On Thu, 31 May 2012 21:10:41 -0500, Matt McKrell
wrote:

Noel, Good questions. I want to draw one distinction between how our
club handles instruction and what some others have described. While we do
have a "platoon" system, this applies to the CFIs, not to the students.
Students still schedule their flights (4 instructional slots per day).
Perhaps this wasn't clear in my earlier e-mail.

So, instructors volunteer and come out per an online schedule, and
students sign up (up to a week before) to fly anytime they are able. The
distinction I draw is with a system where students just show up with no
idea who might be the duty instructor and no certainty of flying. This is
not the way we do it. Students and instructors are scheduled ahead of
time, but students are not "paired" with a particular instructor.

One side-effect of this system, though, is that students can to a certain
extent "pair up" with an instructor by scheduling themselves only on days
when that instructor is signed up to instruct. Of course, this typically
means only one instructional session per month, which is far less than
optimal. Perhaps another way to look at it is that if students have a
particular instruction who does NOT mesh well with their learning style,
they at least have a means to avoid flying with this instructor. Note
that I am not aware of much of this actually happening, but perhaps it
does.

Regarding your specific questions, Noel:

1) Basically, most of glider instruction is review and practice. It is
not as complex as airplane training in terms of varied different areas of
performance. I can easily run a student through every task on the PTS on
their first flight. Of course I don't do this, but the point is that
there aren't that many things that need to be done on the practical and
these things tend to be introduced within the first 10 flights or so.
Then, the rest is just practice and refinement, and learning to do the
same maneuver under different conditions. For example, while a student
may be totally proficient in boxing the wake in calm, morning conditions,
take that same student up on a buoyant afternoon and the result may be a
less than proficient performance. It takes practice, repetition, and
experience under different weather conditions to make a well-trained
glider pilot. This should not be annoying to students. Think about this
in more general terms. All of glider flying essentially comes down to
knowing how to find an exploit lift, navigate in a straight line, takeoff
and land. If you can do these 4 things perfectly under any conditions,
you are now the world champion. Of course, nobody does these things
perfectly, which is why people spend a good chunk of their years on earth
trying to get closer to perfection. Going up and practicing boxing the
wake for the 14th time shouldn't be seen by students as "wasting time."
It's a task that should be practiced over and over again until it can be
performed well under any conditions. Then, it should be periodically
practiced (even after license) to ensure continued proficiency. If
students are bored by repetition and don't see that the point is to push
them along closer to perfection, then probably they need the CFI to be
more active in pointing out areas for improvement. Maybe they think they
are already totally proficient and no room is left for improvement?

2) Relying on students to be "self motivated" doesn't work for ab initio
students. I think this is somewhat true. As others have mentioned, we
have a pretty comprehensive syllabus and training outline that shows
students exactly what they SHOULD be studying and practicing. I think
this provides the "road map" that ab initio students need in order to keep
themselves on track. However, we are all adults, so we do rely to a
certain extent on students to speak up if they think they have missed
something or need more practice or instruction in certain areas. I think
this is true even if instructors are paired up with students from start to
finish.

Also, as I mentioned previously, as the date for the checkride draws
near, students tend to pair up more closely with a particular CFI. In any
case, ONE CFI will be on the hook for signing the student's 8710 form (the
form that attests that the CFI has prepared the student for the practical
test), so in the end a single CFI has to ensure that all the training has
been accomplished (even if not all of it was preformed by him
personally). So, for the last month or so, our chief CFI will typically
assist the student in arranging the final few instructional sessions with
a particular CFI who will do a comprehensive review and analysis of the
student's performance, fill in any gaps, and recommend the student to the
examiner by signing his 8710 form.

The other topic that has been brought up relative to scheduled training
is a resulting lack of manpower at the launch line. Personally, I think
this smacks of making students "pay their dues" by hanging out and
performing free labor in order to fly. If this is required by everyone in
the club, great, but I have seen many cases where students are expected to
show up at 9 AM (or whenever) in order to (hopefully) get on the schedule
with an instructor. This instructional slot may not happen until 4 PM,
and in the meantime the students (and not other members) are expected to
provide all the labor to launch everyone. Meanwhile, the glass ship
owners show up at the field at 11:30 AM, recruit a students to help them
assemble, then expect the students to help with ground handling and
launching. The glass ship guys launch at 12:30, returning at 5 PM, and
expect the students to help disassemble and put their gliders back in the
box. This certainly would create hard feelings among the students. It's
just not fair. Our club has assigned "ground crew" slots each flying
day. Every member (unless they are an instructor or tow pilot) is
expected to sign up for one of these ground crew slots each month. This
means that we have 40-year veteran X/C pilots out shagging ropes once a
month, just like everyone else. Students don't see themselves as "second
class citizens" and they get the benefit of sharing the experience often
with much more experienced pilots and club members. This also avoids the
"blind leading the blind" effect that sometimes occurs at clubs where the
ground crew is solely composed of less experienced (student) members. And,
it provides a great opportunity for interaction between younger members
and those with more experience.

--Stefan




On May 31, 8:50 pm, "noel.wade" wrote:
Let me try to put a different spin on this topic:

For those of you doing the "platoon" system, two big questions:

1) How do you get around the fact that when a student flies with an
instructor they haven't seen in a couple of months the instructor
invariably asks the student to repeat what they already know, to "get
a feel" for the student? This tends to burn several hours of the
student's time as they wait around for the launch line and the
instructor to come available. This creates a great deal of
frustration in our club among students who often only get 2 flights a
day (one of which is purely review)...

2) Relying on students to be "self-motivated" or "design their own
lesson plans" only works if the students know what the hell they're
supposed to be doing next, or concentrating on. As mentioned by
others in this thread, that works OK with transition students or add-
on rations; but ab-initio students are frequently drifting without a
compass. How does your club deal with that? In our club, we seem to
be good at telling new members to go to the launch line on their first
day and chat up an instructor. But after that it seems all they learn
to do is buy a few books, carry them around, and take repeated flights
with instructors (who's pre-flight briefings take all of 5 minutes and
post-flight briefings consist of a chat while walking the glider back
to the line). Do those of you with a platoon system find that you
have decent ground instruction? Do your platoon instructors actually
sit down with students and give them guidance? Do they make
themselves available at any other time besides on the launch-line?
What support-systems do you have in place? My experience is that
"platoon" instructors aren't tied to any students, so its easy for
them to not take any responsibility for their students' success or
failure. How do you avoid that?

[NOTE: For those who want to insist that its the student's job to take
responsibility and that truly motivated students will succeed - I
understand the sentiment but I also point to the high student dropout
rate and declining pilot population as evidence that this is a ****-
poor argument. Yes, we can see that motivated people are getting
their license; but it doesn't mean that the system is functioning
well. Most sports or skill-based activities have mentors and coaches
for a good reason - even if someone is motivated they can still use
guidance and encouragement. This can be seen in grassroots/amateur
hobbies all the way up through the highest levels of professional
athletes.]

3) For those who moved to scheduled training: Do you do anything
social in your club to support the social-scene other than having a
launch-line? Do you think events like BBQs or Seminars or Mentoring
sessions would help?

4) For those who talk about scheduled training causing them to come
out less-often: What about supplementing your in-air experiences with
flight simulators or ground-instruction (in-person, on the phone,
online, etc)?

--Noel

The crucial element to make the platoon system work is a published
syllabus.
Our students get a booklet that lays out all the instruction through
bronze badge
with a prominent space on the front for them to write their names. The
students
always show up with this because this is where the lesson plans are
detailed,
along with the reading assignments and instructor signoffs. Each
lesson plan
includes items to be covered as ground instruction, in the simulator,
and in the air.
An estimate of how many sessions should be required is also listed.

My students always show up with one, unless they're on their first
visit to
the airport, in which case we make sure they get one.

Lately we've gone to a more formally scheduled list. For several
years we'd
just left it up to the instructor, and my preference was to have a
"morning ground"
and an "afternoon group", who all stuck around and helped each other.
(I don't
require my students to hang around all day but I like to see a half
day
helping each other out from everybody.) I haven't seen the new
schedule
in action much yet, but it seems to be OK with the students more or
less
operating in a first half/second half grouping.

In the past we set up an online scheduling system. We had one student
in particular abuse this very badly: he would schedule himself every
Saturday
at 2 for a month in advance. He'd show up at 1:59 and expect to be
launched
promptly, and then disappear once he'd flown. We were glad to be shot
of him.
At least our current system is under control of the instructor, so I
have control
of when I want my students to fly. If they need to do some soaring I
can move
them to mid afternoon, or schedule them early or late in the day if
they're
getting close to solo and would benefit from calmer conditions.

-- Matt


--
Stefan Murry