Learning to fly is a lot of fun! Few things compare to the exhilarating feeling of soaring high above a city scape, glaring down at a vast and tiny world below. While flight training is extremely rewarding, more than a few aspiring aviators have fallen pray to a few costly mistakes that we want to ensure don’t happen to you! With that said, here is a list of the top 5 biggest training mistakes students make during primary flight school
1.Changing aircraft mid-training.
Nothing is quite as frustrating for a new student pilot as adapting to a new flight deck or differing aircraft immediately after becoming used to one aircraft. Each aircraft present different handling characteristics, changing training aircraft, especially prior to a student’s first solo, is the single most detrimental thing a student can do to deteriorate what current learning progress they have established—adding significant time and cost to their training as they will need to retrain on the new platform. Almost like learning how to drive an automatic car and then transferring to a manual transmission type vehicle, different aircraft simply do not fly the same. For new students trying to grasp the basic concepts of flying, it only makes things that much more difficult as they work to wrap their minds around the subtle differences between airframes, avionics, and aircraft systems. Students quickly become overwhelmed, resigning to even relatively easy tasks they may have once been comfortable with. Simply put, changing airplanes midway through flight school—bad idea. It is a massively challenging undertaking that is best saved for when you already know the basics of how to fly.
2. Training at high volume airports
While you will learn a lot in a relatively short period of time operating next to Boeing 737’s and large corporate aircraft, flying at bustling airports in large metro areas is not the best place to cut your teeth as a new student pilot. Most of your flight time will be spent with your instructor stepping in momentarily to ensure flight safety as you both work to manage the heavy flight deck workload, zipping through congested airspace. Early on during flight training, students will find much greater satisfaction and equitable learning experience by operating at airports with a more relaxed training environment. We recommend training out of low-volume class D airports as this will present students with a healthy balance of traffic volume, air traffic control experience, and manageable pilot workload.
3. Choosing the wrong instructor.
Some personalities just don’t work well together. Student’s won’t learn much if they are constantly at battle with their flight instructor. Even the slight discomfort of working with a specific instructor, also known as Certified Flight Instructor (CFI), can be enough to delay healthy training progress. The very best CFI’s are ones who have an intrinsic ability to illicit a positive response out of their students—making them feel relaxed, optimistic, and eager to tackle the next training objective. Be sure to meet with several different instructors before embarking on your coursework. It will help you to become familiar with a variety of teaching styles, helping to establishing a baseline for you to determine methods work best for you. Developing this early insight will save you much frustration down the road as you will more quickly discover which types of personalities you clash with and which ones help you to thrive!
4. Not flying consistently.
Students taking one lesson per month will find they won’t progress as quickly as those flying more frequently. It’s difficult to learn something new when students have limited exposure to course content. While it is understandable that flight training is very expensive and can delay one’s ability to save between lessons, it is often better to wait and save up to allow for the completion of training on a more consistent basis. There is simply no need to rush into training with little forethought given to the resources needed to finish a particular training program. Costs being a large barrier to entry for many, we recommend taking out a loan through organizations such as “Pilot Finance”, applying to aviation scholarships through “AOPA”, opting to fly less expensive aircraft, or a combination of these methods. Regardless of the means, we find that the very best students are those who fly consistently, around two to three times per week. This allows them time to quickly adapted to their new surroundings, becoming comfortable with the foreign world of flying much more quickly.
5. Not studying for lessons.
Hands down the most frustrating thing for any flight instructor is the student who comes to lessons unprepared and unaware of what the days flight entails. Like most things, being ahead of the game by briefing objectives and content will ensure that there are no surprises in store during the lesson. Good instructors work hard to keep their students acclimated with what is next in store during their training. By helping to be prepared, this ensures that students have the needed study material well in advance of scheduled activities, allowing for appropriate time to study and allow for the student to soon proudly demonstrate “just how much they know” to their designated instructor. For anyone teaching a new pilot, this is the most rewarding part of the job: being able to see notable growth in student’s by way of their own hard-work and merit.
Well there you have it, 5 things not to do during your flight training. We hope this has been a helpful insight into your goal of one day spreading your wings and taking to the skies. Flying is extremely rewarding, but as mentioned before it comes freighted with important safety, financial, as well as learning responsibilities. More important than that alone is ensuring that you receive a quality training experience that will guide you to becoming a safe and competent airman. As a parting word, fly safe and never hesitate to drop in at your local flight school as they are always happy to answer all of training questions.
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