First things first

Cases in point: the cliché that There is only one opportunity to make a first impression.

While helpful, memory joggers are not substitutes for lesson plans. Those staples of instruction provide an organized outline in writing of what the CFI must do, and in what order, to teach a specific maneuver effectively from the start. Bottom line: Lesson plans are essential elements of the learning process.

First Lesson: No lesson is more significant than a student’s first lesson, which traditionally addresses use of controls and the four fundamentals of level flight, climbs, descents, and turns. The first lesson also teaches and demonstrates the critical importance of attitude in achieving safe flight and desired performance. Furthermore, the format of training—teach, demonstrate, drill, and test—is introduced by the CFI and used for each task to be learned.

Students may be impatient to fly, and new instructors anxious to fill their logbook with hours aloft, but the place to teach is on the ground. An aircraft is a poor classroom—distracting, noisy, and not conducive for introducing new concepts. Aircraft are, however, the place for instructors to demonstrate what was taught on the ground, as well as the place for students to drill and be tested.

Start the ground session by stating that flying an aircraft is fundamentally different than driving a car. An aircraft operates in three dimensions, not two, and the interface between road and tires constrains the car’s motion in ways that do not exist between the aircraft and the surrounding air. Furthermore, aircraft have a primary response to control inputs plus a secondary response. For example, the primary response to deflecting the ailerons is a bank that turns the aircraft; the secondary response is adverse yaw that resists the turn. Typically, a car has only one response to a control action: e.g., turning when the steering wheel is rotated, accelerating when the gas pedal is depressed, slowing when the brakes are applied.

How flight controls are used to pitch, roll, and yaw an aircraft must be introduced during the student’s first ground session, prior to flight and after relevant terms such as aircraft axes of rotation are understood. Also, the ground session emphasizes that magnitude of flight control input affects the quickness of the aircraft’s change in pitch or bank position, not the magnitude of the desired change. The amount of pitch or bank change depends upon how long the flight control is applied.

Ground instruction prior to first flight should include the basics of stability—the design characteristic that allows an aircraft to reestablish its initial flight condition when disturbed either by a control input or air turbulence, provided weight is properly distributed. Learning is facilitated when students feel safe.

Emphasize Attitude: Attitude is defined as position of the aircraft with respect to the line where earth and sky meet—i.e. the horizon.

Attitude is a fundamental factor in the safe operation of general aviation aircraft and the primary determinant, along with configuration, in achieving desired aircraft performance. CFIs should add the adage attitude determines airspeed to their collection of phrases that students should keep top of mind when learning to fly.

The ground session prior to a student’s first flight should describe points on the aircraft’s cowling, along with features on the wing struts and/or wing tips that the student can use to establish the position of the aircraft with respect to the horizon. These nose and wing tip “Attitude Reference Points” are introduced during a student’s first lesson and should be used for all flight tasks. Ground sessions should emphasize their importance, and flight demonstrations illustrate their effectiveness in determining the aircraft’s attitude.

Ground preparation concludes with a final review of the first flight lesson plan, with anticipation of demonstrating the aircraft’s attitude and configuration for each of the four fundamentals. Note: Most GA aircraft have five fundamentals since the nose and wing tip reference points with respect to the horizon are different for turns when the student and CFI sit side-by-side.

Instructors must emphasize the nose and wing tip reference points that the student uses for a desired maneuver. An effective teacher asks the student during flight demonstrations, during drill, and during post-flight debriefs what they observed and how that sight picture will be remembered for future flights.

John W. Olcott is a multiengine ATP, CFII, and remote pilot.