About Stall Psychology and Pilots
Big John wrote in
:
On Sun, 17 Feb 2008 00:20:05 +0000 (UTC), Bertie the Bunyip
wrote:
Big John wrote in
m:
On Fri, 15 Feb 2008 23:43:10 +0000 (UTC), Bertie the Bunyip
wrote:
Dudley Henriques wrote in
t:
That's true. After the war a lot of highly qualified pilots hit
the
streets as new GA instructors. They brought with them the military
approach to flying that was based on maximum result in minimum
time,
which was the natural process of the military scenario.
Many of these pilots were great sticks, but few of them possessed
any teaching skills at all as we define those skills in a GA
market
place. The result of this influx was a no nonsense teaching
environment that actually clashed with the changes that were
occurring in GA at that time. Gradually, these military pilots
became a liability in the new marketplace and many were "replaced"
as FBO's began to realize that new students like "Mrs. Duffy" the
housewife, was coming back in from her hour of dual looking a bit
pale and concerned :-)
What happened is what we have now; a few holdovers from the "old
school" and a whole lot of the "new breed" of instructor.
The ultimate answer to getting the quality level up in the GA
pilot
community will in my opinion require a whole new look at the way
flight instruction is conducted.
I know from my own personal experience that it is possible to take
an average newbie with the average apprehensive feeling about
flying
and take that newbie through a learning process that replaces the
apprehension with confidence. These newbies can be trained by GOOD
instructors to function not only well, but VERY well in the flying
environment with comfort zones well beyond their initial level of
apprehension found at the initiation of training.
Barring the influx of CFI's who are capable of teaching students
in
this manner, I would project no meaningful changes in the present
GA
environment.
I've had very few nervous students. Only two that really stood out
that i can recall. One was terrfied of stalls and did this
hyperventilating thing, which was really freaky, every time we went
to
do them. He got over it by me demonstrating that the airplane would
sit happily in the stall for ages without the earth coming up to
smite
us. He got over it. Another guy was terrified of the engine failing
and no amount of explaining to him that the idling engine was the
same
as having the engine not running at all made no difference at all to
him, he spent most of every flight half freaked out over the
prospect
of this happening. I finally got so ****ed off with him I just
pulled
the mixture and raised the nose until the prop stopped. The
transformation in him was almost instantaneous.
In retrospect, it was not such a clever thing to do since we were at
about 1,000' and nowhere near an airport! It started up straight
away,
fortunately. That's an incident/accident that would have made
interesting reading.
It worked, though.
Bertie
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Bertie
I used to shut the engine down in a T-33 to give students an
actuall
air start. Had them talk me through the air start procedure as they
did each step so I could correct them if they were going to screw
up.
Know there was a lot of talking back in baracks at night between my
studebts but they all learned the emergency rocedures as they never
knew if I was going to give them an actual emergency to use the
procedures in.
I talked to some of my students years later and they all said that
what I did in training made them good Fighter Pilots in the
Squadrons.
Good fun, eh?
Did they have hydraulic controls?
Bertie
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Elevator and rudder manual control unboosted.
Ailerons had manual connection plus a boost system. Bird could be
flown ok with engine out but ailerons were just a little heavy. You
just didn't crank bird into a steep turn engine out as was slow ro
straighten backout due to rather heavy aileron control.
OK, just wondering if you were able to fly it when gliding! It'd make
the exercise really interesting if you couldn't!
Bertie
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