Flight Training - December 2019 - 8

UNUSUAL ATTITUDE BY DAVE HIRSCHMAN

As a pilot who habitually questions
conventional aviation wisdom, Editor at
Large DAVE HIRSCHMAN is used to being
in the minority.
dave.hirschman@aopa.org

EXPECT PUSHBACK
Teaching students is easy compared to peers.

When flying with a primary student, you as the CFI are the expert; you're responsible for the safe conduct of the flight; and you sign off the student's logbook at the
end to record the training, or make endorsements.
Flying with peers-especially fellow CFIs-isn't so tidy.
Expect your advice to be taken with a grain of salt; the left-seat pilot may be the
pilot in command, and he or she may not be seeking an endorsement at all.
To set a constructive tone, I try to drop the counterproductive CFI habit of impersonating an FAA designee. When I'm checking out another pilot in new-to-them aircraft,
for example, I don't care whether their maneuvers are within checkride standards. Steep
turns, slow flight, and other maneuvers give pilots a familiar framework that allows them
to interact with an airplane through a range of speeds, attitudes, and configurations.
Mistakes are good because pilots quickly recognize them and make adjustments.
Airline pilots do lots of peer-to-peer training-and one airline check airman I
knew used to endorse his fellow captains and first officers during the first hour of
what were typically multi-day simulator sessions.
"Doing the sign-offs first eliminates the stress," he said. "Once that was out of the
way, we could focus on actual learning."
In a perfect world, peer-to-peer education is relaxed, respectful, and collegial-but
the world I inhabit isn't always that way. While checking out a fellow CFI in a newto-her airplane, things went poorly from the outset. When I asked her to leave the
alternator off during engine start, she pointed out that my request ran contrary to the
aircraft checklist. I told her it was a personal preference based on a leading Beechcraft
8 FLIGHT TRAINING DECEMBER 2019

restorer who had determined that leaving
alternators off during engine start and shutdown improved their reliability.
"So you don't have any actual data,"
she said. "You're telling me to ignore the
checklist based on a feeling you have."
She elected to handle the radios, and as
we taxied toward the runway hold-short
line, I pointed out that we were still on the
airport ground radio frequency.
"You don't think I know that?" she said.
In the air, she flew the airplane well.
She instantly noticed that diminishing
speed made the long-body airframe particularly heavy in pitch, small movements
of the pedestal-mounted throttle resulted
in large changes in manifold pressure, and
extending the landing gear created rapid
deceleration and a strong nose-down
moment. She executed a flawless descent,
and her landings were on speed and within
100 feet of the aiming point.
Our debrief, however, was surprisingly testy. I told her that her airmanship
was excellent and, except for her
landings being slightly left of center,
I had few suggestions for improving
her stick-and-rudder technique. But I
regarded her defensive, argumentative,
and frequently interrupting personal
style as a serious problem that inhibited
cockpit communication and was likely
to hinder her future learning in this and
other aircraft.
She was a peer, of course, and could
disregard my advice at will. But I had flown
this kind of airplane all over the continent
for a decade, and I had made many mistakes
that she could avoid by allowing me to tell
her about them. Instead, she was missing
that chance by interrupting and talking
over me.
"If I tell you something you disagree
with or decide to ignore, you can just say
'Roger,'" I said. "Message received."
Were these personal criticisms fair?
Were they beyond the bounds of strictly
aviation-related topics that CFIs ought to
discuss in a debrief? Would I have regarded
her as "assertive"-not "argumentative"-if
she were male? Everything about this conversation made me uneasy, yet the subjects
seemed too important to ignore.
By the end of our 15-minute debrief,
however, she made a joke that gave me hope.
"So, in a nutshell, what you're saying is,
'Listen up and move right,'" she said with a
laugh. "Got it."
Roger. FT

Flight Training - December 2019

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