To all CFI's: Stupidest student questions.

JustinS said:
That or when a student says something so wrong Tower refuses to give them any kind of a clearance until they say it right, because they're tired of putting up with student pilots. :rolleyes:
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Also that sound of relief in the controllers voice when you jump in before it gets too ugly when it's busy. Here's a recent example:

Student to ATC: "Uhhhhh santa fe ground? uhhhhhh well errrrr this is Remos november 28GX and uhhhhhh I want to do some touch and goes. wait who you are, where you are and what you want? right (looks at me)? uhh *unkeys mic*"
Me: "Ground 28GX North ramp for taxi with mike to stay in the pattern"
ATC: "Thanks partner. 20 via alpha"

To all instructors out there: We've all been there when it comes to radio fright, so don't freak out when your student has trouble with the radios.
 
Dan208B said:
From a friend of mine that's older and avoids night flying just because - "Dark air doesn't support lift."
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That right there is damned funny and I'm going to start using it with a straight face when people ask me if I'm allowed to fly at night.

And they do. All the time.
 
Image search for "dark air" got me two thing: 1) some kind of manga anime, and 2) glow in the dark Kanye West shoes (something called "Air Max Yahtzee?")
 
A150K said:
Also that sound of relief in the controllers voice when you jump in before it gets too ugly when it's busy. Here's a recent example:

Student to ATC: "Uhhhhh santa fe ground? uhhhhhh well errrrr this is Remos november 28GX and uhhhhhh I want to do some touch and goes. wait who you are, where you are and what you want? right (looks at me)? uhh *unkeys mic*"
Me: "Ground 28GX North ramp for taxi with mike to stay in the pattern"
ATC: "Thanks partner. 20 via alpha"

To all instructors out there: We've all been there when it comes to radio fright, so don't freak out when your student has trouble with the radios.
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Totally. Today we had some traffic arriving prior to our departure "Skyhawk 123AB hold short 18" "Uhhh holding short" ...." runway 18" Tower dishes out a few more instructions. Then "Skyhawk 123AB please verify holding short 18" me super quick "We're holding short 18 Skyhawk 123AB." The instant relief in tower's voice is always noticeable after that.
 
JustinS said:
Well I don't know if you're saying my statement is false and calling me out or what you're saying. But it's defnitely true. That's why a lot of overseas aviation organizations are straying away from recip powered singles to turbine powered. Not only for MX reasons, but the Jet A is significantly cheaper than Avgas there... I've talked with these pilots first hand. I didn't pull that fact out of thin air...
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I was pointing out that jet A is cheaper here as well.
 
rd757 said:
Had a student use "Nevada" in front of our tailnumber when calling ground for taxi instructions. I had instructed him on several occasions that "the 'N' in the tailnumber wasn't needed in the US. Tower didn't let him live it down for the entire pattern lesson. "Skyhawk Nevada 123AB cleared for the option." Had the phonetic alphabet down perfect the next week.
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Somebody's been watching too many "Wings" reruns... :)
 
Had a good one today from a Private Pilot, Instrument Rated working on his multi...

Him: Hey, so when I get my commercial pilot's license, I can start teaching private pilot students, right?
Me: Wait, seriously?
Him: Yeah, I will able to build time quickly that way.
Me: No, you can't do that with just a commercial certificate.
Him: What else do I need?
Me: Your CFI ratings.
Him: What do I have to do for that, a written test?
Me: Yeah, and all the flight training, and take the checkride.
Him: Oh, I don't think I'll be a CFI then, I want to be done studying.
Me (thinking): Wait, since when have you started studying?
 
After returning to APP frequency after picking up another airports ATIS....

Student: "Approach Piper 123 We have Whiskey on board"
APP: "Roger"
Suddenly the student gets this look of horror on his face and re-keys the mic and quickly and loudly states "Approach... I mean we have INFORMATION Whiskey.."
APP: "Uh... Roger" snickering
Looks at me and says "I didnt want them to think we had bottles of whiskey on the plane"
Me: (trying no to laugh but smiling a bit) "Yeah I think they know that now"
 
Gotcha all beat.
On a sightseeing flight a very very pretty girl once asked me where I kept the fuel...when I said in the wings, she backed up wide eyed and said "If that wing falls off ...will we run out of gas?"
"Nope, we've got another wing see!"
"Ok.. good!" and she pushed by me and climbs in the plane......
 
Every time my student says something stupid, I come on the radio after and fix it. Phoenix approach/local towers always says "thanks" after you correct a bad call where the student is missing some required readback..

Gateway tower: "*callsign*, Gateway tower, cleared for the option runway 30C, fly runway heading."
Student: "Cleared for the option fly runway heading *callsign*"
Me, sounding annoyed: "Cleared for the option RUNWAY 30C *callsign*"
Gateway tower: "Thanks..."


Oh.. another one for you... foreign student. Couldn't figure out why we had a 28 amp alternator and a 24 volt battery.. So I asked him, okay, what charges the battery? "Oh sir, maintenance comes out and charges it every night". I nearly died laughing.
 
One of my Chinese students:

P6SM = perhaps 6 statute miles
MVFR = Military VFR

Same guy continually refers to the MC as the magneto compass, no matter how many times I correct him
 
PilotSafety.org said:
Gotcha all beat.
On a sightseeing flight a very very pretty girl once asked me where I kept the fuel...when I said in the wings, she backed up wide eyed and said "If that wing falls off ...will we run out of gas?"
"Nope, we've got another wing see!"
"Ok.. good!" and she pushed by me and climbs in the plane......
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Haha, that's great. I had a pretty female student one time that usually didn't fly with me, but her usual instructor wasn't available. So we were practicing slow flight (in a Skyhawk) and she wasn't getting very slow, only about 55-60kt. I told her "This airplane goes a whole lot slower, let's try and slow it down" She: "But I'm scared it will fall out of the sky" Me: "well you know how to recover from a stall right?" She: "Oh yes, I love doing stalls!" *facepalm* "Then why won't you go slower?!"

I proceeded to hang it on the prop indicating ZERO airspeed then gave her the controls. "I don't like going this slow!" and she literally looked away from the airspeed indicator so she wouldn't see how slow we were going. "Ma'am, not looking at it won't change anything"
 
A150K said:
Also that sound of relief in the controllers voice when you jump in before it gets too ugly when it's busy. Here's a recent example:

Student to ATC: "Uhhhhh santa fe ground? uhhhhhh well errrrr this is Remos november 28GX and uhhhhhh I want to do some touch and goes. wait who you are, where you are and what you want? right (looks at me)? uhh *unkeys mic*"
Me: "Ground 28GX North ramp for taxi with mike to stay in the pattern"
ATC: "Thanks partner. 20 via alpha"

To all instructors out there: We've all been there when it comes to radio fright, so don't freak out when your student has trouble with the radios.
Click to expand...

I make my students hold short and repeat it back to me while I act like tower or ground or whoever until they get it right... It usually only takes a couple of lessons and they sound like a seasoned vet on the radio. I also tell them to listen to liveATC.
 
A150K said:
Also that sound of relief in the controllers voice when you jump in before it gets too ugly when it's busy. Here's a recent example:

Student to ATC: "Uhhhhh santa fe ground? uhhhhhh well errrrr this is Remos november 28GX and uhhhhhh I want to do some touch and goes. wait who you are, where you are and what you want? right (looks at me)? uhh *unkeys mic*"
Me: "Ground 28GX North ramp for taxi with mike to stay in the pattern"
ATC: "Thanks partner. 20 via alpha"

To all instructors out there: We've all been there when it comes to radio fright, so don't freak out when your student has trouble with the radios.
Click to expand...
I have one I'm flying with who is unusually nervous. So yesterday I flew a short 10nm flight to a class D, touch and go, then back, and he was making all of the radio calls. I took away what I know he can do, which is fly it, and had him focus on the radios entirely--he did great. Tomorrow we're going to jump back into him doing it all.
 
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