FOI Blog #4 (Visualization, Mastering the Touchdown, Training Future Captains)

All the these articles provides good techniques and insight. One thing from the visualization article that I can use in my teaching is chair flying. My instructors have told me to do it in the past and it is a great way to gain muscle memory on the proper techniques to emergency procedures. Sitting in a chair and visualizing the cockpit the student can establish a flow on preforming the memory items of the checklist and repeating this over will increase the probability of staying calm in the aircraft and preforming the checklist quickly and efficiently during an emergency. This technique can be used on any flying maneuver if the student will take the time to sit down and really chair fly. Making the Touchdown offers some good points about landing by discussing the approach and separating the round out into 2 phases (level-off and flare). Again I have noticed these techniques before in my training and I will use them on my students.  A 5 minute ground session about the steps to land and letting the student know what is going to happen before the flight can really boost the confidence in a student during the high workload of approach and landing. I will also explain to the student about vision and gaining the mental picture through rehearsal. In my training, I never had a instructor fly a series of low approaches above MCA to ease anxiety and allowing the student to become more comfortable at low altitudes. I think its a good idea and after a few approaches if the student still seems to be really nervous it is a good tool to help the student. Training Future Captains offers a lot of good points to flight training. The article discusses confidence issues and how they relate to flying. This is something that i have noticed with anything in life. If you are not confident and have a bad attitude, your only setting yourself up for failure. Airline captains and first officers are considered equally qualified because they are. The captain might have more time, but the first officer also earned his seat as well. When teaching your student, allowing them to make executive decisions about the flight lets the student view the instructor as a co-pilot and not a superior. This builds confidence. What I've taken away from the article is that it all goes back to day one flight. Instilling proper techniques in analyzing weather, radio communication, checklist usage from the beginning is going to help the student  for the rest of his/her career. The article said flying is as much attitude as skill. Skills come with time, but a good attitude from the start will encourage success and the students desire to fly and hone their skills to perfection.