In Defense of the VFR Flight plan, and Being Prepared ~Guest Blogger Patrick Howell CFII

First off, a confession…I filed one VFR flight plan in the first ten years of my flying career.  Frankly, I just did not see the point.  I did most of my primary flight training, from private all the way through CFI, in and around southern states, mostly Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. As a student pilot, my flight school based was at San Antonio International (KSAT), before moving to Stinson Airfield (KSSF), so we were always talking to ATC.  I was then and remain a habitual user of VFR flight following, and I found more utility in it than filing a flight plan, as well.  Also, it was not an emphasis item with my flight school, so just like the law of primacy states, first learned is best learned….and my first learned habit was not to file a VFR flight plan. So, I flew like that for many years…

You can H.A.C it! ~Guest Blogger Tom Dorl, NAFI Board Member

I always enjoy the month of January, as it provides an opportunity to reflect and learn from the past and begin with a fresh start. This month also provides flight instructors with an opportunity to perform a self-evaluation and to look for ways to improve their skills and abilities. During my USAF career flying the HH-60G, I had the opportunity to attend and graduate from the Weapons Instructor Course (WIC). This nearly 6-month program expands instructor skill sets that come from many different USAF aircraft and mission support backgrounds. As part of their culture, they infuse a few core concepts into their graduates: learning about their aircraft, learning about themselves and making those around them better. They also instill three unique character traits within the graduates: to be humble, approachable and credible. These traits can help every flight instructor to have a fun and prosperous 2022. Here are a few actions to consider as we get ready to take off into 2022.

Humble – As instructors, we should be modest and teach with respectful approach to our students. Try not to take yourself too seriously but approach your craft of flight instruction with dedicated professionalism. Stay grounded with yourself and your abilities, and your students will learn to soar. They will likely teach you something along the way. When you mess up, admit it, own it, and learn and teach from it. Don’t write checks that your skills and abilities cannot cash. This makes teaching fun and remember that ALL flight instructors were students at one time. Try to have fun with yourself and your students—this is why people stay in aviation.

Flight Review Follow-up ~Guest Blogger Andrew Dow NAFI MCFI/MGI

I recently received a phone call from one of my previous students that started off with… “You know how I always gripe and complain during our flight reviews about how you make me manually hand crank the landing gear down?” I stated, “Of course I remember how you complained that you had to make about 50 turns on the handle just to make the gear go down.” He said, “well, I had to actually to do that in real life last week and I just wanted to say thank you very much for making me do that every flight review!”

My student owns a beautiful 1965 Beechcraft Debonair and had experienced an alternator failure during flight one afternoon and had to manually hand crank the landing gear down and executed a safe landing at an airport along his cross-country route. It made me feel good as a flight instructor to know that some of the things that we train and prepare our students for had actually paid off.

Pilots Don't Grow Up, Why Should Flight Instructors?~Guest Video Blogger John Niehaus, NAFI Program Director

It’s in the Recovery ~Guest Blogger Capt. Brian Schiff

When I dine at a restaurant, I expect great service. Things can go wrong, but anyone can have an off day and make a mistake. If humans were perfect, just imagine how boring sports would be. Some customers tip based on how perfect the wait staff was; but it is more reasonable and fair to base the amount of the tip on how well the server makes up for what went wrong. Errors or mishaps provide an opportunity to prove (or improve) oneself.

Mistakes are opportunities to learn. In snow-skiing, every time you fall down, you become a better skier. The same applies in flying. Recoveries from errors such as a bounce, stall, spin, flummoxed steep turn, upset, or an unusual attitude are more important than the error themselves. Few of us can maintain altitude to the nearest foot, but most of us can correct back to our desired altitude accurately and with minimal deviations. It is the lazy pilot, letting the airplane fly them, who experiences large deviations.

Experiment: Low Oil Pressure~Guest Blogger Jon Kotwicki CFII/MEI

When most pilots think about losing oil pressure in a piston engine; they envision the engine violently sputtering as the oil heats up, loses viscosity, and ultimately thins to the point where it can no longer provide adequate lubrication, leading to “metal on metal” contact, quickly seizing the engine and perhaps throwing a rod in the process.

However, this was not our experience. At least, not nearly as soon as we expected. After “losing oil pressure” in our (not airworthy) Cherokee, we managed with a bit of manipulation to the throttle and mixture to keep the engine running for nearly eighteen minutes. While the oil completely drained from the engine in under 10 seconds (simulating an oil cooler line failure); we had several minutes where the engine was still able to produce full power and would technically be able to climb, and several more after that where we would have had enough power for cruise.

Utilizing Scholarships to Finance Your Flight Training~Guest Blogger Bryan O'Neill

As we all know, flight training can be extremely expensive. However, it is definitely worth it if you are pursuing your dreams - you can’t put a price tag on that.

Lucky for us, there are plenty of financing options available such as grants, federal loans, private loans, military service, and scholarships. This article does a great job of outlining all the different financing options and is a great resource for anyone interested in financing their flight training. I highly recommend checking it out!

The #1 thing you can do to become an amazing instructor right away~Guest Blogger Kimberly Dawn ATP, Class 1 Flight Instructor, ICAO Certified

The single greatest thing holding you back from being a total rockstar flight instructor is likely something you’ve heard before but not yet ‘heard’. Mentorship. What is it, and why is it so important!?

Instructors who try to become great without a mentor are willingly fighting an uphill battle, much like mechanics who do not complete an apprenticeship. Successfully finishing your schooling only to wander the world alone…makes it very difficult to become good at what you do. There are a lot of mistakes to be made and to learn from, and this is where a mentor can guide you. Mentors help you diagnose common student problems, and better yet, uncommon student problems. They help you avoid pitfalls, they give you a safe space to talk and discuss, and they are an outstanding resource for many things you didn’t think about yet.

Student Pilots and External Pressures~Guest Blogger Jon Kotwicki CFII/MEI

Student pilots, due to lack of experience, are more susceptible to being rushed. They are also often not comfortable saying “unable”, as they believe the air traffic controller to have more experience than they do.

It has happened more than once that an inexperienced student pilot has accepted a runway with a tailwind that ended up being beyond their piloting abilities, or has accepted a LAHSO clearance that they really were not comfortable with. 

We Are All On The Same Team~Guest Blogger Randall Williams, CFII/MEI

If I could say anything to new instructors, I would say that (in addition to being super aware and not letting students kill you) our relationships with examiners will determine so many things about what we as instructors are able to accomplish. Finding examiners that we can work with as a team - and nurturing those relationships (i.e. NETWORKING) - is a big piece of doing this job well.

How well do we ACTUALLY know the examiners we’re sending our fledgling flyers to? Can we not just work within their busy schedules, but also understand/anticipate their needs and requirements? How do we meet each other as professional individuals out to accomplish mutual goals albeit through different procedural lenses? Do we know the examiner's priorities? Finally, how do we as flight instructors consciously extend our reach to meet new DPEs and expand our own horizons? It is only through establishing personal relationships that both parties can begin to answer these questions, but this takes time, effort, and primarily starts with the efforts of the instructor themselves.

Creating an Advantage, Help Your Students PLAN their Success (and yours in the process!)~Guest Blogger Bryan O'Neill

Getting into and achieving success in aviation can be complex and difficult to navigate, especially if you have no friends or family in the industry. There are a variety of paths you can take to reach your dream job, and each option will vary drastically in time and cost.

Flying an aircraft of any kind is no joke and as you are aware, requires extensive training that is highly regulated. Just remember your first steps as a student; you had to obtain the appropriate medical certificate(s), find a flight school that met your needs, plan out the necessary training required, figure out how to finance your training, and pass multiple written and practical exams. How much time was wasted in just trying to figure out the HOW for each of those things?

The Talent Code~Guest Blogger Adam Magee, LTA DPE/NAFI Boardmember

We’ve all heard the phase – “They were born to fly!” and perhaps that’s true of many, well likely, most pilots. But there is a difference, some pilots indeed have an instinct, or natural talent, for flight..

For many of us we work to instill this natural ability into our flying. However, the book "The Talent Code" reveals that everyone can develop a talent with the right mix of practice, motivation, and coaching. After reading this book, I highly recommend every flight instructor read The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle. I promise, I receive no commission!

Mitigating Risks in Aviation with Help from Risk Assessment Tools~Guest Blogger Jon Little CFII/MEI

All transportation methods involve managing some level of risk.  Many people do not consciously realize that during normal activities they are continuously making many risk assessments and mitigations, whether it is while riding a bicycle, taking a jog, or driving a car.  Your brain is analyzing the situations and then you are taking the appropriate action, ranging from:

• Putting on your helmet before you get on your bicycle (lowers your risk for head injury).
• Putting on your reflective vest before you jog (makes you more visible to cars).
• Looking both ways before you pull through an intersection (avoiding a collision with another car).

The FAA has a basic three-step process for Risk Management:

Story Corner: Mickey Mouse's Questionable Flight Training~Guest Video Blogger John Niehaus, NAFI Program Director

It's All About the Brown M&Ms~Guest Blogger Randall Williams, CFII/MEI

If you grew up in the time of Van Halen, you heard the urban legend about the band breaking out in a fit if they got to the dressing room and found the big bowl of M&Ms they required had any brown ones in it.

Apparently, the deal is that the stage requirements on that tour were really complicated. If the band got to the dressing room and found brown M&Ms, they could assume that a bunch of other potentially show impacting details had been overlooked as well.

Mindful Flight Instruction-Guest Blogger Lauretta Godbey, NAFI Director of Marketing Communications

The definition of mindfulness according to Webster’s dictionary is “the practice of maintaining a nonjudgmental state of heightened or complete awareness of one's thoughts, emotions, or experiences on a moment-to-moment basis.” This is a relatively new concept for me that I learned during my recent graduate studies. The intent of mindfulness is to periodically take stock of what you feel, think, see, or hear that might affect the quality of your current state of being. Sounds quite ethereal but let’s unpack this regarding flight training.

Go Out There and Make a Thing! Guest Blogger John Niehaus, CFII/NAFI Director of Program Development

As I contemplated the topic for my NOTAMs blog post I was reminded about a video that NAFI Board Member, Brian Schiff, shared with me recently. The author of the video, Dr. Elwood Schapansky, is a Schiff family friend, and suggested the topic about the commonly misunderstood concept of gyroscopic procession might make for an interesting post.

Dr. Schapansky’s video is wonderful and the way he teaches is not only informative, but truly entertaining, thank you sir! It brings back memories of my high school physics teacher that inspired me to become who I am today.

A Bull-rider's Love of Flying~Guest Blogger Collin W. Hughes, MEI/ATP

With everything that is happening in the world today I felt the need to post something positive. I have seen so many aspiring pilots ask the question about becoming a flight instructor to build their time. The question many of them ask is if others enjoy being instructors.

Here is my perspective on being a flight instructor. I had two dreams growing up. I wanted to be a cowboy and a pilot. I have been fortunate to have accomplished both of my childhood dreams. I rode bulls for eighteen years and was privileged to compete with great legends in the sport of professional rodeo. Aviation came later in life. I am so grateful that I was able to fly several different aircraft, including a few that required type ratings. My point is many people dream of being a pilot.

An Underwriter's Wishlist for Every CFI~Guest Blogger Marci Veronie, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing Avemco Insurance Company

When John Niehaus invited me to write for the new NAFI NOTAM, my initial thought was, “Well, I am not a CFI, so not sure what I could offer.”  However, on my drive home that night, I knew that as a 30+ year veteran aviation underwriter, I had a whole lot that I wanted to impart, so I titled this piece “My Wishlist for Every CFI” and I hope you learn something you can pass on.

Aviation underwriters develop a unique perspective on things that go wrong in and around an aircraft. We see most of the accidents that are reported to the FAA and many of the incidents that are not, and I can tell you that we pay numerous claims where there is a CFI in the right seat.  Many of these events have one thing in common:  The accident chain started in the habits and attitudes that were formed early on, often during primary flight instruction.

Training Utilizing Distraction~Guest Video Blogger John Niehaus, NAFI Program Director