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Flight Instructor issues....

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MadProfessor8138

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 3, 2015
Messages
1,144
Location
Ekron,Kentucky
Has anyone else ever had issues with their flight instructor ?

My info :
I have a few 100 hours in ultralights & light experimentals,quite a few hours in the Mini 500 helicopter and I've flown a few gyros....so I'm not a newbie by any means.
I've decided to become "legal " and get my PPL....hey,we all have to grow up and be responsible at some point.

Instructor info :
Nice guy with a great personality.
Has ZERO experience with a Piper Tomahawk other than what I'm teaching him.
He finds my Tomahawk to be weird,funky and crude.
He has landed her twice and it wasn't pretty either time.
He's currently driving me crazy !!!

He signed me off for "Solo" yesterday but instead of being happy about this,well,I'm sorta erked about the situation because he begrudgingly signed me off.

Here are some issues that have me agitated about the hours that I've flown with him.....

1. Crabbing into the cross wind....that's a no no in his book....he wants the aileron into the wind approach.
I apezed him and gave him what he wanted.
The Tomahawk does not like that approach with its long/ thin wing...its a handful to keep from tip stalling it in gusty conditions.
It will do it...but you're definitely on your toes the whole time.

2. No stall landing....he doesn't want to hear the stall horn at all before touching down.
My typical landing is to bring her in at around 70 knots on final,flare out in ground effect and hold her,let the speed decay and she will touch on the mains with the stall horn going off,hold the nose off until she settles in herself,then roll out.......
She just got greased in ....
He doesn't like that and wants me to drive it onto the deck at 75 knots....which is 22 knots over stall speed.
The Tomahawk gets very weird on the ground at 75 knots.

3. Go arounds......
After touching down I get the flaps out and pour the coals to her...then once airborne and climbing out I make my radio call.
He doesn't like that....he wants me to touch down,roll out for quite a while,clean the flaps up and then put power in.
We are flying off of a 5k feet paved runway which is acceptable to do this...but my home base is a 2,700 feet grass strip with obstructions at each end...you dont waste momentum unless you like picking trees out of your butt on a hot day.

4. Full stop landings or runway clearing landings....
Once I'm down and rolling out I get the flaps pulled out.
He doesnt like that.
He wants me to wait until we've come to a full stop or have cleared the active runway before I can clean the flaps up.

5. Stabilized approach....
Yesterday, when we flew,the wind was shifting from a 10-15 knot direct cross wind to a 10 - 15 knot direct headwind....fun times.
On final...airspeed was good,altitude was good,rpm's set,both knotches of flaps and the glideslope was 2 whites / 2 reds.
Remember,I was fighting a 10-15 knot gusting wind that was changing direction constantly.
On a few landings I would have to adjust pitch or rpm's to keep speed where it needed to be and keep the glideslope lit properly......not panicked adjustments just graceful adjustments to keep it on track.
He didn't like that.
He says that once I'm on final I should be stabilized and be able to bring her in without any adjustments needing to be made.
I reminded him of the gusting winds and my ability to fly the plane safely by compensating for the changing conditions.

6. Traffic pattern....
He wants my downwind,base and final to be so long that there is no possibility of making the runway if we ever had an engine out.
I'm flying a Tomahawk ,AKA: The flying brick,not a 182 that has a decent glide ratio.
I typically turn base once the numbers are 45° behind my wing...he says that's too tight a pattern.
He likes an airliner pattern evidently...

7. Turns....
If I bank more than about 10°-15° he constantly comments that I like to fling the plane around and I'm turning too steeply no matter how smoothly I bank.

8. Traffic avoidance.....
There is a skydiving business that operates out of the field and they like to fly wherever they want so you have to constantly be watching for them.
Their jump plane likes to cut into the pattern all the time and not make radio calls so you have to constantly watch for him.
Birds on the field have been bad the past few weeks so you have to watch for them.
And there was a fly-in over the weekend so everyone was stopping in for fuel and bathroom breaks all day.
I broke out of the pattern twice to give time for other aircraft,that weren't making proper radio calls,to clear out of the pattern.
He didnt like that and said they would probably have been clear by the time I was setting up on final.
I made a judgment call and will stick by my decision to break out of the pattern to give it time to clear and for me to visually locate the aircraft that were not communicating their locations.

9. The Tomahawk T-tail.....
The plane flies different from other aircraft....not weird....just different.
I can't get it through to him that speed management is your friend in this plane.
The stabilizer and elevator are not in the prop wash and once that tail quits flying...its done flying...no second chances.


Am I just being stubborn and need to conform or do I have valid points that I shouldn't ignore ???

He commented yesterday as he was signing me off for solo that he may be holding me back because he's trying to conform me to a flying style suited to a Cessna 182.
He said that he wanted to see a little more consistancy on my landings,"stabilized approach", but didnt know if it was me or the airframe that was causing me to make minor pitch and power changes to keep everything in check on the landings.
He also commented that he knows that I can definitely fly the plane.

So........how do I take those statements ?

From my viewpoint....if you become robotic on your landings and are not willing or able to make the adjustments needed to get the plane on the ground safely for the present conditions,that have possibly changed from your last landing,you're setting yourself up for failure in my opinion.
A good pilot is able to feel it out and adapt.....

Maybe I'm wrong......

Kevin
 
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