Fantasy Flight School
In a Perfect World .....
Hello friends. I have been down for personal maintenance since early December, and so have not had the gumption to share any new content. I was officially returned to service on the 23rd of December and tasked with a busy flying schedule starting on Christmas Day. I have often thought; if creating the best pilots possible was the only criteria, what would that flight school look like? Here’s an idea - My Fantasy Flight School.Learning in a Perfect World – Fantasy Flight School
A flight school owner, Wilco Blunt, asked; “what do you consider the best training airplane?” Well, I said, after a long day of testing individuals, impressive for their lack of fundamental knowledge and conceptual foundation; “that is a good question”. In a dream like state, eyes half closed I thought about a perfect world, and in that perfect world I thought about a perfect school, a school for aviators. And I thought about it as if I had been one of the lucky ones to learn flying there. I drifted off into a semi-dream like state and imagined ….
My first day at school was not what I expected. A guy who looked more like a mechanic than a pilot came into our classroom to address our class. We were exactly 12 students, ages 15 to 35, six women and six men. In our conversations prior to the arrival of our instructor, we learned that none of us had previous flight experience of any kind. We had almost nothing in common. One young woman was on summer vacation from college, and there was a guy who was a soldier leaving the army. There was a lady who looked like a suburban house wife, somebody’s mom for sure, and a guy who was, we later found out a musician, hence the long hair. The rest were all different, and everybody seemed to have his or her own idea of what they wanted to do as a pilot. One wanted to be an airline pilot, and another a crop duster. Several wanted to learn aerobatics, and one guy just wanted to learn to fly so he could buy an airplane and fly it to his businesses. One fellow wanted to go into the military as a pilot, and some didn’t really know. The only thing we all had in common was that we were crazy about the idea of flying, and everybody expressed eagerness and impatience. We all wanted to get into an airplane and start flying right away.
So, we were all a little disappointed when a fellow stood up in front of the room and started talking. He carried a big box and put it down next to the door. The man introduced himself as Fred, but failed to tell us if he was our instructor, the school mechanic, or perhaps both. He did not seem to be very comfortable talking to a group. What he said was kind of shocking to me and several of the students.
“Welcome to the first day of your life as an aviator”, he said. “Before we get into the technical details of learning the physics of flight, the aircraft instruments and systems, weather, airspace, navigation, and the rest, there is one thing that you really must understand”, he continued.
I thought he was going to have us fill out a health form or something. Everyone in the room seemed to grow more restless and distracted; we WANTED to learn about instruments and systems, weather, and navigation. What could be so important that we had to delay our education further?
Fred went on… he was saying something about sitting in a box and looking out the window. I had trouble concentrating. He emphasized how important it was to understand so I tried to pay attention.
“The way we control an airplane in flight is by using the flight controls to change its attitude in space… period. You also must ensure that adequate thrust, or in the case of a glider…”; he droned on.
Why was he talking about gliders, I thought? We were all looking at Fred, trying to make sense out of what he was saying, but not really getting much meaning from his talk. He seemed to be saying that we were going to learn a lot of stuff as pilots, but we had to remember a fundamental truth about the way airplanes fly. We control it by looking out the window and changing its attitude using the flight controls. Huh? Fred finished his speech and we tried to process what had been said. Then he started talking again.
“So”, he began, “today I am giving you your first assignment. Here in this box you will find tissue paper, some sticks, cloth, glue, and string. And here are some plans for constructing a kite. Divide into groups of two, and today’s task is for each team to make a kite that will fly.”
Everybody started laughing as we all thought this was a joke. Fred’s right eyebrow raised a millimeter as he waited for us to regain focus; “I will be back this afternoon to check on your kites and I hope to see six of them in the air.” He said, as he was leaving the room, “ good luck”.
We all just sat there, dumbfounded, but we paired up into groups of two and started making kites. It was harder than it sounded. There were no instructions, just some plans. My partner and I were overly concerned with strength, and our kite was so heavy that it would not fly. So we made the sticks smaller, changed the cloth for tissue paper, and it still would not fly because it was unbalanced. We tied some knots in the cloth and made a tail, with some help from another team, and finally….it was too windy to fly a kite.
We waited until the wind calmed down a little, and all six teams launched their creations. Our kite flew high and steady. The other groups had about the same amount of trouble, except one team that must have had some experience. They made a box kite which flew on the first try. Eventually, Fred came by and looked at the six kites flying in the cool evening breeze then left without a word. That was the end of day one of flight school. Although it was an unexpected day, we had learned something about aerodynamic design, and the compromise in airframe construction between strength and weight. We learned about balance, and finally we learned that even when everything was right, the environment was still capable of rendering flight impossible.
Each day of the first week was like this. The very next day a different guy, named Chuck, addressed us. He gave us a slightly different version of the same speech that Fred had made; “the way we control an airplane in flight is by using the flight controls to change its attitude in space. Period.” He repeated. Hearing the same speech on the second day, it made more sense. What he was saying was that we will be learning so many different things, that sometimes the basic concept of how we control the airplane gets lost in all the science and theory of lift, drag, thrust, etc. And, he said, we must always remember that to control an airplane, you change its attitude, and to do that you must first look at the horizon to have a proper reference. We all agreed that it was starting to sound logical. Chuck left us with a box full of balsa wood planks of different thickness, some hardwood dowels, sandpaper, some sharp knives, and glue. He gave us ten minutes of verbal instruction on how to design and build a glider, and then he left.
We built gliders. That evening when the wind was calm, we were all out in the field flying our creations. Some of them flew quite well. We learned about balance and the importance of dihedral. One glider was exceptional. We were in a field with a very slight slope, on the uphill side. The glider was launched downhill, and its glide ratio almost perfectly matched the sloping terrain. On and on it flew, for about a half mile. We were all elated by this and celebrated as a group.
Each day, we had a different instructor and a different task. One day it was assembling an aircraft engine from used parts. We all got very dirty, learned to follow the Lycoming maintenance manual, use a torque wrench, measure with calipers and micrometers, and more. At the end of the day we had an engine on a test stand that our instructor said would start and run, but would be un-airworthy due to the use of old parts.
The next day, we went to the mountains and watched eagles and hawks flying along a cliff face. We used binoculars to see the shape of their wings, how the birds changed them and how they locked into place for riding the ridge waves and the thermals. We took video of birds approaching the nests on cliff ledges and in slow motion we saw the change in shape of the airfoil. We could even see the feathers at the leading edge start to become disturbed by turbulent air as the big birds slowed and extended their claws (landing gear) to land on a branch by the nest. We theorized that it was like a stall warning indicator for the bird.
Each day we heard a slightly different version of the same speech about attitude flying, and visual horizon references. And each day we got some new and unexpected lesson about flying, flight, aircraft systems etc. But we always got a story, lecture, or lesson, on the absolute primacy of accessing horizon reference for attitude, followed by control inputs to make the desired change in state, simultaneously accompanied by an assessment and if necessary, an adjustment of our power setting. This was followed by an assessment of the results of our control inputs on the appropriate flight instruments. This was drilled into our heads again and again so that by the end of this first week we could all recite these lessons from memory.
We had been at flight school for one week and had not even seen a complete airplane let alone sat in one or flown one. We were impatient and frustrated. Later when I became a flight instructor, I learned that the training was done this way strategically. The law of primacy, readiness, interference, and several of the other “laws of learning” were being honored in this plan. Apparently, it worked. After one week of this training we all knew without a doubt how to fly an airplane effectively even though we had never sat in one, and we were all eager, i.e. “ready” to learn in the real airplane. Looking back on my primary training, I think that this was the most important series of lessons, even though it was not particularly satisfying in the short term.
The next week we were split into three groups. Four of us were assigned to gliders, four to Cessna 152 training airplanes, and four to piper J3 Cub tail wheel airplanes. Each group was taught by one of the instructors from the previous week. We were told that eventually we would all get training in all three types, so it would be good for us to share information amongst ourselves to learn as much as possible about the other aircraft. We also started a four hour per day ground school class where we learned all the flight theory, aircraft systems, aviation law, weather, and other knowledge we would need as aviators. Our flying was rotated every week to a different aircraft. In the Piper J3, we learned how to use the rudder, how to fly slowly, how to spin and recover from spins, and more. In the glider, we learned how to maneuver without power, how to find lift, and the concept of energy management. In the Cessna, we learned how to use flight instruments to complement our primary horizon reference, and how to fly solely by instrument reference, as well as navigation and cross country flying procedures.
It was not too long before a synergy of learning in these different types caused quantum proficiency advances in all three. Eventually we all soloed in each, and then we moved rapidly through the rest of the training syllabus. On check ride day, we all took a private pilot test in airplane single engine land, and if we passed, we then took a check ride for adding a glider rating. This ended phase one of flight training at the school for aviators. We were told that with this as our foundation, we would be able to pursue anything else in aviation with success. Phase two consisted of instrument training, advanced cross country, glider aerobatics, and mountain flying. Once again, the training rotated between these different activities. The instrument training was split between a modern GPS equipped glass panel Cessna, and a legacy airplane with VOR, ADF, DME, but no GPS. These aircraft were usually swapped on each successive flight to ensure that the essential skills and concepts were being trained and learned, not just the operation of one type of aircraft display system. …..
“Hey”; Wilco Blunt boomed in his big voice; “are you still with us? “
My eyelids fluttered a little and as I rejoined the present - I said, “Oh, what? Which training aircraft is the best for flight training? Cessna 150, no doubt about it.”
The flight school owner then told me that he was selling all his Cessna 150’s and replacing them with all new Cessna 172s with glass panel flight displays. “That’s what the customer wants.” He said. “That’s the way the industry is going. This is what people expect these days. Nobody wants to get into a smelly old Cessna 152 with lousy performance and crappy radios, so narrow that two big people can hardly fit.”
I left the building feeling a bit sad, comforted only by the memory of my fantasy flight school.
Remember, without safety we have nothing. Always practice new concepts and techniques under the supervision of a qualified flight instructor.
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