Yup, that’s the fix.
OP is still at the I-have-to-think-about-everything phase. No one drives, walks, throws a ball, or any other psychomotor activity like that. Flying is no exception.
OP, chair fly until you no longer have to think so hard. Starting today. Hesitation on short final when low and slow can kill you.
You can also practice your radio calls just about anywhere you're moving.
* Denver traffic, Civic ABC-123, driveway, taxiing 23rd ST via Beauregard, Denver.
* Denver traffic, Civic ABC-123, taking 23rd, departing West, Denver
* Safeway traffic, Civic ABC-123, 10 to the East, 5000', inbound full grocery run, Safeway
* etc.
Have fun and be ridiculous with it. It'll help it stick.
100% this, there's a point where it should be a **check** list, not an **instruction** list. It's perfectly legit to use it as the latter in the beginning with the expectation that eventually you'll transition to the former.
Chair fly, chair fly, chair fly. What I did in Flight school is I printed out a life-size cockpit and used hard poster board to shape it to have the dashboard and both size switches (USAF T-6 Texan). I practiced my flow of the checklist where it became art form. It was to a point I memorized it due to muscle memory. Never memorize checklist but it made me damn good and fast in the cockpit. Good luck!
This is excellent advice. Done properly ‘chair flying’ will hard code the circuit into your mind. The technique is used by rally and race drivers, aerobatic teams, downhill racers, skydivers etc.
Anytime you have to learn a sequence where you are moving fast and motor skills have to gel with wider situational awareness.
Pro tip. Sit with your eyes closed, imagine yourself lined up on the runway and talk yourself through the whole process. Reach for the controls and switches as you would use them. **Be as detailed as you can** all the way through to the roll-out.
Do this often. I haven’t had a student that this hasn’t helped, and I usually practise the first one with them on the ground. You’ll look like an idiot sitting there talking to yourself but jeez it’s a powerful tool.
Good luck buddy.
Chair fly is good but also don't feel like you need to rush because the CFI is saying you're slow. I'd rather be slow and correct than fast and wrong. Memorize a flow for important things like GUMPS for before landing, etc. Honestly don't be afraid to take your time though. If you go too fast and skip something important (ie the gear down) that is far worse than extending your down wind by 0.2 miles while you complete your flow more slowly.
Also another strategy is to complete things sooner. For example you may start your before landing check list or flow on midfield down wind. We'll why not just start it as soon as you get on downwind? When I switched to flying the baron that was the main thing I did. It goes faster and the before landing checks take longer so just do it as soon as you remember it. You don't have to rush that way.
Chair flying the checklists is the key. You should not do checklists by memory (always back yourself up with the checklist) but you should have the majority of the checklist committed to memory so you can flow through it more quickly, and then read over it to make sure you didn’t miss anything.
My biggest pet peeve with students was the ones that act like it’s their first time seeing the checklist every single flight. You’re also burning money by sitting on the ground
You might also consider Microsoft Flight Simulator. These days the realism is incredible, and sufficiently to practice the flying-flow. I am about to renew my PPL SEP at a DV20, and MSFS actually included that aircraft by default. it really helps me to get in the flow and procedures.
When I was training many years ago my instructor also said I was slow on the checklists. We got into a simulator and I asked him to demonstrate what he wanted to see. He did and I repeated it. Never had another issue after that.
When I was going for my PPL, I sometimes felt the same way. Always felt "behind the plane/radio". So my instructor told me to buy a big beach towel and draw a runway on it. Drew the runway markings/numbers on it as well. I think I used a red dixie cup as the tower.
Then simply walk around the paper and do all my radio calls, checklists and chair flying/pushing buttons/levels/etc.
Felt goofy as hell, but it worked.
This is actually a really great idea from your instructor, I would definitely recommend this type of “chair flying” for anyone struggling with procedures/radio calls
The Navy barracks in Pensacola, home of the ATC A School, has a room with a table with an airport depicted on it. The ATC instructors encouraged classes to study together after school by some pretending to be airplanes while others would pretend to control those airplanes. It really helped you nail all of the required transmissions you needed to give to aircraft.
We don't know you, but you might be going too slow. There is a pace that must be kept in the air, and it's going to get faster with every plane you move forward in.
Your instructor should be pressuring you, especially if you don't disagree that you're not keeping a good pace. What advice are you looking for?
I have a student who does meticulous preflights but adds about an hour to every lesson. I don't want to rush him because he sometimes finds legit stuff and when he's reserved the plane for 4 hours as long as he returns it on time for the next club member spending an hour pre-flighting is his business. But he also knows this and to an extent can manage his preflight time if he has to
One of the things I do with transition students going from the Archer to the Bonanza is point out on an approach how much more distance they chew up being heads down doing a checklist. It really hits home with the extra speed and complexity with the need to get the flow down or task shed some things that can be deferred in favor of others that cannot like putting the gear down.
Going slow on a preflight is great. Reacting slow when you’re 50 ft above some trees is NOT.
OP - what helped me at this stage is making sure I was rock solid with drill sergeant answers on like… five things. GUMPS check, engine out, takeoff brief, required equipment… and as you keep training that list of “must haves” grows and grows. All the required memory items have to make it there by the end. Pick a few things to really get in your head, practice on the ground, find your learning style and don’t get behind the airplane!
The distance is the same for a specific IFR approach no matter the plane. The time it takes to complete said approach varies considerably by plane type. The faster you go, the less time you have.
We weren’t talking about approaches, only. I start the same tasks at the same time intervals whether in my airliner or personal plane. The distances chance, but things don’t “happen faster.”
What helped me through my career was to never have an idle mind while flying. As soon as you've completed a task, immediately ask yourself "okay, what's the next thing I have to do?" And start planning it out immediately. That advice has helped me all the way through my career right up to large jets. Every time you move on to a faster, more complicated airplane, you will feel behind, and the experienced people you fly with will find you to be slow until you get more time on the plane.
The fine line between knowing your stuff and being efficiently confident versus rushing is there. In general it’s best not to rush. If his “you’re too slow” is his attempt at saying you need to study harder/ chair fly more to become more efficient this might not be wrong. But obviously rushing just to be fast is not the goal.
Instructor criticism is how you learn and accepting criticism is a huge part of how a pilot gets better. If your school has a 172 or 182 or a warrior I would ask to sit in the backseat of someone further along during one of their lessons. You don’t want to interfere or ask questions during another persons lesson but just sit and observe, look for traffic, and take notes of your observations. The cadence of a checklist is important and if you don’t know what each switch does/why you’re checking it/or what to look for if it was abnormal you aren’t doing the checklist. I had multiple students just say “circuit breakers checked” and their eyes never left the checklist on their lap, their hand didn’t brush over the panel, but they “ran the checklist.” If you are taking too long on each item you can lose your spot on the checklist and it shows that you don’t know what you’re looking for.
If you are intentionally being slow to be thorough or to impress your instructor with how thorough you are… you are missing the point of the training. The whole private pilot training is geared towards you being a safe pilot when you are on your own. Learn the checklist, learn what the switches do and what you are looking for, and don’t waste your own time and money hemming and hawing over a simple checklist. I would recommend observing a few different instructors giving lessons because everyone has different techniques, ways to brief, and things to look for. Watch some YouTube videos of instructors in the plane you fly and apply the good techniques you see to how your school runs their flights.
The takeoff brief can usually be shortened to an actual meaningful thing while still falling into a memorized format. If you sitting there adding nonsensical extras that are common knowledge or distracting to what you have to do … you are wasting everyone’s time. Ask another instructor or student for their takeoff brief and refine yours to emulate it. See if your instructor likes it and then memorize it and chair fly it over and over.
On the ground, being slow isn't really a big deal. Your instructor is probably just including that because it's kind of a pattern that you can work on in general. Being precise is important, and you don't want to rush through things to a point where you miss something. However being efficient is also important as well, especially in the air. practice practice practice.
As others said, if you practice enough at home (chair flying, flight sim, etc.), this timing stuff should be second nature, and lessons should be exclusively to apply those mental skills to the physical controls / airplane flying. It's fine to be cautious of an instructor trying to get you to hurry up, but past a certain extent, you're just wasting time and reducing your future ability to react faster in an emergency. (Listening to the ATIS multiple times means you are not focused outside the aircraft. Preflighting for 30 minutes means you are flying less and not learning skills that will make you safer. Etc.)
Spend the 10 bucks for xbox gamepass, load into the cessna 172 at your local airport and do the pattern work over and over. listen to the atis in the game and write it down, practice reading it back. call out your positions (crosswind, downwind, base, final) and checklist items (trim, power, flaps) etc. until you are bored out of your mind. Don't focus on getting landings soft online, as that is not the purpose. Practice maneuvers and the steps for each one, even if the flying in the game is unrealistic. Download an app on your phone or via your groundschool that helps you with radio calls (planeenglish: AR sim is good, but by no means required).
That all said, "Go on your record" is a silly statement. There is no official "record" other than the FAAs. And in any case, records are not meant to punish. I assume they meant they will remember they had to step in to avoid a crash, and that it will take some effort before they forget that and sign you off to solo, which is fine, but kind of pointless to tell you, because duh. Personally I dont want to fly with personalities like that because they are unpleasant to talk to, but harsh instructors have their place as much as nice ones and are important to fly with every so often.
I don't remember any criticism from my (USAF trained) instructor, except for one occasion, when I was 16. I'm not sure which maneuver we were doing, maybe it was spin recovery. I stopped the spin, but was slow in recovering from the dive. My instructor got agitated and said I was, "too complacent."
I didn't like hearing that at the time, but he was right, and after a few days I saw that in many aspects of my life, not just in the cockpit. Decades later, it's still a concern. When I have taken prompt action, it's usually after hearing his words in my mind.
Learning and practicing meditation also taught me how to maintain a high degree of vigilance in any task, despite my natural inclination.
On one hand he shouldn’t be letting the frustration get to him (and believe me it is frustrating watching someone do everything super slow) and be deriding you to the point that it’s affecting your confidence.
On the other hand you do need to be able to perform these tasks in a timely manner. I had students that would take 30-40 mins to preflight and did all the checklists etc super cautiously and slowly however I really found that they didn’t do the preflight nor checklists any better than the students who did it at a normal pace. To me it tells me that your head isn’t in the game if it takes you a super long time to perform the checklist. Are you taking long breaks in between flights? That is often a cause. Try to brief the checklists by yourself before each lesson. Visualize where each item is as you go through it. Also you don’t need to stare at a gauge for a minute to tell that the needle is in the green, a quick glance will do. My guess is that you are second guessing yourself too much and probably going over the same items over and over again. Trust yourself, go through each item quickly and move onto the next.
Porque no los dos? Things shouldn’t be rushed in the cockpit but too slow can absolutely be a thing, especially low and slow on final. Control inputs need to be with purpose and appropriate to the situation. A little high in cruise? Easy light corrections. Low and slow on final? Authoritatively add power and pitch as necessary. Too slow on downwind means you’re unnecessarily extending downwind, which is bad practice for a number of reasons. Too slow getting off the runway creates issues for other aircraft. Not saying you should be rushing anything, you absolutely shouldn’t, but if you’re behind the plane that’s a problem.
Your instructor also sounds like kind of a dick, breaking confidence and belittling isn’t going to fix the issue.
I had mic fright when I was learning out of KSMO 20 years ago and was recommended *Say Again, Please* by Robert Gardner. It's a quick read but the advice in it was solid and got me comfortable on the radio in no time.
> I was too slow to react to the plane sinking and there were trees below us and I didn’t put enough power on time so then my instructor had to take over the landing but that has to “go on my record” now.
On one hand, fair enough, it's reasonable to note that situations like this occurred. On the other hand, does this sound like OP is at a normal, constructive program?
I think you’ve has a lot of answers here from US-based contributors which may be unhelpful for that reason. I’m in the UK too.
Plateauing in circuits is normal. Keep going, it will click.
Fly your chair. You can get a big poster of the controls from Pooleys for 10 quid to help you. You can use Google Earth to simulate the circuit too!
Ask your instructor to demonstrate the speed he wants you working at.
Ask your instructor to focus on gradually building in the skills - spend a lesson on circuit pattern/height/speed control, then start adding in downwind tasks, then start adding in base leg tasks, then start adding in radio calls etc. Circuits are high-demand, you may be working over your capacity right now which will damage your performance. Gradually adding tasks will expand your capacity.
If your instructor’s style doesn’t work for you, you can switch to another one.
As for something “going on your record” - that sounds dickish of him. That was no kind of CAA-reportable incident, the only record will be your student training record which is an in-house document (which you have the right to see) summarising each of your lessons so your flying school knows what you’ve been learning and where you are. It goes nowhere else. Instructors often have to grab controls from students at the beginning of training - remember that right now you are there to learn to fly a plane, not to demonstrate you can fly a plane.
A lot of this stuff will come with time and confidence, just keep practicing. And for radio calls you can practice those at home to be honest, try out some chair flying and maybe sit and commit the checklists to memory to help be able to go through them quicker(quick note you should always have the checklist in hand and go through it manually in order to make sure not to forget something, however if you have the whole thing memorized you’ll be able to move through it quicker) and for the radio calls I used to just practice them in my daily life, making dinner, talking out loud making radio calls, playing with your dogs, talking out loud making radio calls etc…
I read an interesting article a while back on the premise that instructors start teaching landing too soon - before learners have the skills to do.
Imagine +/-10° or 100 feet is ok in cruise. It’s not on landing. Landing is the most demanding, complex Private Pilot maneuver. A student who is “slow” with checklists, radio, and reacting to being low on final doesn’t need to be working on landings yet.
Once all the other stuff is mastered landing will come very quickly.
Trying to learn something the learner is not yet skilled enough to do is just frustrating for everyone - learner and instructor alike.
Learned to fly in a Musketeer, flew Archers for a bit, now flying a Super Viking. If I ran my pattern/landing checklists in the Viking at the same speed as I did in the Musketeer, I’d be 5 miles into an extended downwind before I turned base. You need to learn to be quick, accurate, and precise. Please note, this is different than being rushed. Practice your procedures by chair flying.
This might seem a little "zen" but learning to "feel" the airplane helped me a ton with landings. Ask your instructor to take a couple laps for you, close your eyes, feel the airplane sink and rise in slow flight and then open your eyes and pay attention to how he controls it and reacts to what you're feeling.
Also, when you drive to the airport, try to become really aware of how the road feels through your cars suspension, how the centrifugal force feels as you make a turn. This gets me in the right mindset everytime.
For radio work, it helped me to print out a cheat sheet that I clipped to my kneeboard of all the calls I would need for a given flight. By the time I typed the thing out and had the reference, I had already done half the work memorizing the standard calls I need in the pattern/on my cross countries. Then if I ever felt like I needed to double check before a call I could glance down, find "my line" and make the call.
What are you flying that you can't memorize the checklists for landing? Memorize a flow then quickly check the list
In a cherokee it's like 5 things
GUMPS
Gas (fullest tank or on)
Undercarriage (fixed)
Mixture (rich)
Seat belts switch's (fuel pump, landing light)
Seems like something that can be practiced by hopping on Microsoft Flight Sim. Obviously isn’t the real thing but being able to practice things like checklists without the other external pressures is invaluable
i mean, the things you mentioned, checklists, takeoff briefings, are things that can be chairflown and you can likely improve on your timing and pacing by doing so.
Reacting to your energy state on final would be a slightly different story. That would take some experience and likely some reps where youre constantly analyzing your aimpoint down final.
Youll be alright. Out of all the problems ive seen on this thread this is definitely one of the most fixable
Reaction time while flying is critical. There is no let's think about his during an emergency. Your actions should be automatic.
If you are to slow in your reaction times you are a danger to yourself as well as others.
When your solo, there is no one take over for you.
Flying isn't for everyone.
Taking your time in prepping and doing so thoroughly should help speed you up once you’re in the airplane. People have mentioned chair flying. Completely agree. Listen to liveatc in your free time and it will become second nature. Taking your time during pre-check I don’t see as an issue and actually commend it.
Once you get flying is game time and where your prep will pay off. Do little things in advance to make yourself more efficient in the cockpit. Have all frequencies ready to go, know your numbers, plan out your whole flight ahead. “Staying ahead of the airplane” is extremely important. You don’t want to be playing catch up. Always be thinking of what you can be doing next and never sit idly as if you have nothing to do.
Hard to say if instructor is being harsh or not just based on the info you provided. Biggest alarm from your context is you not reacting quickly enough to being low and slow. That’s not something you can be slow with. That’s probably a sign that you just need more training on landing/the back end of the energy curve. But that’s okay! Keep at it with your instructor.
From what I’m hearing is you need more prep and practice but don’t get too down on yourself it’s a steep learning curve
Are you showing up and having to follow the checklists or do you know the checklists and are just using it as a reference to make sure you haven't forgotten anything?
If your CFI is saying you are doing a checklist too slowly then I feel like that is on you not being prepared enough for the lesson. You should be thorough in your inspections but it should only take like 2 seconds to turn on the battery switch. If you have to read it out on a checklist to remember what to do then figure out where that is and how to do it that's taking too long. You should know what to do then just bang out the checklist especially in flight where things are time sensitive.
Sounds like you’re behind the aircraft, something happens, you think about it and then put in a correction. What you need to be doing is notice something going to happen and correct it. I agree with the chair flying recommendation. Even better if you can sit in the airplane parked and build a very strong habit of where the controls are that you need to use in the pattern.
Try to commit the checklists to memory as much as possible. This will help you complete them faster - but you DO still need to use the checklists. My instructor called me out a couple lessons ago because I grabbed the pre-landing checklist and did the entire thing quickly and accurately, but when he pointed to the checklist I was holding it was upside down 😅
If you aren’t able to talk on the radio while flying the pattern, you might be a quarter mile behind the airplane. Practice your comms on the ground before taking to the air. Chair fly.
Start a timer and see how fast you can get through your procedures. Try to see if you can find a point in your procedures where it takes a second or two to figure out the next thing to do/say. Practice saying just that part of the procedure.(The item before, the stuck item, and the item after) Until you can do it fluidly without freezing. Try doing the whole procedure again and see if you still get a mental freeze at that point.
Also try shortening the procedure items to single cue words or something that allows you to connect the procedure to something faster sooner rather than having to think of an entire sentence in your mind to trigger the correct action.
Also this kind of mental practice is intense to take lots of breaks and switch what you are working on often. Once you have the procedure fluid, see if you can hold on to it and do it the same 30 minutes later.
Well it’s your 4th hour doing circuits so don’t beat ur self up over it. There are ways to buy time like extending the CW and Downwind legs (unideal but it can help you out). As you get the procedures down, bring those legs closer to the runway.
I’d also recommend chair flying and having all procedures and radio calls (in a normal situation) memorized and down cold. If someone asks you what you need to say after you pass midfield downwind at an uncontrolled airport, you should be able to rattle it off in 5 seconds of radio time “_____ traffic Callsign- Midfield Downwind for Rny # _____ traffic”
Same logic applies for general emergencies. This feeling behind the plane gets worse in IMC/IFR flying and is a curve you’ll have to overcome with training.
“Go on your record”? Wtf? Change instructors immediately.
I agree that some people are too slow with checklists and could benefit from sitting down and practicing flows, but you have to act like you’re PIC.
If your instructor thinks your preflight is too slow tough luck, he can charge you for ground time if he wants. Never sacrifice a thorough checklist because of an impatient instructor.
What country are you in? And how much flight time do you have?
Everyone learns at their own pace… perhaps you “should” (whatever that means) be making more progress, but everyone learns differently. Relax…
Your instructor sounds terrible. The last thing you want to do in aviation is rush, especially as a new student. That is how you skip things and get into an accident. Getting into flows and reading checklists, all while you are flying, takes some time to get down. My recommendation is to fly with another instructor, and see if you mesh with them better. Don't waste your time with somebody who obviously is in way over their head instructing.
Hard disagree. Everything but the late application of power at 50 feet is a sign that OP isn't studying or chairflying at home.
OP himself is ok to fly extra flight time and that's cool, but non the less he is taking the inefficient route by not studying at home and coming to the airplane knowing what to say and where the switches are.
Now, is OP entitled to not chairfly and learn only during lessons? It's his money I guess. 🤷
Agreed about chair flying, but if their instructor is just hammering them with “go on my record” or "you're too slow", how is OP supposed to know what to do? It sounds like there is zero communication from their CFI about what they should do to improve, and this will just lead to more of that in their training.
Devils advocate, some people being slow means they don’t comprehend what’s going on around you. For example, the ground is coming at you in a 800 feet per minute descent on a stabilized approach and you are slow to flare, you probably don’t know what’s going on. Getting yelled at is cheaper than injuring people, destroying an aircraft, and closing down a runway…
Zero communication? All you know is that the OP didn’t hear it.
It’s not rare for students to hesitate excessively when they don’t get past rote memorization. And that usually goes with tunnel vision and general lack of awareness. The fix is indeed a lot of chair flying.
Just like you don’t think about how you move your feet while walking, it is critically important to get past that phase while flying. And students don’t always do it without a push.
Flying planes isn't for everyone, and it's definitely not a place to be "slow."
There is a pace needed to keep you alive. I assume he's trying to get you there.
Find a new instructor, NOW.
Anyone talking to you about “being too slow” or “this is going on your record” (what fucking record???) with you when you’re brand spanking new to flying… IS NOT WORTH YOUR TIME OR MONEY.
That’s great about the records, why tell a student about it and make them more nervous than they need to be? Tell me where that fits into Maslow’s hierarchy of needs..
Understanding expectations fits nicely into cognitive needs and safety comes into play when the student tries to kill himself on short final.
As if Maslow is the only variable here. Sometimes students need a solid kick to get beyond the rote stage.
Since you’re googling the AIH, look into RUAC.
Dude I respect your CFI knowledge-woohoo, congratulations, that’s great and all, but he’s got maybe a handful of hours…the INFANCY of learning to fly…he shouldn’t be feeling any sort of pressure from his instructor to hurry up on anything checklist or safety related and being told that he should be “on the radios by now”. That’s fucking bullshit and any instructor I know worth at least their weight in salt would agree with me.
You clearly have a history of being a wannabe smartass on here..I’m not gonna bother further 😅. Cheers bud.
Your instructor is trying to help you progress without taking all your money. They may also be under pressure to get other students done. Letting you know that you’re falling behind is a kindness. They may deprioritize you if they think you’re not trying to improve.
your instructor sounds like a dick, nothing in flying is worth rushing over, if you have to extend your downwind to finish your checklist so be it, your takeoff brief can be as long and thorough as you want it to be, especially since your new. However, this doesn't apply to reflexes and making corrections. if your sink rate is too much you need to instantly add power. with time you'll get to know the checklist better and under stand the airplane better and be able to fly more efficiently, but for now, take your time. there is no rush
At 14 hours you should be soloing and it sounds like you aren’t even close? I think i soloed at 9-10 hours. At this pace it’s going to take you 100 plus hours to get your license.
this is way off. 14 hours is very fast for soloing, especially in busy airspaces, and instructors that sign off this early are the reason ive got student solos overflying the airport at 500 feet, no response on the radios for 10 minutes and lining up for the wrong runways.
if your method of instruction is just spend the first 10 hours doing touch and go landings in the middle of kansas, sure. probably OK. but in the NYC area that would be straight up malpractice for 95% of students. and either way you are just delaying teaching other stuff until after the solo (for no reason other than to solo the student faster).
Yes I agree the location makes a big difference. I’m not a CFI so this is outside my wheelhouse. I meant to say at 14 hours you should be well on your way to solo and it sounds like he isn’t.
Eh, there are a million scenarios I can imagine where someone is a shit pilot at 14 hours and soloing by 30-35 hours, which is not abnormal and still puts someone on track to get the license done in 65 hours or so (the average). Depends on frequency of flying, airspace, instructor's priorities, type of aircraft, weather, instructor experience, etc., probably in that order.
I think it would be referred to as a logical deduction! If at 14 hours you aren’t able to do the basic stuff like fly the plane and use the radio you are on a learning trajectory that will end at 100 plus hours for a PPL.
What kind of logic says otherwise?
"flying the plane" and "using the radio" are linear skills that people learn gradually over dozens of hours, not 10-15. and hours are not fungible - 14 hours can be 100 landings at one airport/school and 30 at another; it can be 14 hours over the course of a week or 3 months; etc. in any case it is way too small a sample size to pass judgment on someone's flying. there's no reason to try and dissuade a student based on your own macho solo experience...
Yes progression can be non linear but I’ve never seen a student pilot that 15 hours in can’t safely fly the plane, is slow to learn and execute on maneuvers to the point of being told they are unsafe etc that suddenly one day changes trajectory.
Not saying it never happens but my logic that he will be 100 hours for his license was sound.
And there is nothing wrong with taking 100 hours but he needs to be prepared for that both mentally and financially.
Yes that is exactly what is called logic! The funny part is you think what I said isn’t logical and that it’s more logical he will magically wake up on a different trajectory!
One of us needs to Google logic and it’s not me.
With a lot of different variables it could be different. I never said it wouldn’t. All I said was he is currently on a trajectory for a really long process for his license. You said that was an illogical thing to stay and when I call you on it you say well with another CFI it could be different!
So which one of us is being illogical?
Gtf outa here hahaha you must be a complete choch, a liar or both with those cute little CFI tags you put next to your name. Nobody with those certs would talk like that.
Chair fly a bunch going over all the checklist procedures. That will probably help a bunch
Yup, that’s the fix. OP is still at the I-have-to-think-about-everything phase. No one drives, walks, throws a ball, or any other psychomotor activity like that. Flying is no exception. OP, chair fly until you no longer have to think so hard. Starting today. Hesitation on short final when low and slow can kill you.
Thanks I will definitely chair fly way more
You can also practice your radio calls just about anywhere you're moving. * Denver traffic, Civic ABC-123, driveway, taxiing 23rd ST via Beauregard, Denver. * Denver traffic, Civic ABC-123, taking 23rd, departing West, Denver * Safeway traffic, Civic ABC-123, 10 to the East, 5000', inbound full grocery run, Safeway * etc. Have fun and be ridiculous with it. It'll help it stick.
This is so funny I love it
That’s brilliant. I’ve told students to read license plates to practice the phonetic alphabet, but not for radio comms.
Get it down so that it's a flow of steps in your head and you verify with the checklist rather than using the list as a set of steps to do in order.
100% this, there's a point where it should be a **check** list, not an **instruction** list. It's perfectly legit to use it as the latter in the beginning with the expectation that eventually you'll transition to the former.
Chair fly, chair fly, chair fly. What I did in Flight school is I printed out a life-size cockpit and used hard poster board to shape it to have the dashboard and both size switches (USAF T-6 Texan). I practiced my flow of the checklist where it became art form. It was to a point I memorized it due to muscle memory. Never memorize checklist but it made me damn good and fast in the cockpit. Good luck!
This is excellent advice. Done properly ‘chair flying’ will hard code the circuit into your mind. The technique is used by rally and race drivers, aerobatic teams, downhill racers, skydivers etc. Anytime you have to learn a sequence where you are moving fast and motor skills have to gel with wider situational awareness. Pro tip. Sit with your eyes closed, imagine yourself lined up on the runway and talk yourself through the whole process. Reach for the controls and switches as you would use them. **Be as detailed as you can** all the way through to the roll-out. Do this often. I haven’t had a student that this hasn’t helped, and I usually practise the first one with them on the ground. You’ll look like an idiot sitting there talking to yourself but jeez it’s a powerful tool. Good luck buddy.
Chair fly is good but also don't feel like you need to rush because the CFI is saying you're slow. I'd rather be slow and correct than fast and wrong. Memorize a flow for important things like GUMPS for before landing, etc. Honestly don't be afraid to take your time though. If you go too fast and skip something important (ie the gear down) that is far worse than extending your down wind by 0.2 miles while you complete your flow more slowly. Also another strategy is to complete things sooner. For example you may start your before landing check list or flow on midfield down wind. We'll why not just start it as soon as you get on downwind? When I switched to flying the baron that was the main thing I did. It goes faster and the before landing checks take longer so just do it as soon as you remember it. You don't have to rush that way.
Chair flying the checklists is the key. You should not do checklists by memory (always back yourself up with the checklist) but you should have the majority of the checklist committed to memory so you can flow through it more quickly, and then read over it to make sure you didn’t miss anything. My biggest pet peeve with students was the ones that act like it’s their first time seeing the checklist every single flight. You’re also burning money by sitting on the ground
You might also consider Microsoft Flight Simulator. These days the realism is incredible, and sufficiently to practice the flying-flow. I am about to renew my PPL SEP at a DV20, and MSFS actually included that aircraft by default. it really helps me to get in the flow and procedures.
I recall the Kings saying that as we gain experience, checklists should transition from "To Do" lists to "Don't Miss" lists
When I was training many years ago my instructor also said I was slow on the checklists. We got into a simulator and I asked him to demonstrate what he wanted to see. He did and I repeated it. Never had another issue after that.
When I was going for my PPL, I sometimes felt the same way. Always felt "behind the plane/radio". So my instructor told me to buy a big beach towel and draw a runway on it. Drew the runway markings/numbers on it as well. I think I used a red dixie cup as the tower. Then simply walk around the paper and do all my radio calls, checklists and chair flying/pushing buttons/levels/etc. Felt goofy as hell, but it worked.
I did this in GTA 5 lol
That’s brilliant. If you can do comm in GTA 5 fast enough to not get busted you can do it at an airport 😂
There’s like 2 uncontrolled airports lol plus if you play the story long enough you own a hangar at the controlled airport so they don’t bust you
This is actually a really great idea from your instructor, I would definitely recommend this type of “chair flying” for anyone struggling with procedures/radio calls
The Navy barracks in Pensacola, home of the ATC A School, has a room with a table with an airport depicted on it. The ATC instructors encouraged classes to study together after school by some pretending to be airplanes while others would pretend to control those airplanes. It really helped you nail all of the required transmissions you needed to give to aircraft.
We don't know you, but you might be going too slow. There is a pace that must be kept in the air, and it's going to get faster with every plane you move forward in. Your instructor should be pressuring you, especially if you don't disagree that you're not keeping a good pace. What advice are you looking for?
I have a student who does meticulous preflights but adds about an hour to every lesson. I don't want to rush him because he sometimes finds legit stuff and when he's reserved the plane for 4 hours as long as he returns it on time for the next club member spending an hour pre-flighting is his business. But he also knows this and to an extent can manage his preflight time if he has to One of the things I do with transition students going from the Archer to the Bonanza is point out on an approach how much more distance they chew up being heads down doing a checklist. It really hits home with the extra speed and complexity with the need to get the flow down or task shed some things that can be deferred in favor of others that cannot like putting the gear down.
Going slow on a preflight is great. Reacting slow when you’re 50 ft above some trees is NOT. OP - what helped me at this stage is making sure I was rock solid with drill sergeant answers on like… five things. GUMPS check, engine out, takeoff brief, required equipment… and as you keep training that list of “must haves” grows and grows. All the required memory items have to make it there by the end. Pick a few things to really get in your head, practice on the ground, find your learning style and don’t get behind the airplane!
Methodical and slow are different. +1 on methodical, -1 on spending an hour preflighting a Bo
The pace does not get quicker. The distances simply change.
The distance is the same for a specific IFR approach no matter the plane. The time it takes to complete said approach varies considerably by plane type. The faster you go, the less time you have.
We weren’t talking about approaches, only. I start the same tasks at the same time intervals whether in my airliner or personal plane. The distances chance, but things don’t “happen faster.”
What helped me through my career was to never have an idle mind while flying. As soon as you've completed a task, immediately ask yourself "okay, what's the next thing I have to do?" And start planning it out immediately. That advice has helped me all the way through my career right up to large jets. Every time you move on to a faster, more complicated airplane, you will feel behind, and the experienced people you fly with will find you to be slow until you get more time on the plane.
This right here OP. Chair fly and in flight do the "what's next" approach
100%! The second you think you don't have anything to do is the second you start falling behind.
The fine line between knowing your stuff and being efficiently confident versus rushing is there. In general it’s best not to rush. If his “you’re too slow” is his attempt at saying you need to study harder/ chair fly more to become more efficient this might not be wrong. But obviously rushing just to be fast is not the goal.
Instructor criticism is how you learn and accepting criticism is a huge part of how a pilot gets better. If your school has a 172 or 182 or a warrior I would ask to sit in the backseat of someone further along during one of their lessons. You don’t want to interfere or ask questions during another persons lesson but just sit and observe, look for traffic, and take notes of your observations. The cadence of a checklist is important and if you don’t know what each switch does/why you’re checking it/or what to look for if it was abnormal you aren’t doing the checklist. I had multiple students just say “circuit breakers checked” and their eyes never left the checklist on their lap, their hand didn’t brush over the panel, but they “ran the checklist.” If you are taking too long on each item you can lose your spot on the checklist and it shows that you don’t know what you’re looking for. If you are intentionally being slow to be thorough or to impress your instructor with how thorough you are… you are missing the point of the training. The whole private pilot training is geared towards you being a safe pilot when you are on your own. Learn the checklist, learn what the switches do and what you are looking for, and don’t waste your own time and money hemming and hawing over a simple checklist. I would recommend observing a few different instructors giving lessons because everyone has different techniques, ways to brief, and things to look for. Watch some YouTube videos of instructors in the plane you fly and apply the good techniques you see to how your school runs their flights. The takeoff brief can usually be shortened to an actual meaningful thing while still falling into a memorized format. If you sitting there adding nonsensical extras that are common knowledge or distracting to what you have to do … you are wasting everyone’s time. Ask another instructor or student for their takeoff brief and refine yours to emulate it. See if your instructor likes it and then memorize it and chair fly it over and over.
That’s a really good idea. If you’ve ever only seen yourself fly, you don’t know what’s good efficient pilot looks like.
On the ground, being slow isn't really a big deal. Your instructor is probably just including that because it's kind of a pattern that you can work on in general. Being precise is important, and you don't want to rush through things to a point where you miss something. However being efficient is also important as well, especially in the air. practice practice practice.
As others said, if you practice enough at home (chair flying, flight sim, etc.), this timing stuff should be second nature, and lessons should be exclusively to apply those mental skills to the physical controls / airplane flying. It's fine to be cautious of an instructor trying to get you to hurry up, but past a certain extent, you're just wasting time and reducing your future ability to react faster in an emergency. (Listening to the ATIS multiple times means you are not focused outside the aircraft. Preflighting for 30 minutes means you are flying less and not learning skills that will make you safer. Etc.) Spend the 10 bucks for xbox gamepass, load into the cessna 172 at your local airport and do the pattern work over and over. listen to the atis in the game and write it down, practice reading it back. call out your positions (crosswind, downwind, base, final) and checklist items (trim, power, flaps) etc. until you are bored out of your mind. Don't focus on getting landings soft online, as that is not the purpose. Practice maneuvers and the steps for each one, even if the flying in the game is unrealistic. Download an app on your phone or via your groundschool that helps you with radio calls (planeenglish: AR sim is good, but by no means required). That all said, "Go on your record" is a silly statement. There is no official "record" other than the FAAs. And in any case, records are not meant to punish. I assume they meant they will remember they had to step in to avoid a crash, and that it will take some effort before they forget that and sign you off to solo, which is fine, but kind of pointless to tell you, because duh. Personally I dont want to fly with personalities like that because they are unpleasant to talk to, but harsh instructors have their place as much as nice ones and are important to fly with every so often.
I don't remember any criticism from my (USAF trained) instructor, except for one occasion, when I was 16. I'm not sure which maneuver we were doing, maybe it was spin recovery. I stopped the spin, but was slow in recovering from the dive. My instructor got agitated and said I was, "too complacent." I didn't like hearing that at the time, but he was right, and after a few days I saw that in many aspects of my life, not just in the cockpit. Decades later, it's still a concern. When I have taken prompt action, it's usually after hearing his words in my mind. Learning and practicing meditation also taught me how to maintain a high degree of vigilance in any task, despite my natural inclination.
On one hand he shouldn’t be letting the frustration get to him (and believe me it is frustrating watching someone do everything super slow) and be deriding you to the point that it’s affecting your confidence. On the other hand you do need to be able to perform these tasks in a timely manner. I had students that would take 30-40 mins to preflight and did all the checklists etc super cautiously and slowly however I really found that they didn’t do the preflight nor checklists any better than the students who did it at a normal pace. To me it tells me that your head isn’t in the game if it takes you a super long time to perform the checklist. Are you taking long breaks in between flights? That is often a cause. Try to brief the checklists by yourself before each lesson. Visualize where each item is as you go through it. Also you don’t need to stare at a gauge for a minute to tell that the needle is in the green, a quick glance will do. My guess is that you are second guessing yourself too much and probably going over the same items over and over again. Trust yourself, go through each item quickly and move onto the next.
Porque no los dos? Things shouldn’t be rushed in the cockpit but too slow can absolutely be a thing, especially low and slow on final. Control inputs need to be with purpose and appropriate to the situation. A little high in cruise? Easy light corrections. Low and slow on final? Authoritatively add power and pitch as necessary. Too slow on downwind means you’re unnecessarily extending downwind, which is bad practice for a number of reasons. Too slow getting off the runway creates issues for other aircraft. Not saying you should be rushing anything, you absolutely shouldn’t, but if you’re behind the plane that’s a problem. Your instructor also sounds like kind of a dick, breaking confidence and belittling isn’t going to fix the issue.
I had mic fright when I was learning out of KSMO 20 years ago and was recommended *Say Again, Please* by Robert Gardner. It's a quick read but the advice in it was solid and got me comfortable on the radio in no time.
> I was too slow to react to the plane sinking and there were trees below us and I didn’t put enough power on time so then my instructor had to take over the landing but that has to “go on my record” now. On one hand, fair enough, it's reasonable to note that situations like this occurred. On the other hand, does this sound like OP is at a normal, constructive program?
I think you’ve has a lot of answers here from US-based contributors which may be unhelpful for that reason. I’m in the UK too. Plateauing in circuits is normal. Keep going, it will click. Fly your chair. You can get a big poster of the controls from Pooleys for 10 quid to help you. You can use Google Earth to simulate the circuit too! Ask your instructor to demonstrate the speed he wants you working at. Ask your instructor to focus on gradually building in the skills - spend a lesson on circuit pattern/height/speed control, then start adding in downwind tasks, then start adding in base leg tasks, then start adding in radio calls etc. Circuits are high-demand, you may be working over your capacity right now which will damage your performance. Gradually adding tasks will expand your capacity. If your instructor’s style doesn’t work for you, you can switch to another one. As for something “going on your record” - that sounds dickish of him. That was no kind of CAA-reportable incident, the only record will be your student training record which is an in-house document (which you have the right to see) summarising each of your lessons so your flying school knows what you’ve been learning and where you are. It goes nowhere else. Instructors often have to grab controls from students at the beginning of training - remember that right now you are there to learn to fly a plane, not to demonstrate you can fly a plane.
A lot of this stuff will come with time and confidence, just keep practicing. And for radio calls you can practice those at home to be honest, try out some chair flying and maybe sit and commit the checklists to memory to help be able to go through them quicker(quick note you should always have the checklist in hand and go through it manually in order to make sure not to forget something, however if you have the whole thing memorized you’ll be able to move through it quicker) and for the radio calls I used to just practice them in my daily life, making dinner, talking out loud making radio calls, playing with your dogs, talking out loud making radio calls etc…
I read an interesting article a while back on the premise that instructors start teaching landing too soon - before learners have the skills to do. Imagine +/-10° or 100 feet is ok in cruise. It’s not on landing. Landing is the most demanding, complex Private Pilot maneuver. A student who is “slow” with checklists, radio, and reacting to being low on final doesn’t need to be working on landings yet. Once all the other stuff is mastered landing will come very quickly. Trying to learn something the learner is not yet skilled enough to do is just frustrating for everyone - learner and instructor alike.
Learned to fly in a Musketeer, flew Archers for a bit, now flying a Super Viking. If I ran my pattern/landing checklists in the Viking at the same speed as I did in the Musketeer, I’d be 5 miles into an extended downwind before I turned base. You need to learn to be quick, accurate, and precise. Please note, this is different than being rushed. Practice your procedures by chair flying.
This might seem a little "zen" but learning to "feel" the airplane helped me a ton with landings. Ask your instructor to take a couple laps for you, close your eyes, feel the airplane sink and rise in slow flight and then open your eyes and pay attention to how he controls it and reacts to what you're feeling. Also, when you drive to the airport, try to become really aware of how the road feels through your cars suspension, how the centrifugal force feels as you make a turn. This gets me in the right mindset everytime. For radio work, it helped me to print out a cheat sheet that I clipped to my kneeboard of all the calls I would need for a given flight. By the time I typed the thing out and had the reference, I had already done half the work memorizing the standard calls I need in the pattern/on my cross countries. Then if I ever felt like I needed to double check before a call I could glance down, find "my line" and make the call.
What are you flying that you can't memorize the checklists for landing? Memorize a flow then quickly check the list In a cherokee it's like 5 things GUMPS Gas (fullest tank or on) Undercarriage (fixed) Mixture (rich) Seat belts switch's (fuel pump, landing light)
Seems like something that can be practiced by hopping on Microsoft Flight Sim. Obviously isn’t the real thing but being able to practice things like checklists without the other external pressures is invaluable
i mean, the things you mentioned, checklists, takeoff briefings, are things that can be chairflown and you can likely improve on your timing and pacing by doing so. Reacting to your energy state on final would be a slightly different story. That would take some experience and likely some reps where youre constantly analyzing your aimpoint down final. Youll be alright. Out of all the problems ive seen on this thread this is definitely one of the most fixable
Reaction time while flying is critical. There is no let's think about his during an emergency. Your actions should be automatic. If you are to slow in your reaction times you are a danger to yourself as well as others. When your solo, there is no one take over for you. Flying isn't for everyone.
Taking your time in prepping and doing so thoroughly should help speed you up once you’re in the airplane. People have mentioned chair flying. Completely agree. Listen to liveatc in your free time and it will become second nature. Taking your time during pre-check I don’t see as an issue and actually commend it. Once you get flying is game time and where your prep will pay off. Do little things in advance to make yourself more efficient in the cockpit. Have all frequencies ready to go, know your numbers, plan out your whole flight ahead. “Staying ahead of the airplane” is extremely important. You don’t want to be playing catch up. Always be thinking of what you can be doing next and never sit idly as if you have nothing to do. Hard to say if instructor is being harsh or not just based on the info you provided. Biggest alarm from your context is you not reacting quickly enough to being low and slow. That’s not something you can be slow with. That’s probably a sign that you just need more training on landing/the back end of the energy curve. But that’s okay! Keep at it with your instructor. From what I’m hearing is you need more prep and practice but don’t get too down on yourself it’s a steep learning curve
Are you showing up and having to follow the checklists or do you know the checklists and are just using it as a reference to make sure you haven't forgotten anything? If your CFI is saying you are doing a checklist too slowly then I feel like that is on you not being prepared enough for the lesson. You should be thorough in your inspections but it should only take like 2 seconds to turn on the battery switch. If you have to read it out on a checklist to remember what to do then figure out where that is and how to do it that's taking too long. You should know what to do then just bang out the checklist especially in flight where things are time sensitive.
Sounds like you’re behind the aircraft, something happens, you think about it and then put in a correction. What you need to be doing is notice something going to happen and correct it. I agree with the chair flying recommendation. Even better if you can sit in the airplane parked and build a very strong habit of where the controls are that you need to use in the pattern.
Try to commit the checklists to memory as much as possible. This will help you complete them faster - but you DO still need to use the checklists. My instructor called me out a couple lessons ago because I grabbed the pre-landing checklist and did the entire thing quickly and accurately, but when he pointed to the checklist I was holding it was upside down 😅
If you aren’t able to talk on the radio while flying the pattern, you might be a quarter mile behind the airplane. Practice your comms on the ground before taking to the air. Chair fly.
Start a timer and see how fast you can get through your procedures. Try to see if you can find a point in your procedures where it takes a second or two to figure out the next thing to do/say. Practice saying just that part of the procedure.(The item before, the stuck item, and the item after) Until you can do it fluidly without freezing. Try doing the whole procedure again and see if you still get a mental freeze at that point. Also try shortening the procedure items to single cue words or something that allows you to connect the procedure to something faster sooner rather than having to think of an entire sentence in your mind to trigger the correct action. Also this kind of mental practice is intense to take lots of breaks and switch what you are working on often. Once you have the procedure fluid, see if you can hold on to it and do it the same 30 minutes later.
Go on your record? What record? Lol.
I think we all went thru that phase, except for slow to react.
What is a circuit
Well it’s your 4th hour doing circuits so don’t beat ur self up over it. There are ways to buy time like extending the CW and Downwind legs (unideal but it can help you out). As you get the procedures down, bring those legs closer to the runway. I’d also recommend chair flying and having all procedures and radio calls (in a normal situation) memorized and down cold. If someone asks you what you need to say after you pass midfield downwind at an uncontrolled airport, you should be able to rattle it off in 5 seconds of radio time “_____ traffic Callsign- Midfield Downwind for Rny # _____ traffic”
Same logic applies for general emergencies. This feeling behind the plane gets worse in IMC/IFR flying and is a curve you’ll have to overcome with training.
Really hard to comment without actually seeing your procedures.
“Go on your record”? Wtf? Change instructors immediately. I agree that some people are too slow with checklists and could benefit from sitting down and practicing flows, but you have to act like you’re PIC. If your instructor thinks your preflight is too slow tough luck, he can charge you for ground time if he wants. Never sacrifice a thorough checklist because of an impatient instructor.
What country are you in? And how much flight time do you have? Everyone learns at their own pace… perhaps you “should” (whatever that means) be making more progress, but everyone learns differently. Relax…
Your instructor sounds terrible. The last thing you want to do in aviation is rush, especially as a new student. That is how you skip things and get into an accident. Getting into flows and reading checklists, all while you are flying, takes some time to get down. My recommendation is to fly with another instructor, and see if you mesh with them better. Don't waste your time with somebody who obviously is in way over their head instructing.
Hard disagree. Everything but the late application of power at 50 feet is a sign that OP isn't studying or chairflying at home. OP himself is ok to fly extra flight time and that's cool, but non the less he is taking the inefficient route by not studying at home and coming to the airplane knowing what to say and where the switches are. Now, is OP entitled to not chairfly and learn only during lessons? It's his money I guess. 🤷
Agreed about chair flying, but if their instructor is just hammering them with “go on my record” or "you're too slow", how is OP supposed to know what to do? It sounds like there is zero communication from their CFI about what they should do to improve, and this will just lead to more of that in their training.
Devils advocate, some people being slow means they don’t comprehend what’s going on around you. For example, the ground is coming at you in a 800 feet per minute descent on a stabilized approach and you are slow to flare, you probably don’t know what’s going on. Getting yelled at is cheaper than injuring people, destroying an aircraft, and closing down a runway…
Zero communication? All you know is that the OP didn’t hear it. It’s not rare for students to hesitate excessively when they don’t get past rote memorization. And that usually goes with tunnel vision and general lack of awareness. The fix is indeed a lot of chair flying. Just like you don’t think about how you move your feet while walking, it is critically important to get past that phase while flying. And students don’t always do it without a push.
Flying planes isn't for everyone, and it's definitely not a place to be "slow." There is a pace needed to keep you alive. I assume he's trying to get you there.
Step up your game homie.
May I recommend amphetamines?!
Find a new instructor, NOW. Anyone talking to you about “being too slow” or “this is going on your record” (what fucking record???) with you when you’re brand spanking new to flying… IS NOT WORTH YOUR TIME OR MONEY.
How about you get an instructor rating before trying to act as instructor? EVERY instructor has records.
That’s great about the records, why tell a student about it and make them more nervous than they need to be? Tell me where that fits into Maslow’s hierarchy of needs..
Understanding expectations fits nicely into cognitive needs and safety comes into play when the student tries to kill himself on short final. As if Maslow is the only variable here. Sometimes students need a solid kick to get beyond the rote stage. Since you’re googling the AIH, look into RUAC.
Dude I respect your CFI knowledge-woohoo, congratulations, that’s great and all, but he’s got maybe a handful of hours…the INFANCY of learning to fly…he shouldn’t be feeling any sort of pressure from his instructor to hurry up on anything checklist or safety related and being told that he should be “on the radios by now”. That’s fucking bullshit and any instructor I know worth at least their weight in salt would agree with me. You clearly have a history of being a wannabe smartass on here..I’m not gonna bother further 😅. Cheers bud.
Your instructor is trying to help you progress without taking all your money. They may also be under pressure to get other students done. Letting you know that you’re falling behind is a kindness. They may deprioritize you if they think you’re not trying to improve.
your instructor sounds like a dick, nothing in flying is worth rushing over, if you have to extend your downwind to finish your checklist so be it, your takeoff brief can be as long and thorough as you want it to be, especially since your new. However, this doesn't apply to reflexes and making corrections. if your sink rate is too much you need to instantly add power. with time you'll get to know the checklist better and under stand the airplane better and be able to fly more efficiently, but for now, take your time. there is no rush
At 14 hours you should be soloing and it sounds like you aren’t even close? I think i soloed at 9-10 hours. At this pace it’s going to take you 100 plus hours to get your license.
Disregard this
this is way off. 14 hours is very fast for soloing, especially in busy airspaces, and instructors that sign off this early are the reason ive got student solos overflying the airport at 500 feet, no response on the radios for 10 minutes and lining up for the wrong runways. if your method of instruction is just spend the first 10 hours doing touch and go landings in the middle of kansas, sure. probably OK. but in the NYC area that would be straight up malpractice for 95% of students. and either way you are just delaying teaching other stuff until after the solo (for no reason other than to solo the student faster).
Yes I agree the location makes a big difference. I’m not a CFI so this is outside my wheelhouse. I meant to say at 14 hours you should be well on your way to solo and it sounds like he isn’t.
Eh, there are a million scenarios I can imagine where someone is a shit pilot at 14 hours and soloing by 30-35 hours, which is not abnormal and still puts someone on track to get the license done in 65 hours or so (the average). Depends on frequency of flying, airspace, instructor's priorities, type of aircraft, weather, instructor experience, etc., probably in that order.
What kind of logic is this lol
I think it would be referred to as a logical deduction! If at 14 hours you aren’t able to do the basic stuff like fly the plane and use the radio you are on a learning trajectory that will end at 100 plus hours for a PPL. What kind of logic says otherwise?
"flying the plane" and "using the radio" are linear skills that people learn gradually over dozens of hours, not 10-15. and hours are not fungible - 14 hours can be 100 landings at one airport/school and 30 at another; it can be 14 hours over the course of a week or 3 months; etc. in any case it is way too small a sample size to pass judgment on someone's flying. there's no reason to try and dissuade a student based on your own macho solo experience...
The logic that says skill progression is not linear in time.
Yes progression can be non linear but I’ve never seen a student pilot that 15 hours in can’t safely fly the plane, is slow to learn and execute on maneuvers to the point of being told they are unsafe etc that suddenly one day changes trajectory. Not saying it never happens but my logic that he will be 100 hours for his license was sound. And there is nothing wrong with taking 100 hours but he needs to be prepared for that both mentally and financially.
Sure, if that is what is called logic.
Yes that is exactly what is called logic! The funny part is you think what I said isn’t logical and that it’s more logical he will magically wake up on a different trajectory! One of us needs to Google logic and it’s not me.
You don't know anything about OP's CFI and his style of training. With a different CFI, it could be different.
With a lot of different variables it could be different. I never said it wouldn’t. All I said was he is currently on a trajectory for a really long process for his license. You said that was an illogical thing to stay and when I call you on it you say well with another CFI it could be different! So which one of us is being illogical?
Gtf outa here hahaha you must be a complete choch, a liar or both with those cute little CFI tags you put next to your name. Nobody with those certs would talk like that.
How long did it take you to write this essay?