Avion puts it, but it’s not only a
preoccupation with instruments
that can be the problem.
Maintaining a good lookout–
knowing how to use your eyes
effectively–is a skill by itself, and
developing a student’s scanning
habits is very important.
Koort says that SFC drills
ALAP (Attitude, Lookout,
Attitude, Performance) into their
students so it becomes muscle
memory. Nonetheless, he says that
the lack of “active looking” is still a
common problem.Assumptions
Interestingly, the Bunbury
Flying School team nominated
“assumptions” as one of their
commonly found student
mistakes. Assumptions can take
many forms, and are potentially
dangerous. “I presumed you’d
already checked the oil.” “I
assumed you knew about that.” “I
worked on a fuel burn of 20 litres
per hour.” These assumptions are
most noticeable to the Bunbury
team during the early phases
of navigation training, where
assumptions about wind and trackand lower limits and weight and
balance become more important.
In the 1980s, a student doing
run-up checks in a Cessna 150
at Canberra found the carb heat
control pulled further out than
usual, and there was no RPM
drop. The student assumed that it
wasn’t important, but it was later
found that the cable had detached
and the heater box had collapsed.
The engine lost power on take-off
and the aircraft was substantially
damaged. A costly assumption!Checklists
Checklists were something that
Koort from SFC found to be
difficult for some students. He says
the main pre-f light checks error is
rushing. He provides this example.
“Let’s say you’re a student, and
the instructor tells you to be ready
by 1.00 pm. It’s 10 to 1 and you
realise you haven’t ordered fuel.
The fuel truck arrives while you’re
checking the oil and you skip some
bits and close the cowl. After the
fuel truck leaves, you resume your
pre-f light after the close cowling
step. The distraction has resulted in
you missing the primer line check.”BUNBURY FLYING SCHOOLAUSTRALIAN FLYING July – August 201860 Flight Training australianflying.com.au
motivation problem. The cost of
f lying training can be a powerful
motivator, but he says VET loans
can be seen as free money. “If you’ve
got a $100,000 loan for a CPL, it’s
not physically tangible. You haven’t
had to work for the money, and
you don’t understand its value.”
He explains that it becomes easy
for someone to waste a 3.5 hours
multi-engine IFR training f light
because “yeah, no, I’ve been slack.”Lookout!
The Bunbury team nominates
not keeping a good lookout
for traffic as another common
mistake. “Having your eyes inside
the cockpit instead of outside”
is the way Schwertner from ParMotivation
Willingness to do homework and
pre-lesson preparation is often
tied to motivation. A common
understanding amongst the CFIs
interviewed was there that is a
difference between the approaches
of mature and young pilots.
Mature students tend to study
hard; they’ve had life experience.
“When they’ve been to a meeting
at work without preparation, they
know to expect an arse-kicking,”
noted one of the CFIs. That’s
not to say that the divide is clear
cut. Some student pilots still in
secondary school will be self-
motivated, and many are used to
doing homework.
The Bunbury team point out
that it helps the student to keep
their goal in mind to avoid losing
motivation. The power of positive
encouragement from instructors
cannot be under-estimated.
A 2010 study in the United
States by AOPA estimated that
70% to 80% of student pilots
drop out of training before they
receive their licence. Along
with the obvious financial and
medical problems, the reasons
quoted included not setting clear
goals. It has been suggested that
instructors should ask student
pilots, before their first lesson
why they want to be a pilot. It
is important to ensure that the
student remembers that “why”
throughout their training.
Koort makes the interesting
observation that VET student
loans are sometimes part of the“ the transmit button is known
as 'the dumb button'; press
it and you lose brain function”
Checklists: some students nd
them too difcult to deal with.Preparation is important for any light, and poor preparation is probably the easier mistake to correct.BUNBURY FLYING SCHOOL