Instructor Effectiveness

Robert M. Gary wrote:
On Sep 13, 8:55 am, Dudley Henriques wrote:


The exact opposite is the "aura" the instructor should be projecting to
a student. You don't have to constantly make the student aware of how
superior YOU are. They already assume that or they wouldn't have gotten
in the airplane with you.

Its funny but people just assume you must he a "super pilot" if you
are a CFI. I guess to the student pilot a CFI seems like Yeager. I can
say that I've never felt like a student needed me to "prove" my flying
ability. I can see how some CFIs could get a big head because of all
this. However, all it takes is to sit in the left seat with good CFI
to break you back down.
This is also where decision making starts. Because a student usually
looks up to his first CFI he will tend to emmulate your decision
making. The CFI who likes to buzz farm houses will have a student who
thinks that once he's a good pilot he should start buzzing farm
houses. I just can't say enough about the importance of being
professional. If you act like a true professional in the cockpit you
will have students who believe that they need to be professional in
the cockpit.

-Robert
Exactly correct.
I think I learned more about flying by teaching people to fly than I
could ever have learned in any other venue in aviation. It's absolutely
amazing how much you learn while finding different ways to teach a
student pilot. The more you search for the "right way" to present
something, the more you learn about that "something" yourself :-))

You're right about a student's first CFI. The initial hours spent before
solo are among the most important a pilot will ever spend in an airplane.
The habit patterns formed during this initial exposure to an instructor
can very well follow a pilot throughout their entire tenure in aviation.

After a lifetime in aviation, I'm STILL learning!!!

--
Dudley Henriques