You know you're a CFI when...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Roger, Roger
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This guy never goes any further than 50 miles from home base. He freaks out when he sees SCT025 in the METAR and cancels the flight (i.e. a flight my good friend was supposed to go on with him - just some sightseeing, etc.). This guy is more prepared to end up in a field in the middle of nowhere than to have an autopilot malfunction. According to him he spent way too much money on it for it to fail.

You'd have to meet this guy to understand exactly where I'm coming from. There's no other way to describe him other than "weird." This is a guy who could use a 709 ride.

It really is pitiful watching him try to hand-fly his Mooney. But he won't listen to me and I'm not sure how the other guy he flies with handles him...I really don't know....

Greg
 
Good story! I have had a few of those cases myself where George is their friend and lifesaver every flight. Thankfully our aircraft are not equipped with autopilots, and if I hear a nimrod ranting about it you can bet they are in the sim practicing BAI for however many hours it takes until I am convinced to head into IMC with this person. Armchair psychiatrist ring a bell? Verbally hostile towards authority prior to flight? Probably a sure bet he'll be hostile in flight especially under stressful situations of his own inadequacy. All it takes is one note in their file that says... "Verbally combative to instruction." And refuse to fly with the guy, hey I can be a prick right back. I remember it got so bad with one guy, I took my CFI certificates, my ID badge and left it on the table and said, here you do it, you've earned it, and calmly walked out for a cigarette. That made his head turn and realize whos who. The attitude with some pompus ppl is, I'm paying for it and you're going to give it to me whether you like it or not! I used to get upset with these ppl behind closed doors, but now, why should I? Power of the pen baby! Keep on talking...
 
Greg01 said:
After I gave the airplane back to him, I told him that he was either going to listen to me or I was going to take us back. He then proceeded to yell at me for pulling the breaker on his autopilot and that I should put it back in immediately because he wasn't comfortable flying without it. Finally I said, "Ok, it sounds like you're not going to listen to me. I have the airplane, we're heading back. Please pull out the ILS plate."

The guy acted like he was five and I didn't have to deal with that. He wouldn't even pull out the plate for me.
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Personally, I handle situations like this very differently.

First, if this was strictly a regular training flight with no specific purpose in mind other than recurrent training, I would have put the circuit breaker back in and continued the flight. During the debrief would be a better time to explain why a pilot should stay proficient enough at hand flying that they aren't betting their life on the autopilot every time they enter IMC. It's not the instructor's problem if a person isn't flying up to standards during a regular flight...just sign it as dual given and give an honest debrief.

If it were an IPC or flight review, I would have explained that as part of the signoff I need to make sure he's safe both with and without the autopilot. I'm not trying to make life hard for him, I just have to check the boxes before signing him off. If he'd rather use the autopilot for the flight now and do another flight under the hood in VFR conditions later, I wouldn't mind arranging one.

Bottom line is that everything should be objective. "You're not listening to me," is not an objective critique. Saying, "Without use of the autopilot our altitude varied by +/- 200 feet and headings +/- 30 degrees, which is outside of PTS standards, so I can't sign off an IPC yet," is completely objective.

Also, I always try to see things from the owner's perspective. If I owned a Mooney and an instructor I barely knew, who had little time in a Mooney, started failing equipment on me in IMC, and then when I vocalized my discomfort with such procedures, the instructor said I wasn't listening and took the controls of my own plane away from me...yeah, frankly, I'd be pissed. Obviously the guy didn't handle it in a very professional way, but I don't blame him for being upset.

So I'm not trying to pick on you, Greg. Of course I wasn't there, so it might have come out the only way possible, but I wanted to offer advice for other CFIs in similar situations.
 
nocturnalaviator said:
All it takes is one note in their file that says... "Verbally combative to instruction." And refuse to fly with the guy, hey I can be a prick right back. I remember it got so bad with one guy, I took my CFI certificates, my ID badge and left it on the table and said, here you do it, you've earned it, and calmly walked out for a cigarette. That made his head turn and realize whos who. The attitude with some pompus ppl is, I'm paying for it and you're going to give it to me whether you like it or not! I used to get upset with these ppl behind closed doors, but now, why should I? Power of the pen baby! Keep on talking...
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Realize who's who? Used to get upset behind closed doors, but now why should you?

Because your job as a professional instructor is to educate. It has nothing to do with proving who's right and who's wrong. Instructing should not be a power struggle.

If an instructor can't express their disapproval for something without explaining a calm, objective reason why, then they aren't doing their job.

The "power of the pen" should not be wielded in a negative way. It's one thing to not sign a person off because of a specific deficiency they have. That's using the power to improve safety--you're protecting them and everyone around them. It's a whole other ball game to not sign a person off because you're frustrated with them. That's just spiteful.
 
jrh said:
Bottom line is that everything should be objective. "You're not listening to me," is not an objective critique. Saying, "Without use of the autopilot our altitude varied by +/- 200 feet and headings +/- 30 degrees, which is outside of PTS standards, so I can't sign off an IPC yet," is completely objective.
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Agree.

It's the same in mil flying, just termed a little bit different. We start all training flights with "objectives"; and they must be measurable, just as you describe above. During debrief, you roll back to the objectives (generally written down on a board) and can give either a + or - to them as to whether they were individually met or not, why they were or weren't, and techniques to make them get met if they weren't. Again, same as you wrote above, just slightly differing terminology. Yet very effective for getting across to a student where he stands and why, and what can be done about it; on a flight.
 
Objective is good.

Those students are difficult and serious FOI cases. I think for the most part we CFIs are normally taken off guard when we meet them and then we are FOIing by the seat of our pants.

hindsight is 20/20 and now that I have seen some of those students, I know how to handle those students. In some cases, waiting until you are on the ground is the wrong thing to do. I tend to wait too much (i.e a couple of lessons of back talk), then it is all up hill.

Again, from what I have seen these students are rare and catch me off guard and I have to FOI by the seat of my pants. When that happens, responding correctly to the student only has a chance of happening.
 
Good post jrh-

I, as many other CFI's, have not always handled situations as best as I might have; it's part of the learning process - the CFI learning process.

Having your post up there may help some others handle a situation better because of what you have stated.

I am first and foremost a proponent of communication, a foundation of the FOI. Breakdown there leads to breakdown in training, which is why (I believe) it's Chapter 1.

CFI's who use their authority as persuasion should re-evaluate methods of communication as well as reasons behind the action.
 
jrh said:
Because your job as a professional instructor is to educate. It has nothing to do with proving who's right and who's wrong. Instructing should not be a power struggle.

If an instructor can't express their disapproval for something without explaining a calm, objective reason why, then they aren't doing their job.
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:yeahthat:

Nothing hurts instruction more than a power struggle with the student. In such cases, the flight no longer becomes about learning, instead tacking in a useless--and potentially dangerous--"I'm right, you're wrong," direction.

But the other thing--and, to me, this is also very important--is that flight training, whenever possible, should be fun. If a student is pissed off or miserable, they're probably not learning. This doesn't mean as an instructor you should be throwing softballs, but one should brief the student on what will or may happen during the flight. Don't say, "I'm pulling the AP CB during taxi," obviously, but do say, "We'll be practicing various emergency scenarios today, potentially including X, Y, AP failure, and Z." Nip conflict before it happens with complete pre-flight briefs. Anticipated challenges are fun.

***

...you use three voices as a pilot, but only two as an instructor. When the gruff, "My $&*(ing flight controls," voice comes out, you know instruction is on hiatus.
 
jrh said:
Personally, I handle situations like this very differently.

First, if this was strictly a regular training flight with no specific purpose in mind other than recurrent training, I would have put the circuit breaker back in and continued the flight. During the debrief would be a better time to explain why a pilot should stay proficient enough at hand flying that they aren't betting their life on the autopilot every time they enter IMC. It's not the instructor's problem if a person isn't flying up to standards during a regular flight...just sign it as dual given and give an honest debrief.

If it were an IPC or flight review, I would have explained that as part of the signoff I need to make sure he's safe both with and without the autopilot. I'm not trying to make life hard for him, I just have to check the boxes before signing him off. If he'd rather use the autopilot for the flight now and do another flight under the hood in VFR conditions later, I wouldn't mind arranging one.

Bottom line is that everything should be objective. "You're not listening to me," is not an objective critique. Saying, "Without use of the autopilot our altitude varied by +/- 200 feet and headings +/- 30 degrees, which is outside of PTS standards, so I can't sign off an IPC yet," is completely objective.

Also, I always try to see things from the owner's perspective. If I owned a Mooney and an instructor I barely knew, who had little time in a Mooney, started failing equipment on me in IMC, and then when I vocalized my discomfort with such procedures, the instructor said I wasn't listening and took the controls of my own plane away from me...yeah, frankly, I'd be pissed. Obviously the guy didn't handle it in a very professional way, but I don't blame him for being upset.

So I'm not trying to pick on you, Greg. Of course I wasn't there, so it might have come out the only way possible, but I wanted to offer advice for other CFIs in similar situations.
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jrh, I certainly appreciate the advice and as I'll admit to anyone, I'm a fairly new CFI so any advice I can get is good advice in my book...especially if it comes from JetCareers.

I didn't put this fully into perspective. This wasn't my first flight with him and it definitely wasn't the first time I tried to address the issue of the autopilot. This was probably our fifth flight together and the whole purpose of flying with me, according to him, was to "get more comfortable in IMC, with his avionics and flying the airplane in general, as well as getting accustomed to busier airspace." That's almost a direct quote from one of our phone conversations. I just don't think he could adjust to the fact that someone so much younger than him would be comfortable doing something that he wasn't. I don't want to sound like I have a superiority complex, because that's definitely not the case. I can honestly say I can understand the instinctual reaction when someone sees a young guy as the instructor. I don't take it personally, I just try to show them that they shouldn't judge a book by its cover.

The first couple of times I pulled the autopilot breaker and he freaked, I just pushed it back in. We would speak at great lengths on the ground about the use of such equipment and I would always objectively debrief at the end. Like I said, this gent is a little odd because he talks one way on the ground but talks a completely different way in the air. He feels the need to rationalize a lot of his shortcomings.

Also, unfortunately, most of his flying needs a lot of work. He got his PPL and IR in a basic trainer and then moved to his current complex aircraft and has let technology do the work ever since...and it shows. His whole philosophy needs work. For example, the CDI meant nothing to him. He looked at the DTK on the GPS and synched the heading bug with it on the HSI and flew it all in HDG mode on the autopilot. That might be fine some might say...but when you're looking at a picture that looks like you're on course (when you're zoomed out to 35nm) and you're flying along like it's all dandy (and descending on the approach) when the CDI is pegged to one side...not good.

This guy came to me looking for advanced training and I went up with him one day around the area just to get a handle on his skills. I came out of that flight realizing this guy needed to learn how to fly all over again. It's difficult to describe everything on a forum because it really is that bad. I don't want to come across as bashing this guy...I'm not. He really needs the help but won't listen to anyone.

Greg
 
Thanks for the context, Greg. It helps a lot.

If it makes you feel any better, despite being a couple years shy of 30, most customers initially assume I'm 20-22ish and treat me accordingly.
 
As JRH knows, I have facial hair, believe it or not it helps.

I had one guy that i would fly with in his plane because he lost his medical. After a few trips he asked how old I was. He thought I was low 30s. When I told him 23 he asked if I could talk to his son.
 
Sorry, I'm a slow typer and I constantly revise my posts before posting, so I'm a little behind here.

No problem, ILS. I probably should've put that in the initial post.

It's definitely a different feeling. Young guys get the two extremes. I have one gent who loves to fly with me because I push him for precision. I've come to be really good friends with this guy. He told me recently in the beginning he had reservations about flying with me: age/experience. After a few flights I "proved" to him that I knew my stuff and could teach it just as well. I have no problem launching into low weather as long as we can get back into either our home drome or nearby BUF...or as long as we have a solid "out" for whatever the wx challenge may be. I helped him get comfortable flying into NYC (TEB) for business and I still accompany him on these flights for fun. We're actually going to visit JFK this week. We're working on his commercial now.

Then there are the guys who think that because you're under 40 or whatever arbitrary age and don't have aviation scars you don't know diddly squat. I occassionally laugh when I think about how I've ended up with more doctors and lawyers as students than anyone else (not that I've had a LOT of students) and they are almost always the ones who will look at me and act like, "wow, looks like I'll running the show today instead of the CFI." I'll do my best to prove to them that I am a capable CFI, but if they don't want to believe it, we just end the flight and s/he will just fly with someone else. I can't try much harder than I am to change the way I think and there's no point if no instructing is going to happen...it's just a waste of time and money and can be dangerous if something were to go wrong

If there's anything that helps me feel a little better about this scenario is that my instructor (who is now also a DPE), who is highly regarded in the local area has backed me up in everything I've done with him.

I really look forward to getting involved in this community. For the longest time I've lurked in the background reading everyone's posts and I've learned a lot from it. Thanks everyone!

Greg
 
Man, I had a MAJOR student miscommunication today. I'll post what I did when it's all resolved. Frustrating that after almost 2 years of doing this I still make boneheaded mistakes when reading people.
 
Yeah, the facial hair god hasn't 100% graced me. I keep myself clean shaven so I could possibly pass for younger than 18...or so I've been told.

I have a fairly deep voice and when people talk to me on the phone or hear me on the radio, they think I'm some 40 year old and usually end up addressing my father or whoever I might have flying with me...I usually put them in the left seat.
 
Douglas said:
As JRH knows, I have facial hair, believe it or not it helps.

I had one guy that i would fly with in his plane because he lost his medical. After a few trips he asked how old I was. He thought I was low 30s. When I told him 23 he asked if I could talk to his son.
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Facial Hair is very good for that. I get asked all the time, "How old are you," if I don't shave. Everyone says, "ehh, you're pretty young, what are you, in your mid twenties?" if I don't shave. Then I say, "uhh, I'm 20." Then there's a long pause. "How long you been flying for?" Me, "Long enough." "No really, how long?" "Since before I could drive." Usually does the trick. That awkward pre-takeoff nerveracking (on their part) conversation usually doesn't happen if I have a good man mane.
 
They'll beat around the bush with me on the age thing. Then they'll finally break and either ask me that or how long I've been flying when we're about to do something they're really uncomfortable with. I've been flying for nine years so when I tell them that they tend to relax...a little.

Greg
 
Greg01 said:
They'll beat around the bush with me on the age thing. Then they'll finally break and either ask me that or how long I've been flying when we're about to do something they're really uncomfortable with. I've been flying for nine years so when I tell them that they tend to relax...a little.

Greg
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Many people equate age with wisdom (until senility sets in :D.) Even people on this forum equate experience with total time. The time flown with the autopilot for hours at altitude does not always equate to experience as a CFI (neither does the reverse.) Some experiences do however cross flow into other endeavors. An instructor in other fields as well as people with more life experience generally have dealt with similar situations when dealing with the public. Professionalism when dealing with difficult people usually wins out. Acting otherwise just adds to the stereotype of youthful inexperience.

You have found an answer when answering with 9 years of flying versus slapping down your credentials. Understanding the initial impressions can help you deal with those few individuals not fighting them. Your good reputation from others you fly with will get around the patch. You may even find yourself asking for a older surgeon one day rather than the young intern who is also a licensed doctor.:)
 
ppragman said:
a good man mane.
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YAR!

----
I still get asked, 'how many years have you been flying'. I am lucky because I get to say, 'since 2002'.

We had one poor girl at our flight school that did ATP's course and was hired in February, and when asked she had to say, "since June." Can I get a vote of confidence!
 
richarms said:
Many people equate age with wisdom (until senility sets in :D.) Even people on this forum equate experience with total time. The time flown with the autopilot for hours at altitude does not always equate to experience as a CFI (neither does the reverse.) Some experiences do however cross flow into other endeavors. An instructor in other fields as well as people with more life experience generally have dealt with similar situations when dealing with the public. Professionalism when dealing with difficult people usually wins out. Acting otherwise just adds to the stereotype of youthful inexperience.

You have found an answer when answering with 9 years of flying versus slapping down your credentials. Understanding the initial impressions can help you deal with those few individuals not fighting them. Your good reputation from others you fly with will get around the patch. You may even find yourself asking for a older surgeon one day rather than the young intern who is also a licensed doctor.:)
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:yeahthat:


I can't tell you how many times I, or someone I know has been scared less in an airplane by a 737 driver with 15000TT or so.
 
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