Airplane Pilot's As Physicists

On Oct 11, 10:23 am, "Gatt" wrote:
"Le Chaud Lapin" wrote in
Nothing wrong with a little discussion.

Why did you post "True Understanding Or Monkey Mode" about the same thing in
rec.aviation.piloting. Are you accusing pilots of being monkeys?

No. If you read the posts, I was complaining about both the students
and the pilots, mostly the students.

As I mentioned, I was sitting in lobby of flight school one day,
toward the end of ground school class, and there were 7-8 students
cramming for their final and to take FAA KT. We were talking about
what we think we should know, and one of the students hintet that
understanding was not really important. And said, "Well, I'm going to
take the final, and pass hopefully, but I get the feeling that this
class was too fast, and frankly, the only reason I have passed so far
is that I've been cramming." They all laughed and said, "Yeah, and?.
Look, if you want to pass the FAA KT, forget about that book
(Jeppesen's private) pilot. Go to Sporty's. They have a bunch of
questions. Plus you should get as many real FAA test questions.
That's all you need to do, to be able to anticipate what they are
going to ask you." I asked, "Don't you really want to know..or?" They
said, "No, after the exam, it doesn't matter. Not like I'm going for
ATP or anything." I looked around the room and there was general
agreement, although there was one student who understood because he'd
been into flying from very early age (like 10). One of students
announced that this was his 4th time around, and this time he was
focused...but it was apparent that by, "focused", he meant passing the
exam.

If so, do you expect to be treated with some sort of respect by people who
actually read aviation textbooks and fly planes? By the way, how's that
EB-6 training going?

Just trying to get to the bottom of what expectations there should
be. I've taught at professional level, and I can tell you that, while
I did not expect my students to know everything we've covered, when
they took an exam and wrote down an answer, it was due to thinking
through the problem, not memorization.

As for the EB-6, no problem. I studied it in advance before the ground
school class. I knew how to covert between the various types of
altitudes, etc...but I did not really know what density altitude.

I think these topics would be easier to remember if they were thought
through. For example, remember 29.92 on barometer is good, but would
be better if people had some idea of where 29.92 comes from. I asked
around the room, and no one knew, not even the CFI.

-Le Chaud Lapin-