I read a story about the way instructors deal with check a few years ago. They arrived to the conclusion that often, pilots are teach to assumed everything is fine even when they find something wrong. It came up from an instructor who had his student do the walk around. The student came back and say everthing was fine. When the instructor came to the airplane, there was a very visible damage on the tail. He was mad at the student and they took another plane.
Later, the instructor tested another student. He ask him to do the walkaround on the damaged plane. He came back saying the plane was fine. This time, the instructor questionned the student. He found out that since the beginning of this student training, the student notified a few things on the airplane and the instructor always say that this is not a problem.
- Radio is R-Only: - no problem, we will use the second radio
- Landing Light not working: - no problem, there will be enough natural light when we will land.
- Dent on the propeller: - Not big enough to cause problem......
So when the student saw the damage on the tail, he taught: "the instructor will see it and if he his ready to fly on this plane this should not be a problem". Not sure what is true on this but this remembered me when I told my instructor that one brake pad was broke. She told me "ok, now that we know it, we will simply be carefull not to use brakes on landing...
