Inheritance

Taking over a student who has been working with a different instructor presents an additional set of challenges that aren't there when you're lucky enough to start with them from scratch.

Each instructor teaches things in their own way and the challenge as the new instructor is to understand that just because a student was taught to do something differently doesn't automatically mean it's a bad thing.

I've inherited three such students recently that represent, I hope, the full spectrum of how good, or bad, a flight instructor can be.

On the “good” end of the spectrum, I picked up an instrument student from an instructor who was leaving for the airlines. The student was almost ready to take his check ride when I took him on and my job was easy.

We flew once and I was impressed. My only advice was “get your written done and I'll sign you off for the ride.” We flew a few more times, I signed him off and he passed easily. His previous instructor had done a fantastic job, which made my job easy enough that I even felt a bit guilty about being able to credit the successful check ride.

Toward the middle was another instrument student who came to me after doing the bulk of his training with another instructor. I don't know the details but apparently the instructor wasn't totally up to speed with the current IFR environment, and I suppose the Practical Test Standards, and didn't feel comfortable signing the student off for a check ride.

I had mixed emotions about that case. On one hand, good for the instructor knowing his limitations. On the other, it's inexcusable to teach a student without being fully competent on the subject or at the very least being willing to put in the effort to get competent.

I teach instrument flying, if not every day, at least every other day and there's still plenty that I don't know and I study it obsessively.

I really don't know how a part-time instructor, who maybe takes on one or two students a year can do a proper job teaching instrument flying. There are exceptions, for certain, but unless they've spent 40 years flying IFR daily as an airline pilot or something I just don't get it.

Anyway, the student was actually in reasonably good shape when it came to basic instrument flying and it was just a matter of doing some polishing, filling some knowledge gaps and hammering on approaches.

I was a little disappointed that when the weather on our first flight dictated picking up a local IFR clearance my inherited student had never done so, much less flown inside of a cloud.

But, we got through it and long story short, he passed his check ride this week without difficulty.

Finally, on the “this guy shouldn't be teaching” end of the spectrum is one of my private students, who came from another flight school.

We spent some time talking when she first arrived and I was shocked by what I heard.

My student's previous instructor had, over the course of 20 or 25 hours, not taught my student how to land the airplane, spent a fair amount of time yelling at her and damaged her confidence to the point that she was thinking of quitting.

Fundamentally, her instructor had also allowed her to develop some bad habits so we spent the first 10 hours or so fixing those along with setting a relaxed, safe atmosphere in the cockpit.

Essentially, she was a good pilot despite her previous instructor and now just needed to believe that was so. It was tough going, but slowly we managed to get there.

There was no single turning point, but one of the more defining moments came when we went flying on an extremely windy day.

I'm loath to cancel lessons because of high winds. I hated flying on windy days as a student, but my instructor forced me to and as a result I was able to develop a decent crosswind landing technique. I thank him for it to this day.

Anyway, the winds were in the 25 knot range with gusts up to 40. Normally, even I would have stayed on the ground but it was too good a learning opportunity.

After a few wild landings at the nearby Anoka County Airport we headed back to our St. Paul base. The winds were still 25 knots but at least they were more or less in line with the runway.

At about a hundred feet my student looked over and said “I'm going to need some help.”

I looked back, smiled and crossed my arms. “Nope. I know you can do this.”

It wasn't the prettiest landing ever, but it was good enough and better than most pilots would have managed under the circumstances.

When she soloed for the first time this week it was a pretty emotional event all around.