Learning to Trike
Time is Flight Training’s Critical Cost
Categories: Trike Talk, Training / Learning to Fly a Trike, Safety
Time is Flight Training’s Critical Cost
By Scott Spangler on January 7th, 2013
In discussing a wide range of subjects starting with flight training, much has been said about the dilatory and disaffecting consequences of aviation’s financial requirements. But in order of importance, money must follow time, a finite resource that can never be renewed, only used efficiently.
If not effectively and efficiently guided by a well thought out curriculum designed for the student’s particular needs and acted upon by a teacher and student committed to its goals, learning to fly can squander vast amounts of both time and money if either member of this educational team is not prepared, on-time, and ready to work.
Full article HERE at AOPA
Comments
Wow, that's written a bit heavy, but I think the point was similar to what I found when training.
It really helped me to do my homework before hand. Read the books, watch the DVD's, do the practice questions, make notes etc. That way, when I showed up to fly the trike, I got much better bang for my buck because instead of asking rudimentary questions- I already knew those to some extent- I was just fine tuning my more rapidly growing knowledge by bouncing it off the instructor. Also, even when we were not talking, and I was just flying the trike, my head was filled with all the stuff I read and I was evaluating how that made sense (or not). If not, I'd ask a a better question and receive instant shaping of a larger knowledge structure. Instead of 1 or 2 bricks of a huge structure.
Try and do the weather, the planning, get it wrong, get corrected, learn more and faster.
You know what would be cool here is if we shared resources for learning on this site:
Links, articles, etc.
Also, I have several ground school DVD's that I could loan, etc.
We could create a lending group here within this group.
I did my training on a residential course where I lived with the instructor and his family.. Eating, breathing, sleeping and living flying helped me enormously. The aircraft were in the barn 15 seconds from the house so even spending time on the ground around the aircraft was hugely beneficial. Ground school for the exams wasn't just formal lessons but a quick diagram on the board over dinner or breakfast too. I don't know if any of you guys have such courses where you learned??
Yeah Andy, immersion! I immersed myself in studies. You immersed yourself in the residential course. It is certainly well known that if you intend to spend ~25 +/1 hours in the trike to get your license. You will spend more than double that amount if you do it 1 hour per month for 25 months. And you will never retain enough ground schooling to pass the tests (much less fly safely, which is the point) if you don't spend some serious focussed time on it and just get it done. The immersive way is more efficient and effective than dragging it out for years like some people do. Same ~25 +/1 (plus ground school) hours on the one hand with success, and basically a fresh newbie at 1 hour per month at the end of 25 months.
(NOTE: Don't expect, like I did, and everyone else does, to get it done in one 40 hour week-- won't happen! Weather, etc, and your brain & cerebellums input capacity is just not capable. Learning theory states that there is s certain amount of repetition (learn, forget, relearn) that must occur for long term memory.)
I don;t know of anywhere here you can live at the instructor's house/hangar- there may be. But many people stay with friends nearby, in a hotel or RV on the airport. Borrow a friend's RV-- most of the time RV's are in storage doing nothing ....
The flying school I went to is quite unique in the flexwing world. The family atmosphere is what attracts a lot of the students and they go back time after time. The opportunity to talk about the day's flying with another student is also invaluable. As a student in a flexwing, you can only compare your flying skills with the instructor. They, of course, make everything seem so effortless which I found frustrating as my efforts were not effortless !!! To speak with others who made similar mistakes was reassuring.
Each to their own I guess.. We're all different !