On 2007-07-12 05:53:14 -0700, Ol Shy & Bashful said:

On Jul 12, 5:56 am, "David Wright"
wrote:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/essex/6294778.stm

Interesting that a "Go Around" is considered here as an "unfamiliar
manoeuvre" - and that the pilot was "put in a situation beyond his
experience" - okay he only had 15 hours of flying time and it was only his
second solo, but I was doing touch and go's and going around from about my
third hour onwards.

D.

David, et al;
Each area and each instructor has a different idea of relative
importance for nearly every phase of flying. But, in my not so humble
opinion, far too much importance is placed on solo early. Many years
back, 10 hours was the magic number for solo and if you went over
that you were a clod not worthy of continued training. (Well,
something like that...)
It didn't take me long as an instructor to figure out if a student
couldn't do very basic flight manuevers safely, they had no business
flying solo!

However, I would expect that a student pilot with 15 hours would fly a
go-around competently. Unfortunately, the tower did not really request
a go-around. They instead tried to instruct the student by giving him
step by step direction, a job that most tower controllers are
manifestly incapable of doing.

You gotta admit, no matter how bad you think the instructors are at
teaching people how to fly an airplane, the tower controllers are
probably a lot worse...

Maybe what the student's instructor really failed to teach him was what
it means to be PIC.

--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor