Have you ever...

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:ZNO6e.8341$Bb3.4369@attbi_s22...
No, but it shows much of the training for a PP-ASEL is
meaningless.


You might wanna add "most of the time". Which doesn't mean one can omit
it completely - quite the contrary. Hence the serious limitations on
what you can do with a Sport license.

This could be the start of an interesting thread.

What would YOU eliminate from the Private Pilot training curriculum?

Just off the top of my head I can think of half a dozen stupid, pointless
things I was forced to puke back on the written that I've never, ever used
again...

Are you talking about flight training, or High School? :~

Just off the top of my head I can think of half a dozen stupid, pointless
things I was forced to puke back on the written that I've never, ever
used
again...

Are you talking about flight training, or High School? :~

Well, flight training, in this thread.

I personally would eliminate all the stupid "look at the picture of the VOR,
and tell me your position from the station" crap. Same with the ADF.
(Hell, I don't even *have* an ADF in my plane.)

And you could eliminate all the "pressure altitude" versus "density
altitude" computational B.S., too. Never used it yet.

And while we're at it, the FAA could simplify the ridiculous VFR versus IFR
ceiling/visibility rules, along with the almost laughable alphabet-soup
airspace designations.

But I guess that's a different topic...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:30a7e.12275$Bb3.8317@attbi_s22...
Just off the top of my head I can think of half a dozen stupid,
pointless
things I was forced to puke back on the written that I've never, ever
used
again...

Are you talking about flight training, or High School? :~

Well, flight training, in this thread.

I personally would eliminate all the stupid "look at the picture of the
VOR, and tell me your position from the station" crap. Same with the
ADF. (Hell, I don't even *have* an ADF in my plane.)

And you could eliminate all the "pressure altitude" versus "density
altitude" computational B.S., too. Never used it yet.

And while we're at it, the FAA could simplify the ridiculous VFR versus
IFR ceiling/visibility rules, along with the almost laughable
alphabet-soup airspace designations.

But I guess that's a different topic...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"


and delete the FAA/NTSB accident/incedent reporting rules (just know where
to look them up after you crash). Consolidate the three definitions of
"night" to one (perhaps "when it is dark")

Mike
MU-2

Mike Rapoport wrote:
Consolidate the three definitions of
"night" to one (perhaps "when it is dark")

Consolidating the twilight with the one-hour would be OK, but I don't think
there's any (safe and logical) way to combine the lights (sunrise, sunset)
and one-hour definitions.

Hilton

"Hilton" wrote in message
ink.net...
Mike Rapoport wrote:
Consolidate the three definitions of
"night" to one (perhaps "when it is dark")

Consolidating the twilight with the one-hour would be OK, but I don't
think
there's any (safe and logical) way to combine the lights (sunrise, sunset)
and one-hour definitions.

Hilton



It would be relatively easy if you forget about calculated sunrise and
sunset times and say "dark".

Mike
MU-2

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:30a7e.12275$Bb3.8317@attbi_s22...
[...]
I personally would eliminate all the stupid "look at the picture of the
VOR, and tell me your position from the station" crap. Same with the
ADF. (Hell, I don't even *have* an ADF in my plane.)

And you could eliminate all the "pressure altitude" versus "density
altitude" computational B.S., too. Never used it yet.

And while we're at it, the FAA could simplify the ridiculous VFR versus
IFR ceiling/visibility rules, along with the almost laughable
alphabet-soup airspace designations.

Perhaps you would prefer that all pilot certificates be issued with
restrictions stipulating precisely what it is the pilot was actually taught?
Then, every time you want to add some sort of facet to your flying
repertoire, you would have to go through (at a minimum) specific flight
training and a logbook endorsement?

The required training is a compromise. Once certificated, a pilot is
permitted to engage in a wide variety of flying. Just because YOU don't
personally avail yourself of those privileges, that doesn't mean you don't
have them, nor does it mean it was a waste of time for you to obtain them.
It would be impractical to try to tailor each and every pilot certificate
specifically to the needs of that pilot.

By the way, it's unclear what you mean by "the ridiculous VFR versus IFR
ceiling/visibility rules". There are no minimum ceiling or visibility rules
for IFR flight. That's the whole point of IFR. As far as the
"alphabet-soup airspace designations", frankly it's a heck of a lot more
organized than the old named airspace designations were, and it's gone a
long way to helping international flight become more uniform (in spite of
the many exceptions that still exist, of course).

Pete

Perhaps you would prefer that all pilot certificates be issued with
restrictions stipulating precisely what it is the pilot was actually
taught?

No, but I do wish more emphasis was put on learning to fly rather than on
hitting new pilots with dumb "gotcha" questions that require mass
memorization to answer.

As you can tell, most of my gripes are with the written exam. I scored in
the upper 90s (admittedly over 10 years ago now) but only because I almost
literally memorized the test before taking it.

If we're trying to weed people out, that's an excellent method. If we're
trying to be more inclusive, and get more people into the sky, I think we
need to make the process not just easier, but more logical.

The Recreational Pilot was a feeble, failed attempt at this. We'll see how
the "Sport Pilot" fares.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:CSe7e.15587$8Z6.12366@attbi_s21...
Perhaps you would prefer that all pilot certificates be issued with
restrictions stipulating precisely what it is the pilot was actually
taught?

No, but I do wish more emphasis was put on learning to fly rather than on
hitting new pilots with dumb "gotcha" questions that require mass
memorization to answer.

I guess I just don't see what you mean. Part of learning to fly is
accumulating important *factual* knowledge (as opposed to hand-eye
coordination, muscle memory type stuff). Operating the aircraft is just one
element of flight.

As far as memorization goes, I guess that depends on your learning style. I
try to avoid rote learning as much as possible. While there are some things
in aviation that simply cannot be learned any other way, much can be.

Even things like nav light positions (wingtip light on the other aircraft
tells you whether you can "go" or not) or cruising altitude (it would make
sense for "eastbound" flights to fly on "even" altitudes, so of course the
FAA doesn't do it that way) can be reduced to some sort of logical, non-rote
approach. Many other things, such as temperature effects on indicated vs
true altitude for example, have real underlying learnable reasons for their
existence, and can be derived "on the spot" if you go past the rote
learning.

IMHO, if you feel that most of your flying education involved rote learning,
you did not have very good instructors.

As you can tell, most of my gripes are with the written exam. I scored in
the upper 90s (admittedly over 10 years ago now) but only because I almost
literally memorized the test before taking it.

Don't confuse the written exam with learning. As you say, the exam is
as much about filtering the pilot population as it is about encouraging any
specific knowledge. After all, when you can just read all of the questions
*and answers* ahead of time, it makes the test a lot easier.

That said, the problem there is with the testing methodology, not the facts
being tested. Because of the "pick randomly from a large database" method,
it's true that almost every test winds up having one or two useless
questions. But in the big picture, most of the information is actually
useful. There's a reason that the written is just one small part of the
overall certification process, but that reason has to do with the method,
not the content.

If we're trying to weed people out, that's an excellent method. If we're
trying to be more inclusive, and get more people into the sky, I think we
need to make the process not just easier, but more logical.

The Recreational Pilot was a feeble, failed attempt at this. We'll see
how the "Sport Pilot" fares.

We'll see. I have high hopes, and given that the Sport Pilot certificate
does dramatically reduce the training time and costs (something the
Recreational didn't really achieve), I think it has a good chance. But note
that the pilot who gets a Sport Pilot certificate has some pretty
significant limitations regarding what they are permitted to do. And I
think those limitations are well-justified.

The Sport Pilot certificate is, in fact, an example of the tiered
certification I was talking about. My example was the extreme, taken to the
absurd limits. But you can see how we probably wouldn't want many more
tiers than what we've got now that the Sport Pilot certificate is a reality.
Even adding the Sport Pilot has noticeably complicated the regulations and
certification process. I think the benefit will be greater than the cost,
but that wouldn't be true if we did that exercise many more times.

Pete

On Wed, 13 Apr 2005 19:59:30 GMT, "Jay Honeck"
wrote in
CSe7e.15587$8Z6.12366@attbi_s21::

If we're
trying to be more inclusive, and get more people into the sky, I think we
need to make the process not just easier, but more logical.

I believe the aim of pilot certification is not to "get more people
into the sky," but to train safe pilots.

If we're
trying to be more inclusive, and get more people into the sky, I think we
need to make the process not just easier, but more logical.

I believe the aim of pilot certification is not to "get more people
into the sky," but to train safe pilots.

If we don't do the former, we won't need the latter.

Or, at least, not very many of them.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"