Well, its been awhile since my last post, and I want to talk about a couple of articles that I read a while ago. I read them for my CFI class, and I want to pull one thing that impressed me most out of each.
The first article I read was about Training Future Captains, from the Instructor Report Flight Training Magazine. The article talks about how airline captains are expected to act and perform. The author, Mark Danielson, said something that was really interesting to me. He said that a captain is not there to teach their first officer. This is something that would be tough. With someone that has much more experience, I would expect a more helpful response, but I suppose if you are already hired on as a FO, you had better know your airplane's systems and all operating rules and regulations. This applies to any private pilot continuing his/her training. A pilot is held accountable, and should know his stuff.
Another article I read was about landings, and how when landing "clicks", you can land the airplane. In the article it talks about being patient and how landing just has to be something that is practiced. No one just does it perfectly from the beginning. I remember when I was a private pilot student, learning how to land. I hated not being good at it, and I got easily frustrated. When I teach my students I will make sure and stress that landing is something that has to be learned through experience, and finding that "touch", though when you find it its all gravy from there.
And finally, the last article I read was about visualizing what the airplane is doing will help students learn. While some might think that visualizing how things work would only help visual learners, this is not always true. Flying airplanes is a very visual task. The landing sequence is based entirely on what the pilot sees. If a student is able to visualize maneuvers and other flying applications he/she will progress at a very quick rate. So if all else fails... Just Visualize It!!
