Posts Tagged ‘student’
11 items.
Being a flight instructor is a rather interesting job. You meet great people. They pay you to fly with them. You share the same passion, and often you find yourself hanging out with them after work or just bumming about the airport with them. You spend countless hours with them working towards the same goal. Yet … for some completely unexplainable reason … they randomly try to kill you every few hours. Why is that?
One thing is for sure, you can never let your guard down. I got in more trouble with more advanced students who I really like for that very reason. Any CFI’s in here have had similar experiences?
Let’s hear them!
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Talking about forces … is anybody else counting the days to the premiere of the new Star Wars movie? Usually, when there’s a movie I look forward to, I try to watch as few trailers and gather as little information about it as possible. But what I have seen so far all looked pretty awesome to me! And the fact that Han Solo makes a reappearance is reason enough to see this one!
I wonder how many “rule number one”‘s there are out there. In aviation, this certainly is the most important one, of course! Unless you’re not on the controls, or a passenger …
Last weekend’s Vienna ComicCon was great, by the way! I have posted a couple of images in our Facebook Group. I later found out that the girl I’m posing with on one of the pictures is a real X-Wing pilot! I wish I had known, I would have asked her for flight lessons …
I have learned over the years that pilots, just like sailors, can be very superstitious people. I myself admit to it and have certain rituals I just don’t do well without. They’re not quite the same rituals that Chuck has, but then again, I have learned that there are as many ways of doing things as there are pilots.
Around the Cranes we do a lot of things we call “tribal knowledge” and some of these things may not have a scientific background and might be things pilots just started doing one day but we do them anyways.
A lot of people believe in what might be good luck and/or bad luck and I believe in not tempting faith either way. For example I have never heard of a Crane being renamed ever since I started with them even when it came out of the National Guard with a name that had no meaning to us because it is said to be bad luck renaming a vessel. And in good old Panaca Jane, nobody ever took out the fuzzy dice (maybe that is where the idea for this strip came from? wink, wink) once they were “installed”. After many years of wear and tear they finally fell apart and wouldn’t look like dice anymore so they were stashed in a little bag underneath the seat. But they were not taken out of the aircraft as long as I flew the thing š
Let’s hear/see some of your aviation (or other, for that matter) rituals!
You guys remember the discussions we had in the past whether to spell the instrument āgageā or āgaugeā?
I think Sikorsky and my current employer must have had the same discussions in the past since all their manuals call everything an āindicatorā, HAHA. I just looked it up!
And who of you has not tapped the old gauge here and there ājust to make sureā? Let’s hear some stories!
What I find even funnier is our current switch from the old, what we call āmuseum modelsā, to newer glass cockpits. You wonāt believe how many fingerprints I keep finding on the screens!
Are there pilots out there who are tapping the indication on the glass screens!?? Who does that!?
And, more importantly, does it actually work?
Maybe Chuck is working my cross shift! š
The world would be a much better place if people would listen more to each other, wouldn’t it? And that’s all I can think up for today’s blog, because I just downed a huge mug of coffee and have tons of things I want to do right now! Ah! Hyperactivity! Need to make use of it while it lasts! Cheers!
Now this is some Karate Kid style training going on here again! Chuck will turn into a veritable Mr. Miyagi at some point. Must be because he’s hanging out with Nobu so often …
The thing with stupid answers and explanations like that is that you probably remember them better than right ones. The best case scenario is that you learn the real explanation later (usually when you embarrass yourself by explaining what you just learned to somebody else) and thus remember it even better! Maybe Julio isn’t mean, maybe he’s just a master pedagogue!
Being well prepared is much more important when you’re on a plane than when you’re in a car. After all, you can’t just stop for gas, snacks or a bathroom break. Speaking of which, I just realized that Chuck forgot to mention an empty Gatorade bottle among the necessities!
I think the most important characteristic you can have to achieve any goal in life, is determination. If you really, really want it, and you have the ability to go through adversity, there will be a way. And if it was easy, the feeling of reward and sense of achievement would be much less. Oh, yes, and no matter what you’re trying to achieve, money always helps too.
