Training and Safety Tip: Never blow a first impression
Make it a positive one
Flight schools wonder and often complain about low student retention. The first lesson on preflighting the aircraft may be one of the reasons.
Many students’ introduction to their training airplane consists of their instructor spending an hour or so on the ramp with the airplane.
“Make sure you have the right fuel; it is this color,” they might say while highlighting a deadly accident caused by misfuelling an avgas airplane with Jet A.
Next, the CFI mentions that wasps can reside in the pitot tube, leading to all sorts of pitot-static system mayhem.
"The propeller will kill you if you don’t show it the respect you would give a coiled cobra." The student is taught to look for bent and damaged flight controls, flat tires, and leaky hydraulic fluid.
Just before lesson No. 2, the instructor may tell the student to “Do a preflight—I’ll be out soon.” Some CFIs even purposefully leave the airplane unsafe to see if the student “catches” it.
This leads the student to think three things:
- My instructor is not very interested in how safe this aircraft is if he lets me perform this vital task after just one lesson.
- Wow, things on airplanes really can go wrong, and I missed this one.
- Flying is dangerous and expensive. I am ready to drop out.
How do you, as a CFI, turn this first impression into a positive experience for your student?
- Plan to accompany the first five or six preflights.
- During the first few lessons, emphasize the positive functions of the items inspected.
- Stress during the preflight lessons that you are looking into the “condition” of the aircraft, and that most problems are as obvious as a flat tire.
- Never leave secret surprises for your student to “discover.”
Preflight training should never be about tricking the client, and it should never be a showcase proving that the instructor knows more than the student. A student’s first impression of the instructor’s professionalism begins with that first physical encounter with the aircraft and influences their decision to continue flying or to quit.
