You're the CFI...

C

Chris_Ford

Well-Known Member
Okay, so ala "You're the Captain" ...

Here's the situation:

Your student is out on his/her long solo cross country (has already flown 1 x-c). They head off on a nice VFR severe clear day, and all is well. A few hours later, you get a call from an airport not listed on the endorsement (your student opted to go to another airport [ABC] (not remotely close to the route of flight [about 40 nm r/t off course]) in order to make sure they had enough flight time to meet the 5 hour x-c requirement, despite requests by you to go to another airport and do touch and goes there if s/he needed more time [DEF]. While landing at [ABC], s/he reports that they got a low volts and low vacuum annunciated and a chime on the G1000 panel. S/he reports no engine trouble at all and nothing appearing abnormal. S/he lands and calls you, approximately 20 miles from home airport [XYZ], and asks "What should I do?"

You respond...
 
I reply:

Find a nice comfy chair, sit down, relax and wait for me and another pilot to come get you. Under NO circumstances are you to even attempt to fire up the engine.

Then I would get on the phone to find another pilot who wants some free flight time (this time of course being billed to the student you are picking up). After picking the student up and getting both planes back to home base I would sit down with the student and have a nice long talk about pilot responsibilities, endorsements and trust.

I assume from your post you haven't taken this student to the airport where he/she called you from--it would be a slightly different story had you done that and signed them off but from your post it didn't seem like an airport within 50 NM that could have been a sign off for repeated x-countries.

So, in the end, I would be very dissapointed in the student (as I am sure you are) and would present them with a big bill for all that time that he/she didn't get to log. After more training and after my confidence had been built up in him/her again I would talk about that long cross country again. I might have this student shut down and call the flight school after each leg and emphasize that if he/she pulls a stunt like this again you may need to cease pilot training.


Sooooo, what did you do?
 
MSNFlyer said:
I assume from your post you haven't taken this student to the airport where he/she called you from--it would be a slightly different story had you done that and signed them off but from your post it didn't seem like an airport within 50 NM that could have been a sign off for repeated x-countries.
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Actually we had been to this airport a few times and while I am frustrated that s/he went there, at least it was a "familiar" airport, and aligned perfectly with the winds (though at 5-8 knots, shoudn't have been an issue).

I'll wait to hear a little more input before I respond as to how I did it.

And just to throw another wrench into the mix, let's say the airplane has a past history of making erroneous failure warnings (though none as severe as low volts/vacuum, usually just a OAT failure or TAS failure)
 
Past history of erroneous warnings means squat. Consider how it would look in an accident report, and realize that you would take much of the heat. Make them sit there and wait until you (or another pilot) shows up to give them a lift back. They violated your trust (not to mention federal regulations) by going to an unauthorized airport, you don't owe them any favors, not that you would anyway.

Charge them for the airplane time and your time for the pick up too.
 
:yeahthat:
exactly...

I think I would have a real long come to jesus talk about them just tallying off any direction they pleased and their future with you as an instructor. Make it real clear...
 
Chris_Ford said:
you get a call from an airport not listed on the endorsement (your student opted to go to another airport [ABC] (not remotely close to the route of flight [about 40 nm r/t off course]) in order to make sure they had enough flight time to meet the 5 hour x-c requirement,.
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That's pretty much the end of the story for me. For this reason alone, I'm pretty much with Ralgha and MSN - get another airplane and another pilot. Fly to pick up the airplane and =maybe= the student (is there good bus service?).

My decision is based solely on the student's decision to go to another airport just for the heck of it. I don't care about whether the airport was familiar or not or whether the "failure" was real or not.

Then, after I cool off, we have a good sit down where the student tries his best to convince me why I should not revoke the solo endorsements I gave effective immediately and drop him like a hot potato.
 
MidlifeFlyer said:
Then, after I cool off, we have a good sit down where the student tries his best to convince me why I should not revoke the solo endorsements I gave effective immediately and drop him like a hot potato.
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I had a similar situation - a student of mine on long solo xc decided when almost home to practice diversions to a familiar airport that he had never been signed off for. If this was his only 'mistake' I'd have had him do the flight over again correctly. Prior to this he had a 'radio failure' caused by forgetting to turn on the alternator AND he put us into a full stall 200' above the runway on the very next lesson.

It was more inattention to detail than anything else and I refused to train him after that. What really bugs me is this pilot really did not need to be flying alone but he went to another school, was sent to an always pass DPE and will now probably kill himself during one of his judgement lapses.

Sorry for the rant! As for the low-voltage, I don't know about the G1000 but many of the planes I fly will show a similar inidcation if the power is at idle.

So, my question is, was this a one time lapse or a trend?
 
F-em.

That's not THEIR certificate they're screwing with, it's YOUR certificate on the line. If something goes wrong and they break a reg or crash, you're the one that takes the fall.

Drop this person like a bad habit and make sure they don't train anymore at your FBO. They're nothing more than a liability and you need to get rid of them ASAP.
 
So my question is, how much emphasis was placed on them understanding that they could not deviate from the planned flight?

I assume you made it very clear that they were not to deviate. If that is indeed the case, I would say, go pick them up, bring them back. Bill them for any flight time they accrued and send them away.
 
MSNFlyer said:
I reply:

Find a nice comfy chair, sit down, relax and wait for me and another pilot to come get you. Under NO circumstances are you to even attempt to fire up the engine.

Then I would get on the phone to find another pilot who wants some free flight time (this time of course being billed to the student you are picking up). After picking the student up and getting both planes back to home base I would sit down with the student and have a nice long talk about pilot responsibilities, endorsements and trust.
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:yeahthat:

I'd have to hear more details about the student's history to decide if I would keep training them or not.

Also, I believe the other pilot that is going to ferry the plane back should have a commercial license...if they aren't paying for the flight, it amounts to compensation (free flight time).
 
jrh said:
:yeahthat:

Also, I believe the other pilot that is going to ferry the plane back should have a commercial license...if they aren't paying for the flight, it amounts to compensation (free flight time).
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I was thinking that too. Perhaps take another CFI from your school, and charge your student for their time too.

I don't think I would be flying with that student anymore. Trust has been broken there and if they do that sort of thing who knows what else they are capable of.
 
gtpilot said:
Sorry for the rant! As for the low-voltage, I don't know about the G1000 but many of the planes I fly will show a similar inidcation if the power is at idle.
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This post so far has been the closest to my line of thinking.

LOW VOLTS and LOW VACUUM will often come on if the power is left at idle on the rollout. A frequent occurance. However, I made the assumption that it was an actual electrical issue (plan for the worst, hope for the best) and figured the following.

Assuming it was an alternator failure, one can rely on the battery for upwards of 30 minutes, but even to err on the side of caution, I'll assume it will work for 10 minutes. If it's drained down enough, the engine won't start and the flight will not go off anyway. I instructed my student to do a thorough runup and keep an eye on the VAC and Ammeter/Voltmeters. If the VAC was not in the green and the Voltmeter was not above 24, taxi back and call me and I'd handle it. Additionally, the G1000 has a standby battery system, which solely powers the primary flight display and one radio, which lasts a minimum of 30 minutes, although Cessna says it's "an hour or more". Should that fail, there are still the 3 backup instruments (though with a vacuum failure the AI would be out). However, I have always "feared" that this would happen to one of my students, so I've been borderline OCD on making them fly the airplane without ANY instruments, including the backup ones. I'd say probably 3 hours total have been spent on it with this particular student (thank God). On a severe clear VFR day, I felt that this was a safe course of action.

Lo and behold, as s/he was 10 miles out, both screens went black at once (which Cessna, Garmin, and John and Marsha King, have all said will *never* happen. Someone will be getting a letter). My student paniced initially, but did the right thing and observed the traffic pattern (empty) and made a standard entry, staying extra vigilent for traffic, as I had instructed her.

I called my student to see if s/he had landed yet, and s/he told me that on his/her runup the VAC was at 0 and the volt meter was at 24.0 ("and it said on the checklist '24 or more' so I went, because I didn't remember if you said 24 was okay"). Despite my constant reminders of "If it looks wrong on the runup, don't go."

Now, knowing what I know now, I would've definitely said "stay there, have your parents pick you up and I'll fly it back" but I had thought that the likelihood of both screens was so miniscule that it would have been highly unlikely on a 10-15 minute flight. At the time I was too busy dealing with the issue of the airplane to get mad that s/he had landed somewhere other than endorsed, but the more I think about it, the more angry I am, and there will likely be a "Come to Jesus" meeting soon.

So, my question is, was this a one time lapse or a trend?
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A one time lapse that snowballed into a trend in one flight :mad:
 
Good point JRH--enough regulations had already been broken that day, why add to the list. I didn't mention that I was thinking of two friends who are CFIs who love free flight time. :)
 
Update:

I just went out to the airplane and turned on the standby battery and it showed full, and I turned on the master and it was showing a complete 24 volts. Now I'm started to question if the story was fabricated, but I'll likely take it up for a flight to see if perhaps it was an alternator issue.

Someone is going to get a nice lecture next time :o
 
Chris_Ford said:
Update:

I just went out to the airplane and turned on the standby battery and it showed full, and I turned on the master and it was showing a complete 24 volts. Now I'm started to question if the story was fabricated, but I'll likely take it up for a flight to see if perhaps it was an alternator issue.

Someone is going to get a nice lecture next time :o
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Doesn't matter if the story were fabricated or not, if any kind of an incident had resulted, the FAA would have raped you without lube. That entire story is a disaster that's not waiting, but begging, to happen.

A big issue is that the warnings came on the ground. Departing with known problems is a big strike against you if something happens. Had the warnings come in the air, then all that jazz about backups and time remaining would have meant something. Since they came on the ground, all the backups mean precisely dick.

Of couse if you had been there to witness them, then you could possibly have determined that they were caused by very low RPMs on the roll out, but if a student calls me to ask about it, then I wouldn't trust to that. Especially if they just spit in my face by going to an unauthorized airport.

I'm glad that it worked out fine, it seems that you've learned something and hopefully next time you'll tell the student to sit and wait.
 
I've heard some awful stories about solo xcs gone wrong with as little as an inop VOR needle on a VFR day. I think the issue is twofold: student violated your endorsements and instructions. This is reason enough for me to cross out every endorsement I had ever given the student and terminate training depending on how our 'chat' goes.

The other issue is the inop equipment on an xc. I don't think you can be too conservative on this issue. If something's broken or even MIGHT be broken, that's a done deal for me. Student stays there until other arrangements are made.
 
Chris_Ford said:
A one time lapse that snowballed into a trend in one flight :mad:
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Mistakes do tend to snowball! From the story so far, I'd probably continue with the student but heavily emphasize PIC responsibilities. Good luck!
 
MidlifeFlyer said:
Then, after I cool off, we have a good sit down where the student tries his best to convince me why I should not revoke the solo endorsements I gave effective immediately and drop him like a hot potato.
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I hadn't thought of this option - besides just crossing it out in their log book, how would you go about revoking endorsements?
 
Ralgha said:
A big issue is that the warnings came on the ground. Departing with known problems is a big strike against you if something happens. Had the warnings come in the air, then all that jazz about backups and time remaining would have meant something. Since they came on the ground, all the backups mean precisely dick.
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Chris_Ford said:
I instructed my student to do a thorough runup and keep an eye on the VAC and Ammeter/Voltmeters. If the VAC was not in the green and the Voltmeter was not above 24, taxi back and call me and I'd handle it.
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Those were my instructions, to not take off with any problems at all. They were dismissed, however.
 
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