Comments on: Help your student and yourself

By: Garry Wing

Garry Wing — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 16:31:18 +0000

I would also urge instructors working with student pilots to get them comfortable with VFR flight following. Even though we teach how to file/open/close a VFR flight plan, the reality in Southern California is once they’re a Private Pilot, they will rarely file VFR flight plans. I’m amazed at how many Privates are not comfortable with or were never shown how to use flight following to traverse Class B & C airspace efficiently and safely.

By: Ryan Short

Ryan Short — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 20:35:32 +0000

These are all good ideas, most of which I’ve been doing already but I wish more CFIs did it because it was good for the student as opposed to being good for their career track. We need more creativity in training, and truthfully, the students generally enjoy trips as well. There are plenty of “boring” flights in flight training as it is. All of my students have to work around two class C airports for their solo cross-countries for the reasons mentioned here. It’s amazing how many private pilots I’ve run into who are hesitant to go anything above class D airspace. We need to train the students for all kinds of flying that they may want to do in the future. Anything less is negligence.

By: Greg Brown

Greg Brown — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 18:55:56 +0000

I would add the suggestion to pick up some instrument students. Not only will that help with communication skills as noted in the post, but it will help prepare you for the instrument flying questions and sim check you can expect on your airline interview.