Make sure you brief your passengers on what not to touch (do)

[Rhino]

Passenger hits the brakes during landing — General Aviation News

generalaviationnews.com

 

[tralika]

I agree, my passenger brief goes like this, "Those are rudder pedals there on the floor. You can rest your feet on them but don't push on them". Some Cessnas, the 185, 206 & 207 had the option for Stowable rudder pedals on the right side. The rudder pedals could be moved all the way up to the firewall to give the front right passenger more room and would make them inoperable. However stowing the rudder pedals did not have any effect on the toe brakes so I always gave the same briefing even if the pedals were stowed. I did not install toe brakes on my plane, partly to save weight but also to keep nervous bigfooted passengers from flipping my plane over.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

That's what I would say "It was that danged passenger ! ! "

 

[Riggerrob]

Before flying in a friend's Zenith 601, he cautioned me against touching the right-hand canopy release lever. He feared that the canopy would jettison in flight and damage the tail.
Another friend pointed out the canopy jettison handle - in his Pitts S2 - before he took me up for an aerobatics lesson.
Canopies are expensive.

 

[BJC]

I tell non-pilots, “Don’t touch anything, including the door handle, unless I tell you to.”


BJC

 

[Tiger Tim]

Before flying in a friend's Zenith 601, he cautioned me against touching the right-hand canopy release lever. He feared that the canopy would jettison in flight and damage the tail.
Another friend pointed out the canopy jettison handle - in his Pitts S2 - before he took me up for an aerobatics lesson.
Canopies are expensive.

My briefing in the Moth includes how to jettison the canopy, followed by “…but don’t. If you do, I’m making you help me find it and fix it after we land.”

 

[BJC]

Another friend pointed out the canopy jettison handle - in his Pitts S2 -

My briefing in the Moth includes how to jettison the canopy, followed by “…but don’t. If you do, I’m making you help me find it and fix it after we land.”

I bought my first airplane, a Pitts S-1S. Tried to get insurance, could not. Required 200 hours in type, Then they agreed to 50 hours in type. Finally called up an insurance company, “If Bill Thomas tells you that I can fly the airplane, will you insure me?”

“Yes.”

Went to fly with Bill. At that time he had only 8,000 hours instructing in an S-2. An hour of instruction with Bill included an hour pre-flight, and an hour post-flight. Getting ready to board the airplane for the first flight, I paused and asked Bill what he would say if we needed to bail out. “We won’t need to bail out.”

“What if we do?”

“We won’t need to.”

“If you look up here and see a hole in the canopy, but not me, you will know that I decided to leave.”

Bill gave me a long, strange look. So much so that I thought that he was going to refuse to fly with me.

Best instructor that I have had.


BJC

 

[Riggerrob]

Dear BJC,
The best instructors challenge you will problems, then watch how you figure them out.
For example, when I gave a bail-out seminar to the Aerobatic club of B.C. I encouraged a couple of pilots to share their emergency stories. Then we discussed various possible solutions.
Towards the end of the (half day) seminar, we were practiced bailing out of a Decathlon, Pitts S2 and a 2-seater Extra. When one pilot hesitated on the wing - unsure of whether or not to leap before or after the other pilot - I paused the practice and discussed the dilemma with the entire class. We took a vote then repeated the bail-out drill from the Extra. The last bail-out drill included inflating a couple of old (more than 20 years) PEPs. We wrapped up - back in the class room - with a review of the day's lessons learned.

While I am a private pilot, I do not pretend to be an aerobatic pilot. OTOH I have been a parachute rigger for some 30 odd years and have listened to bail-out stories from more aerobatic, glider, antique, test-pilot, etc. customers than I can count. Finally, I have made more than 6,600 skydives and trained thousands of first-skydive students.

 

[BJC]

Short version of a long story:

In the back seat of a Citabria, inverted, 45 degrees nose down, over Vne, wearing a seat pack with a CFI in the front, frozen on the controls. Concluded that it would be really hard to unstrap, get to the door jettison handle, and get out, so I slugged the front seater, for the third time, as hard as I could. He threw his hands up and shouted, “You have the airplane!”


BJC

 

[Rhino]

Had a low level reconnaissance run (training) in an RF-4C Phantom once. In the rear cockpit there's a Pilot Eject handle. The back seat always goes first if the front seater ejects. Not so with the rear seat. They can eject all by their lonesome if they want to. If that knob isn't turned first, the front seater stays with the aircraft until they initiate their own ejection sequence. We were briefing ejection scenarios during preflight and covered bird strikes. Climb, do a controlability check, yada, yada, and eject if needed. I asked the pilot about the Pilot Eject handle. He said there'd be no need. I said, "What if the bird comes through the canopy, hits you, and knocks you out?' His face lit up and he said, "Oh, then please, by all means turn that handle before you eject. I'd love to talk to you about it over a beer later'.

That flight was an absolute blast by the way.

 

[Pops]

Short version of a long story:

In the back seat of a Citabria, inverted, 45 degrees nose down, over Vne, wearing a seat pack with a CFI in the front, frozen on the controls. Concluded that it would be really hard to unstrap, get to the door jettison handle, and get out, so I slugged the front seater, for the third time, as hard as I could. He threw his hands up and shouted, “You have the airplane!”


BJC

Been there. At one time there was a local flight school that had lots of international students. Had a problem student that they wanted me to work with. They warred me about him freezing. Yep. He would pull the control wheel all the way to the stop and freeze on final. I hit my control wheel with both hand so hard it drove him into the instrument panel. Never fazed him. He didn't know it happen.

 

[BJC]

The best instructors challenge you will problems, then watch how you figure them out.

Bill taught a multi-category spin, and called it his graduation maneuver. The S-2 nose bobs up and down quite a bit for the first two turns. The graduation maneuver took advantage of that. Here is the spin:

Upright entry into a normal upright spin. On the second nose down bob, at 1 1/2 turns, transition to a normal inverted spin. After two turns, go flat inverted for two turns. Recover into a normal inverted, then transition into an accelerated inverted spin. Then recover. Might have pushed out of the recovery, too.

Started at 4,500 AGL. Great fun, and really makes the pilot appreciate the controllability of the airplane.

BJC

 

[Rhino]

Been there. At one time there was a local flight school that had lots of international students. Had a problem student that they wanted me to work with. They warred me about him freezing. Yep. He would pull the control wheel all the way to the stop and freeze on final. I hit my control wheel with both hand so hard it drove him into the instrument panel. Never fazed him. He didn't know it happen.

This wasn't a guy we heard about on 9/11, was it?

During that flight I had in the RF-4C, the pilot gave me a little treat. He said we would bank right out of the mountains a bit, and then he'd bank the aircraft hard left. "If you look straight up, you'll see a fire tower." Sure enough, there was a fire tower set on a lonely little hill, and we went by about 100 yards away, above 400 knots. He goes, "I buzz that thing every time I come up here, and I always wonder if someone's inside." I said, "Nope. It's just their bones left over after they died of a heart attack the first time you did it."

 

[Pops]

This wasn't a guy we heard about on 9/11, was it?

During that flight I had in the RF-4C, the pilot gave me a little treat. He said we would bank right out of the mountains a bit, and then he'd bank the aircraft hard left. "If you look straight up, you'll see a fire tower." Sure enough, there was a fire tower set on a lonely little hill, and we went by about 100 yards away, above 400 knots. He goes, "I buzz that thing every time I come up here, and I always wonder if someone's inside." I said, "Nope. It's just their bones left over after they died of a heart attack the first time you did it."

No. The Russian was the worse. If you critiqued his flying in anyway, his face would get red and veins in his neck would swell up and he would get so angry he wanted to fight. He was there for his instrument rating and his flying was so bad that I would not have soloed him.

 

[Rhino]

We had middle eastern students in our electronic warfare school way back when. No one would speak or answer a question unless the highest ranking member of the class knew the answer. Otherwise it was considered an insult. You never knew if they were getting the information until test time came around, and you NEVER allowed any of the scores to be known by anyone except the instructor and the individual student. Luckily I never had to teach them personally. But some fellow instructors who did teach them told me they were the most frustrating classes they ever taught.