How do we teach the most important thing?

[Gil Buettner]

I drove to the airport this morning under low overcast skies, and was a bit surprised to see a Cessna in the traffic pattern. When I got there and looked at the METAR, the ceiling was 1,200 feet AGL, meaning that trainer in the pattern was either flying a low pattern to stay legal in Class G, or was violating the Class E cloud clearances.

A few hours later, my fellow CFI was nearby and I asked him what the ceiling was when he and his student took off. "1,200," he said, "I wanted him to see what that is like." (His student is a high school senior who has not yet soloed..)

I told him that the hardest thing to teach is judgment, and he may have sent the wrong message by showing the young man he could stretch the rules.

I am the most senior instructor at this flight school, but other than that fact, I have no authority over the other CFIs. My fellow instructor is 29 years old. I sure hope he got my point.

[Terry Carraway]

'Good judgment comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgment'

[A. Niemyer]

Someone I know and respect lost some shine to his polished reputation when he told he took students up into known icing in non-FIKI Cessna 172's so they would be able to see what icing looked like and learn to stay away from it religiously. I agree, perhaps the wrong message was being sent.

I can think of several folks, quite well respected and regarded, who died in aircraft accidents doing really stupid things, usually weather related.

[Bill Bridges]

I ran a lot of scud when in SE Asia, mostly in the mountains. It came with the territory. I swore that if I made it home I'd never do it again, and didn't.

[Dusty Rider]

I drove to the airport this morning under low overcast skies, and was a bit surprised to see a Cessna in the traffic pattern. When I got there and looked at the METAR, the ceiling was 1,200 feet AGL, meaning that trainer in the pattern was either flying a low pattern to stay legal in Class G, or was violating the Class E cloud clearances.

A few hours later, my fellow CFI was nearby and I asked him what the ceiling was when he and his student took off. "1,200," he said, "I wanted him to see what that is like." (His student is a high school senior who has not yet soloed..)

I told him that the hardest thing to teach is judgment, and he may have sent the wrong message by showing the young man he could stretch the rules.

I am the most senior instructor at this flight school, but other than that fact, I have no authority over the other CFIs. My fellow instructor is 29 years old. I sure hope he got my point.

Seems like that's really the best one can do, Gil. My commercial CFI, a retired airline pilot and still active instructor, lives on an airpark in Colorado and has been known to approach pilots who are doing things they shouldn't, or are about to do something they shouldn't, and engage them in friendly conversation about the merits of *not doing those things. All anyone can do is offer the wisdom; it's up to the pilot what he or she is going to do with it.

[A. Niemyer]

I drove to the airport this morning under low overcast skies, and was a bit surprised to see a Cessna in the traffic pattern. When I got there and looked at the METAR, the ceiling was 1,200 feet AGL, meaning that trainer in the pattern was either flying a low pattern to stay legal in Class G, or was violating the Class E cloud clearances.

A few hours later, my fellow CFI was nearby and I asked him what the ceiling was when he and his student took off. "1,200," he said, "I wanted him to see what that is like." (His student is a high school senior who has not yet soloed..)

I told him that the hardest thing to teach is judgment, and he may have sent the wrong message by showing the young man he could stretch the rules.

I am the most senior instructor at this flight school, but other than that fact, I have no authority over the other CFIs. My fellow instructor is 29 years old. I sure hope he got my point.

Gil,
I recently went into Cumberland, WI (KUBE) on an IFR day to drop off my plane and hitch a ride back to FAR with another Cirrus buddy. Ceiling was around 700-800 broken-to-overcast, albeit a thin, benign layer. I was more than surprised to see a very nice RV-7A on the ramp there as well. My buddy said the guy came in under the ceilings just after him, just after he'd landed on the RNAV 09 approach.

My friend did his best to ask in as benign a way as he could muster about coming in totally VFR, apparently just to fuel up. Guy acted as innocent as the day is long, with something along the line of "Yeah, great viz underneath this morning, isn't it?" I think the term is "Normalizing risk deviancy." Guy was of an older cohort, and I'm betting he's doing something he's gotten away with for decades, because "Old Jack" taught him this behavior when he was learning to fly. They usually do, right up to the time of their fatal crash.