I’m going to be teaching a community ed class this spring on aviation, and thought it best to get my website in order. As a result, I picked up yet another domain name, and have been busy learning Joomla.

Besides the community ed class, I think I found a nice small niche for aviation instruction. A virtual online instructor. I’ve yet to come up with the revenue model, nor even a template for my web site. All I’m doing for now is content generation, making it a goal of an article a day for a month. That way, at least when the marketing flyers come out, I’ll have a content rich site, albeit a disorganized one.

My plan is to have a revenue model in place, and a cleaned up site by the end of 1st qtr. It will be interesting to see how it comes together. So far, I’ve got so much to write about, I could almost make up a book…. I guess 20+ years of flying, and many hours instructing add up to quite a bit of knowledge.

Hmmm, looks like us pilots aren’t the only ones that struggle with this problem.

If I look back to the day I got my private pilots certificate over 20 years ago, I don’t think I was ever as technically proficient. Sure, I couldn’t do the commercial manuevers, or shoot an ILS to ATP standards, but my precision, and finesse in take offs and landings was never better. It was the same with straight and level. I could hold +/-10 feet for extended periods, and it was rare I would deviate much more than +/-50 feet. Of course at the time, I was shooting about 50 landings/week, and my goal was formation flying, so I worked for precision. My judgement at that time, well thats another story.

I often wondered why private and commercial pilots had to jump hoops in order to fly a specific aircraft with insurance whereas the CFI would only need a cursory checkout to teach in such a plane. This excludes of course multi-engine aircraft where we need 5 hours in type. I think its the judgement issue.

As a CFI, we capture a lot of experience very quickly, much faster than just earning a rating, or flying from A to B. As quoted from cut to cure, which they quoted from Training.

“Good judgment comes from experience, experience comes from bad judgment”

And what does a CFI do. We teach judgement, and skill. Skill is pretty easy, we know the PTS, we know the manuevers, we understand rudimentary educational psych, and we can tailor our teaching to the student. It is a rare student indeed that cannot be taught the skills to fly, at least to the level called out by the private pilot PTS. But judgement is the tough one.

As far as teaching judgement goes, we use textbooks, sims, and scenarios to try and demonstrate proper and improper judgement. Our students put us in situations that prior to that, we never would have experience. The net result, is we have a ton of bad experiences due to our students lake of skill, which serves to increase our own personal judgement. We also take students out into MVFR, high density altitudes, and high crosswinds routinely, in other words, we fly with them when we personally would not choose to if it were just a personal flight. Its one of the ways of teaching them judgement, but it also serves to keep our skill and build our judgement. Otoh, we have to down grade what we know we can safely handle, such that if the student puts us in trouble, we still have a good safety margin to recover. This is known as CFI judgement, and for some amazing fact, at that point in time, it seems to come very quickly, just like the first time you solo a student. Every mentor will tell you, that you will know when the time is right. Every newbie CFI can’t believe it, until it happens.

I guess judgement is the same deal that surgeons have to work with. They are finally getting decent simulators, (a rad friend from many years back had to build his own, some type of funky borescope deal back in the early 80′s). And with them, they can improve skills, but sims although safer than an airplane, still don’t cut it when it comes to judgement, just as cut to cure alluded to when they compare lectures and texts with actual experience.

Sure, in a sim, I can fail a students instruments, I can throw unexpected weather their way. I can fail an engine and create a host of troubles that would be way to dangerous to do with a live aircraft. I’ve experieneced getting soaking wet with sweat in a sim. It seems realistic, but its pretty hard to preload a pilots emotional and physical status. In the sim, there are no deadlines, no passengers that have to get to a meeting, no air ambulance patient that is in trouble enroute (one of the reasons, that its common practice not to let the pilot know whats going on back there). We also can’t we emotionally burden the pilot with family, work, or personal trouble that can impair their judgement, nor can we sleep deprive them, or make them sicker than a dog after eating a proverbial pilots vending machine lunch.

In a nutshell, about the only thing long term we really can do is to have our students set absolute limits, and then let judgement build on its own with in those limits. At least during IFR flight, the FAA’s limits are pretty cut and dried. Eg at DH, its go or no go, but the bigger issue is, what is the appropriate adder to DH for a newbie. What is the limit on fuel, what are the limits on sleep, what are the limits on forecast and enroute weather. And what happens when the young pilot just looks at DH, or VFR fuel minimums, or encounters ice, or rapidly deteriorating weather. Thats where experience enters in, and from that, is where judgment is born.

Gee, I sure wish if was as easy as the graphic in my first FOI, where they had a pitcher of judgement, and all one had to do was pour it into a hole in the students head.

I have to do this one of these days. I don’t want to end up crabbing like I did the time I thought 10 hours in an R22 for $600 was too much.

I did get some cockpit time a couple days ago though. It was truely amazing, but with one caveat. Their is a real tendency to keep ones head in the cockpit instead of looking outside. A second issue is its an easy airplane to get behind in. When we were leaving I made the remark that without significant ground training, one is going to be 60 miles behind the plane for the first 3 days of operation.

Its cool for sure, and fast, and really well though out. But for $450,000 is should be. The weeping wing, composite construction, dual alternators, ballistic recovery parachute, glass cockpit, side stick, and satellite datalink make this one cool plane.

I would think this is the type of AC that one needs to fly weekly, or at a minimum once a month. Unlike other equipment where you can easily jump in and be familiar even aftet an extended abscence, this is a different deal entirely.

Otoh, for the guy who travels by air a great deal, the high level of automation, the speed, and comfort make this an ideal aircraft. (And of course, I’ve only had a little bit of cockpit time), so I’m not the best judge, but I will say it was intimidating. I like my steam gauges!

Next week, the meeting is on glass cockpits. Since a vast majority of my flight time occured in airplanes using vacuum tube radios, and pre 1969 instrument panels, it should be quite interesting. Back then, the radio’s had a huge power supply in back, which reduced ones useful load. In addition, it usually took a minute or two for the radios to warm up, such that one could communicate. I still remember the old manual ADF, that spun an antenna on the fuselage, and then you had a spinning knob and dial to select the frequency. The equipment of the 50′s and 60′s worked pretty well, but no where near as convenient as the 80′s solutions. Now it will be interesting to see what happens with the latest and greatest glass cockpit technology.

The other organization I belong to is NAFI. I originally was hesitant, as I felt there was some duplication. Well actually not, instead of in person meetings, they have a number of member benefits, and their monthly magazine is really well done with a number of discussions on education processes. When I signed up, I had an issue with billing, and on the day I called, I was fortunate enough to talk with the big guy, as everyone else had left for the day. That was pretty cool in and of itself.

One other thing that NAFI offers is the Master Instructor Designation Program. Its a pretty cool solution for continuing education and involvement. By the same token, its a ton of work as well, but it is something I plan to start working on next year.

In the mid-late 80′s the push was on to save money, so all FSS functions were moved to Green Bay, WI. However, at that point, personal weather briefings went by the wayside. The local knowledge of the micro-climate went out as well… although as the years passed, such info did seem to come back a little bit.

In the early 90′s, DUAT came on the scene, and then slowly migrated to the web over the years. While personal weather breifings are a thing of the past, a voice call to the automated FSS is still available, and in regards to temporary flight restrictions, is still a good idea. Computer analysis of marginal weather just cannot beat the skill and knowledge of an experience FSS guy.

As far as North Central goes, they already were Republic Airlines but had yet to update the livery, and then finally ended up part of Northwest. Its too bad how aviation has changed over the years. I caught the tail end of the better days of commercial aviation, and slowly saw it crash into the ground. Today, commercial aviation has become little more than taking a bus, and travel is a major pita. Years ago, that was not the case. Be sure to check out this promo film from PanAm. Wow, how have things changed.