. I was shooken up.... we were about 2500 ft AGL after recovery, so it wasn't THAT low to the ground... but it definitely hit me hard. My student asked what happened, and I could barely talk. I just wasn't expecting it. So even though we had enough altitude, it's not an altitude I would have felt safe intentionally entering a spin. Also, now I can THANK the FAA for making the stipulation that all CFI candidates must undergo spin training. If it weren't for my previous training in spins, I could totally see myself not understanding what was going on, only to fail at properly recovering and I would have smacked right into the ground. But thanks to previous training after about .2 seconds of incorrect recovery, instantly the training came back and I was able to recover quickly. So lesson learned, don't do stall unless you feel comfortable spinning. Now I'm contemplating spinning all PVT candidates I may have so they know what it's like and can revert back to training should they find themselves in that situation. Such an amazing lesson that spin training was.
Never be afraid to ask another CFI for help. When you go on checkrides you're so nervous about certain things that you may not retain the information AFTER the checkride. Now in the work force, asking a question, you're now curious because you want to learn it so you can teach it so the retention level is much higher now, thus increasing your ability as a CFI every time YOU ask a question. Don't be afraid to ask.
I know nothing. Coming out of CFI checkrides you might feel like you're king of the world, but now I know I know nothing.
Those are just a few of the things I can properly form a statement about, of course I've learned much much more in the previous two months, but alas, I am still learning, and I'll even learn something tomorrow. So please, post some of the things you've learned since becoming a CFI. Hopefully none of this comes off as arrogant, because now as the instructor, you can't but be anything but humble.
