Flight Training - May 2015 - 49

said Miller. "He or she will be able to tailor lessons to
help address those concerns and continue to encourage
you along the way. A lot of times, what a student feels
he or she is alone in experiencing is something that
other students-and the CFI-have experienced as well.
The CFI can help you understand you aren't alone."
Williams noted that the most successful students
often give feedback to their instructors. "Instructors
rely on information from the student in order to tailor
the training to the individual," he said. "If your instructor doesn't welcome feedback, find another one."
THEY SELF-ASSESS. Are you a visual or auditory learner?
Would you prefer to be hands-on right away, or do you
want to mull it over first? Assessing how you learn can
help you and your instructor play to your strengths.
"An engineer may benefit from reading graphs
and technical reports and committing numbers to
memory," Hirschman said. "A poet may prefer listening intently to flying stories and visualizing different
scenarios. Students who know how they learn will find
the aviation information they need in a format that's
most meaningful to them."
Self-assessment is a critical part of flight training from
the beginning, when the student must decide whether
he or she is ready to commit the required time and
financial resources to the task. During training, a student
can benefit from asking the instructor how he or she is
doing-and what to work on, according to Ferwerda.
"Often instructors can be concerned about discouraging a student, but if we're invited-in a positive way-to
provide criticisms, it makes our job easier, and provides
the student with good situational awareness."
THEY 'LIVE IT.' "You can't just think of learning to fly
as a purely intellectual activity," noted Horne. "This
means flying as much and as often as possible-not once
a week, especially in the beginning. It also means seeking out fellow students and forming new relationships."
Connecting to a flying community-whether other
student pilots, a flying club, or regulars at the airport
café-can help
keep student
pilots interested
and motivated.
Ferwerda noted that
students who come to
social events and want
to be airport bums

"usually maintain stronger self-motivation to complete
their flying goals. They also surround themselves with
a support structure that provides outside support, not
just internal."
THEY RELAX. Good students are confident in their
ability to learn, according to Staudt. That doesn't mean
they feel like they don't need guidance from an instructor, but shedding self-doubt can help students learn.
And, according to Hirschman, the best students are
happy and relaxed in the air.
"The cockpit is a terrible classroom," he said. "To be
able to learn in that cramped, noisy, stressful place, a student has got to be calm enough to recognize the nuances
of what's going on. If they're too tense, they'll miss it."
THEY BOUNCE BACK. Learning to fly is a challenge, but
the best students don't let the frustrations get them
down. Any creative thinker can compile a list of reasons
to stop flying, Ferwerda said, but the goal is to make a
list of the reasons you can succeed.
"Even under the best conditions, flight training is
full of frustration, setbacks, and learning plateaus,"
Hirschman added. "The weather is awful, airplanes
break, maintenance takes longer than expected, your
instructor gets the flu, stalls are scary, and consistently
soft landings are elusive. Every student pilot encounters
adversity and moments when they aren't certain they
can succeed, or flying doesn't seem worth the effort and
expense. The best students aren't deterred, however.
They keep trying and they know that, eventually, they
will find a way-and their victory will be sweeter
because of the difficulties."
AOPA eMedia Editor Sarah Deener has been a private pilot
since 2011.

MAY 2015 FLIGHT TRAINING

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