Unnatural Reaction to Stress

Sidious

Sidious

Well-Known Member
I have a student that has some interesting quirks when it comes to stress and was wondering if anyone else has had the same experience and what worked.
From engine start to engine shut down he is the most stressed out individual I have encountered. He worries about things that are unnecessary such as worrying about what runway we are going to land on when we get back when we haven’t even taxied yet. He also has the tendency to curse a lot and very loudly when he gets overloaded.
I assumed that after his solo that this would temper down however we are nearing his checkride and it isn’t. We have gone in depth with ADM and how to reduce stress like showing up in plenty of time and just think things through more simply.
He is Polish and has a wife and kid back home. He is paying everything out of pocket and he only had 7 weeks to finish because he will lose his job if he takes any longer because he did not tell anyone he was coming. All of this has added to make him freak out regularly.
Any tips?
 
don't get pressured into his schedule and deadlines. Try your best to work with the deadline, but do not set yourself up in hurring to get thigs done.

My suggestion is to have him focus on the phase of flight he is in and redirect his concerns if he wanders outside of that focus. (Only thinking 2 steps ahead, the next two steps.)

It is challenging, but there is only so much you can do. Best of luck.
 
Make the next lesson a "throwaway".


Where do ya wana go today?

Ok, lets go.

ZZZZZ!!!

Oh, we're here.


No manuvers, no pressure, just A to B. Don't teach, just act like this is the most boring thing in the world.


Edit: I guess I should add that I would NEVER actually sleep with a student flying. However, you can act distracted and bored, while actually keeping a close eye on you student.
 
USMCmech said:
Make the next lesson a "throwaway".


No manuvers, no pressure, just A to B. Don't teach, just act like this is the most boring thing in the world.
Click to expand...


I wish I could but he's under a tight financial schedule of no extra training unless its required. 36 hours for Private is the max
 
Sidious said:
I wish I could but he's under a tight financial schedule of no extra training unless its required. 36 hours for Private is the max
Click to expand...

Then I would suggest making the next lesson a "throwaway lesson" too, just slightly different:

After the flight, throw away the student, right into the arms of another instructor. Let that person fly with someone else. Other than that, the student has selected an activity that is not going to be cheap, especially if he plans to do anything in Europe... where the airspace is much denser and the controllers are really uptight...
His mental capability to cope with the worries of flying will have to change, otherwise he may never learn to relax in a plane.

Flying is not for everybody, and the pressures (you did read the FOI?) he/ she puts him/ herself under will create failure sooner or later. A 36 hour PVT is a joke, even under Pt 141, and that student may have just selected the wrong thing to do with his life.
 
Sidious said:
I wish I could but he's under a tight financial schedule of no extra training unless its required. 36 hours for Private is the max
Click to expand...

Then as a ethical CFI it's your job to do the merciful thing and stop training with this student.

Crushing someones dream is probably the hardest thing you'll ever have to do. But it is sometimes the only moral thing to do. You MUST tell him that there is no way he'll be ready in his budget/timeframe.

I had a student who was marginal and I soloed him anyway, he crashed the plane on his second solo. Thankfully he wasn't hurt, but it could have been MUCH MUCH worse.

Looking back I should have shut him down at lesson 5 before he wasted several thousand dollars more.
 
Did someone guarantee he would get it done in 36 hours? Or did someone tell him that 36 hours might just be unreasonable?
 
Sidious said:
I wish I could but he's under a tight financial schedule of no extra training unless its required. 36 hours for Private is the max
Click to expand...

No offense, but your first mistake happened the day you or someone at your school told him you could get him his private in XXX period of time. This is a recipe for disaster and will almost always leave you with much unnecessary stress. Especially when you consider sources put the national average anywhere from 55-80 hours depending on the source and what the statistics are based on.

Even for a college curriculum the average is in the 40s. I unfortunately agree USCMech, drop him off and let someone else put up with him. Me personally, I would refuse any student on a time crunch like this as it is unrealistic to be able to guarantee this.

In fact just last month I had a student that kept pushing off flying till he had under 3 weeks left, 2 total hours, and he wanted to be to solo by his 16th birthday. He is no longer my student I dropped him off with our assistant chief CFI claiming I wasn't experienced enough to get him their in time so as to keep him from feeling rejected. I don't and will never do time crunches, this isn't a race and each person will take a different amount of time.

If you can find more time and get him to go up more, than a couple relaxing fun flights would certainly provide a great deal of help. It can often help even more if you fly for a little bit as well, especially during the higher workload periods of takeoff and landing. It provides two benefits, one he will get to observe your habits as PIC, and two he can sit back and enjoy flying.
 
Sidious said:
I wish I could but he's under a tight financial schedule of no extra training unless its required. 36 hours for Private is the max
Click to expand...
If he can't give you the time required then rushing his training won't do anything but run him out of money or worse, create a danger in the skies.


If the guy is too stressed out to do anything then I'd say the "throw away" is required training.
 
shdw said:
No offense, but your first mistake happened the day you or someone at your school told him you could get him his private in XXX period of time. This is a recipe for disaster and will almost always leave you with much unnecessary stress.
Click to expand...


Hey non taken. I’ve had my fair share of primary training and I thought it was a joke when he told me that someone stated he could get done in 6 weeks and 36 hours.

However what’s done is done and we have discussed how it will take longer.

This thread was primarily made to see if anyone had any tactics or activities that have worked for their students to help them calm down and think rationally. This is not a normal students so normal DECIDE model and other decision making skills will not suffice.

And yes I did read the FOI ;)
 
USMCmech said:
Edit: I guess I should add that I would NEVER actually sleep with a student flying. However, you can act distracted and bored, while actually keeping a close eye on you student.
Click to expand...

My private instructor actually did take a nap on the way back from a long cross-country. I didn't think it was too strange at the time -- hey, the guy's tired -- but now I look back on it and think, "hmm..."

Also, more in the vein of the thread, I had a lady on a discovery flight once who laughed hysterically at everything. Me calling ground, testing the magnetos, banking the aircraft -- she laughed for about forty minutes straight. When we were done, she could not explain herself, except to say that flying made her nervous. Needless to say, she did not return for a second flight.
 
Bernoulli Fan said:
My private instructor actually did take a nap on the way back from a long cross-country. I didn't think it was too strange at the time -- hey, the guy's tired -- but now I look back on it and think, "hmm..."

Also, more in the vein of the thread, I had a lady on a discovery flight once who laughed hysterically at everything. Me calling ground, testing the magnetos, banking the aircraft -- she laughed for about forty minutes straight. When we were done, she could not explain herself, except to say that flying made her nervous. Needless to say, she did not return for a second flight.
Click to expand...

Maybe she thought you were hot.

On a serious note I can't find the report but there was a accident where a CFI went to sleep and the student killed them, a commercial student. Don't sleep with anyone else flying that plane, if you have controls in front of you keep yourself awake and ready.
 
Sidious said:
From engine start to engine shut down he is the most stressed out individual I have encountered. He worries about things that are unnecessary such as worrying about what runway we are going to land on when we get back when we haven’t even taxied yet. He also has the tendency to curse a lot and very loudly when he gets overloaded.
Click to expand...

One answer.

Keep him out of the freaking air. He's a danger to himself and everyone else around him. Birds included.

Am serious. There's your answer. These personality qualities are not just unsafe, they're dangerous and show not only an inability to task load, but an inability to load-shed in a productive manner.

Air rage is no better for a pilot than road rage is for a driver.

Keep his ass on the ground.
 
MikeD said:
One answer.

Keep him out of the freaking air. He's a danger to himself and everyone else around him. Birds included.

Am serious. There's your answer. These personality qualities are not just unsafe, they're dangerous and show not only an inability to task load, but an inability to load-shed in a productive manner.

Air rage is no better for a pilot than road rage is for a driver.

Keep his ass on the ground.
Click to expand...

Grrr Mike now we have to disagree again and we were doing good agreeing for a while too lol. Not completely though, I agree to keep him out of the air for now as he needs much more work. But I believe everyone can be taught with the right course structure. He just sounds like a difficult case but not an unteachable one.
 
shdw said:
Grrr Mike now we have to disagree again and we were doing good agreeing for a while too lol. Not completely though, I agree to keep him out of the air for now as he needs much more work. But I believe everyone can be taught with the right course structure. He just sounds like a difficult case but not an unteachable one.
Click to expand...

But for what purpose? Like I said, the worst thing I hate about civilian training is that "everyone can be a pilot", so long as the $$$ keep flowing. Rarely if ever, will a CFI tell a guy that he shouldn't be flying.

You're there to teach flying, not be a psycholgist for someone's obviously deep-seated emotional problems. The foundation for attitude just isn't there, based on the OPs description in his post.

Trust me on this. This is one where experience trumps book theory.
 
MikeD said:
the worst thing I hate about civilian training is that "everyone can be a pilot", so long as the $$$ keep flowing.
Click to expand...

Fortunately it is rare.
Unfortunately, i think I need to pull the plug on a near 100 hour Student pilot.
It is hard. I should have pulled the plug at 15 hours.

All of which doesn't mean he can't go across town.
He is a walking NTSB report, and I know it.
Still hard.
 
MikeD said:
There are many around. All complete except for the NTSB report number.
Click to expand...

I just don't think it is as cut and dry as that. In this case, maybe because this guy has such a bad attitude you are right. Though I think with proper training from day one even such a student can not only be made into a great pilot but a better person to boot. That is what I think being a pilot should be about, improving your own personal disciplines and attitudes while learning a great skill.

With many other cases and the typical 100 hour students, of which I have now had a few, if you take them back and build their basic foundation right many of them I think can be great pilots. When I get to do more testing on this and have a student that will accept this instead of just quit then I will let you know if I am crazy or not. I had one with 160 hours who I took back and did a repeat (about 15 - 20 hours) of his primary training up to solo and I am positive had he not run out of cash I could have finished him up.

I guess I should say I am just not so quick to assume it can't be done. It is my belief that many of these 100+ hour students are where they are because their initial training was done poorly and then never repeated as he/she was handed from CFI to CFI. That and the typical aviation sink or swim method cannot work for anyone with even a minor learning disability which even some of the smartest people posses.

Some of these people are lucky enough to get CFIs that realize this and break things down nicely for them and they do great. Others land themselves in the deeply rooted sink or swim method and end up being career student pilots. From day one they are taught everything and because of that learn nothing.
 
shdw said:
these 100+ hour students are where they are because their initial training was done poorly and then never repeated as he/she was handed from CFI to CFI.
Click to expand...

That is a pretty broad brush you are painting with.
So these other instructors are bad and you are saving the day?
How many of "your" 100+ to solo students are yours and not just finish up students? Were you with them from zero hours?

Yesterday we spent 2/10s on the hobbs, on the ramp, looking for the com 1's volume button. This student is past solo with nearly 100 hours.
Sometimes it is not the "past" instructor but it is the student.

Volume knob...are you kidding me!
But it is helping me build my case to the owner that we need to end his flight training.

Also, to say that somebody has 100 hours of flight instruction and the past instructor didn't repeat lessons is impossible. What could they possibly be working on if not repeating lessons?

Though I do enjoy your optimism.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top