HOT Spots

This week I’m headed down to San Francisco to do a few hours of time building with BoatPix. In preparation, I’ve been reviewing the airspace (much busier than I’m used to) and the airport layout. The airport looks like it has a fair bit of helicopter traffic, and you can see several “helicopter alighting areas” (lower left corner). One thing I wasn’t familiar with were the 4 areas marked “HOT.” No airport I’d ever flown out of had anything like this, and I had no idea what they were. The legend for the airport diagrams wasn’t much help either–it just identifies them as Hot spots.

Right after the legend though, there’s an index of all the HOT Spots, similar to how you’d see alternate minimums or departure procedures listed in the TERPs. The preface describes the HOT spots as movement areas with a history or risk of collision or runway incursion. Makes sense–all these HOT spots are at complex intersections or intersections with high intersection angles. The number then refers to an index of explanations for each spot. In this case, 2 of the spots identify areas where pilots often make wrong turns, another is for the complex intersection of Rwy 01R-19L, Twy J, Twy A, Twy C, and Twy K, and the last is a hold-short area for 32L. The FAA lists about 90 airports that have identified HOT spots.

Unfamiliar airport, airspace, and aircraft, not to mention that I have only 6 hours in the R22 in the last 30 days. Should be a daunting flight. Wish me luck and good weather.

Cherry Drying Season

Spring is cherry season, which means all kinds of helicopters come into our area for cherry drying contracts. This year, I was fortunate enough to know one of the pilots working what turned out to be a pretty rainy season. Luck wasn’t all working for me though–I had a 1-week business trip and had scheduled my BFR right in the wettest period. I ended up with just 0.8 hrs actually flying the contract with him, but got to see him work a couple of fields from the ground as well as from the air.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btDGhDBPgu8

Yeah, he’s doing it in an R22. I watched a UH-1 do the same field a few years ago, and it seemed like he was 50-75 feet up. In contrast, the R22 was right down on top of the trees. Once the R22 is low enough, the force of the downwash is the same though–it looks like the trees are going to lay over flat when you’re right over the top of them.

On the flight that I did with him, we covered what seemed to me to be a nightmare scenario. Lots of farmers out here have small cherry orchards–one of the reasons why you need to find a cherry contract is because those contracts serve lots of small plots. It’s not uncommon to find a house in the middle of an orchard which brings all the other obstructions. Rows of trees to break the high winds border many orchards, and there are usually wind turbines spread throughout for frost control during the cold desert evenings in the spring. This field had all those obstructions, plus an unusual layout, power lines running at an angle through the middle, uneven terrain, and a few birdhouses just for fun. It’s unnerving enough to be hovering so high (even though we were only a few feet off the tops of the trees) and in gusty conditions. Being surrounded on all sides by obstructions–and having to maneuver close enough to them to dry the trees below them–added to the fun. Just keeping track of what to look out for was beyond my ability, and I was content to watch this 1000+ hour pilot do his work.

You Are Correct: I Don't Know Everything

Last week I received a comment on the Settling with Power lesson plan, but didn’t see it until recently (spam filters sometimes send valid comments to the trash).

This is far too erroneous. It is conflicting in places and the entry height is suicidal.
If you don’t understand the topic, please don’t spread your solutions on it to everyone else???

Feedback like this bothers me, not so much on a personal level, but on a big-picture, professional level. On a personal level, I’m a 200-hr pilot, and I don’t claim to know anything. Some might see this as a character flaw, but I’m also not ashamed to admit that, although I have learned a lot in the past 3 years, I still know relatively little about flying helicopters. Admitting what you don’t know is necessary to be open to learning. The whole point of this web site is to provide a forum for like-minded CFIs to expand their knowledge.

I also don’t take these lesson plans lightly. On average, a lesson plan takes me about 8 hours to develop, and involves a considerable amount of research. I start with some basic resources. Since I’m most familiar with the R22, most of my lessons start with the R22 Maneuver Guide, but I also go to the FAA Rotorcraft Flying Manual and the Helicopter Flight Instructors Handbook. From there, I draw on personal experience–especially where my actual training differed from what I later learned at the RHC Safety Course or what experienced CFIs have taught me (a good friend, Mike Franz, has a short course on how ab initio training diverges from real life, and he has been an invaluable source). I also go to the forums, where there are often discussions that draw in the experiences of active instructors and students. On occasion, I refer to instructional resources published by Transport Canada, the Australian Civil Aviation Authority, and Advisory Circulars (like AC 61-13b, the Basic Helicopter Handbook). It’s overwhelming, and there are many lessons that I stop midway through because I can’t consolidate all that information into a coherent lesson plan. It’s harder than just teaching what I was taught. And it’s also why fewer than half the lesson plans are populated with content.

The reason a comment like this bothers me–and should bother you–is on the professional level. This visitor basically tells me that I’m full of shit and putting others at hazard by disseminating erroneous information. I’m certainly not going to dismiss this feedback, and this response isn’t my way of snapping back. I’m also not going to defend that lesson or any of the lessons here because I think there are many shortcomings in the way ab initio training is conducted. BUT what’s in that lesson plan:

  • Is exactly what I was taught;
  • Is how I demonstrated VRS on my private pilot check ride (which was a clear pass);
  • Incorporates elements from what I was taught at the Robinson Factory Safety Course;
  • Draws on a talk given for CFIs at HAI;
  • Is what was covered with me during my recent BFR; and
  • Has been edited to incorporate some of the info from Transport Canada and CASA.

What does this tell me? It tells me that there’s a disconnect between what we’re being taught (and teaching) and the way things really work. An experienced pilot/instructor on VerticalReference said it very well:

We don’t need new methods to teach, we just need to utilize the methods we already have.

Here’s the problem: 200-hr instructors don’t know the methods. We have to make them up as we go along. By the time instructors have things figured out, they go on to “real jobs”, leaving a new crop of clueless 200-hr instructors to start the process over again. Students ultimately pay the price for this, and I’ll admit I’m an example of this: I received very little training on recognizing VRS and might not be able to recognize it from the feel of the aircraft alone in-flight. I have received very extensive training on how to avoid it, which is good. But what I learned at the Safety Course is that I was initiating a recovery way too early and not assertively enough. At the Safety Course, I did exactly what I was trained, but in that scenario, my recovery was too slow to recover from a more fully developed VRS condition.

So where does this leave me and other CFIs who were trained the same way (whether they admit it or not)? I can guarantee that I’m not going to go out with a student and do anything different that what I was trained. Ideally I’d teach at a school that invests in initial and recurrent training for their instructors but I can tell you that not every school does this (which is why I recommend that this is one question prospective students ask when selecting a school, and if the school doesn’t, find out if the instructor seeks out supplemental training on their own). I also would like to be at a school with an extensive, working syllabus (not just a meaningless list of maneuvers) that ensures consistency in training. What would I do now? I’d do the in-flight demonstration that I was taught with one important distinction: during pre- and post-flight ground lessons, I’m going to reinforce that I am illustrating a scenario that could lead to VRS, but that we will initiate a recovery before VRS actually develops by decreasing power and gaining forward airspeed.

Now the last thing that bothers me about a comment like this one is that I haven’t done my job to correctly convey the purpose of this site. I’m here saying that low-time CFIs and students need access to those methods that high-time instructors have figured out. That’s the only way training is going to get any better. Anybody who disagrees with something here, sees a flaw, or has a better or alternate way of doing something can easily add that by editing a lesson plan or making a comment. In this case, I’ll post this comment at the end of the plan, but it’s practically useless without some feedback from this user on how he teaches VRS recognition and recovery.

L NOTAMs Extinct

Those of you who have done your PPL within the past year have no idea what I’m talking about. The “L” or local NOTAM was one of 3 types of NOTAMs, and it covered operations on the airport surface. The classic was personnel and equipment working, but sometimes included special events, local hazards, inoperative equipment. The line between a D NOTAM and an L NOTAM was unclear. That’s been corrected, and the NOTAM system considerably simplified. L NOTAMs are gone, and that information is now covered by D NOTAMs. FDC NOTAMs stay the same.

There’s also a new type of NOTAM: the Pointer NOTAM. See, there also used to be this uncomfortable thing about NOTAMs where some were published. When you called flight services, you’d get all the L and D NOTAMs, but it was possible that there were published NOTAMs that FSS wouldn’t give you. Pointer NOTAMs take care of that: if a D NOTAM has been around long enough, there will be a Pointer NOTAM that will tell you where to look for it.

When I did my PPL, the L-D-FDC system was still in effect, and for some reason, I didn’t get the memo when it changed during my commercial training. I figured it out this past week when I was doing some FAAST/WINGS courses in preparation for an upcoming flight review. I highly recommend the Know your NOTAMs course…doesn’t take long, and really makes sense of the whole NOTAM system in a way that just didn’t seem possible with the L-D-FDC set-up. There’s a link to the FAAST site in the new NOTAMs lesson plan (which is a watered down version of what you’ll find on the FAAST site).

Change in Phraseology for Taxi Instructions

Something that’s not terribly relevant for us, but after June 30 there’s going to be change in taxi clearances that include crossing another runway. AOPA has a good article on this, with scenarios, so I’m not going to try and top them. You can read it here. Well…they coulda given you the airport diagrams for the scenarios, so here are those (answers stuck in the first comment). But you should still read their article.

Situation 1: Lincoln Airport, Lincoln, Neb., taxiing from the east ramp to Runway 14, no other traffic.

Situation 3: Baltimore/Washington International, Baltimore, Md., taxiing from the GA ramp to Runway 22, no other traffic.

Situation 4: Crystal Airport, Minneapolis, Minn., taxiing from the southwest ramp to Runway 24R, no other traffic.

Situation 5: San Antonio International Airport, San Antonio, Texas, after landing Runway 12L taxiing to the FBO on the far south part of the airport east of Runway 03.

First ADM Lesson: 1*

Way back, I took an Emergency Medical Technician course. On the first day they put up the star of life and Primum non nocere (First, do no harm). Right there I though WTF, I’m taking this to save lives and “do no harm” is the industry motto??? But this simple message lays the foundation for many EMS concepts that accomplishes the greater goal. The obvious medical application comes from the days when ambulance drivers would just scoop up patients, throw them in a station wagon, and race off to the hospital (often making spinal injuries worse or getting into an accident along the way). The not so obvious one is that making more patients by rushing into an unsafe scene, or blowing through a red light and wrecking an ambulance, doesn’t serve the patient well. That simple motto comes back again and again throughout EMS training and in practice, and it becomes cemented in your head.

ADM should be the same way, and I’m a proponent of introducing it early in helicopter pilot training. Set the precedent in every prospective pilot’s head that safety is their first consideration. I also recognize the practical limitation to doing this. A private pilot student is overwhelmed with “important information”, and isn’t mentally prepared to accept a  full-blown ADM lesson when they 1) are still just excited about being in a helicopter and 2) might not be in the mindset of undertaking professional training. Instead, what happens is that ADM/safety get pushed off until some undefined later point in time.

Take the SFAR. We all should have gotten the SFAR training before our very first demo ride. At that time, how many of us understood anything about energy management, low-G maneuvers, or mast bumping? I remember standing there in front of the helicopter, the instructor said “We have this training that we have to do for Robinsons.” He then took a deep breath and gave a well-rehearsed summary of the required training. Looking back, I remember it being thorough and accurate; at the time though, only bits of it even registered (wait, what was that about separation of the main rotor??!). But he ended with “Don’t worry about it, I’ll be monitoring all these things to make sure we don’t get into any trouble.” In terms of the principles of primacy and readiness, the lesson here is that the safe operation of the helicopter was not my responsibility. That’s not what was intended, but it’s what was received because the SFAR training isn’t really at a level that is appropriate for somebody who doesn’t know the first thing about flying a helicopter. This is the precedent that the typical demo flight establishes.

In this month’s safety article by J Heffernan in Rotor, he essentially validates this problem.

Even ab initio programs do not produce pilots right out of their cribs; just the fact that you have to wait until their feet can work the pedals really puts a delay in the learning process, and training delays are where bad habits can be learned…Before you can teach, you have to unteach.

One way of taking this statement is that Mr Heffernan is saying, if you want safety to be a core value in your organization, you have to undo the bad habits acquired (in part) during initial training…the fact that you have to wait until their feet can work the pedals… To me, he’s talking about this grace period student pilots get where safety, ADM, situational awareness, and all that is somebody else’s responsibility. Thus, the powerful effect of primacy has to be overcome somewhere down the line. I disagree that it has to be that way, in part because Mr Heffernan provides a solution which could easily be applied to flight training.

This is where 1* comes in. I’m not going to tell you what it means now because I want you to be bothered and a bit annoyed that I didn’t tell you right off what 1* has to do with safety. Then you can read the lesson plan or Mr Heffernan’s article and his personal story (it’s in the Spring 2010 issue, which isn’t online yet).

The simple symbol/mnemonic 1* is appropriate for a brand new student’s level of experience, and like “First, do no harm” it’s something you as an instructor can build on throughout a student’s training. Start off on that demo ride by giving them the required SFAR73 Awareness Training, then make a point of writing “1*” on that endorsement and telling them This is all you need to remember for now. If they ask what it means, tell them it’ll become clear later–you’ve done your part in associating 1* with their first flight, and unconsciously set them up for thinking safety before flying without overwhelming or scaring them. Later, as you progress through the ADM lessons, you just need to associate that mnemonic/symbol with the pre-flight preparations that will enhance their safety consciousness, risk management, and situational awareness. From 1*, you can associate lesson plans on weather (Is 1* worth making a flight with forecast low ceilings at night?). Want to make sure your student is doing a good pre-flight? Get your school to slap a 1* sticker on the door leading out to the hangar.

The payback–hopefully–is that down the road, this little mnemonic will pop up whenever there’s a critical safety decision confronting your student, and it’ll trigger all those other ADM lessons.

Captain Easy and SBT

Sometimes watching the Original Forum on JustHelicopters can pay off. For most of the last 1.5 weeks, “Capt Easy” has been throwing out training scenarios and letting everybody bicker over them. Just sorting out the trash talk though, can be difficult enough, but on top of that, scenario based training (SBT) also requires a little bit of extra effort to arrive at the take-home lesson. In this scenario, Capt Easy was looking for problem solving skills when faced with inadvertent instrument meteorological conditions (IIMC) at night. It looks like a pretty nasty situation to begin with, and not something a low time pilot should be faced with for many years (most of the scenarios have been targeted at HEMS pilots it seems). This scenario does get at one thing that is introduced into every pilot’s early training though, and you’ll see it come up in the discussion. Also, the scenario assumed the aircraft was equipped with at least basic instruments (ie, not your stock R22) or was IFR-capable. Okay, here’s the situation (slightly edited):

It’s winter and there’s snow on the ground. It’s also night time, and there’s an overcast layer that’s not real high, but it’s high enough that you can easily fly below it. The visibility is >5 sm. The METAR and TAF both say you can easily make the 30-minute flight back to your base under VFR.

You depart with full fuel for home. About halfway through the flight, you find yourself flying through a snow shower with good (but still reduced) visibility. Suddenly everything goes black–no lights in front of you our below you on the ground. You just went IIMC. What’s your plan?

The first step, which will be a post for another day, is figuring out what just happened. Sitting here reading words on a screen, it’s not so difficult, but imagine it happening real-time. There’s actually a mental process that you go through when the unexpected happens, and getting through that is the first step to making the proper response. But that’s not at issue here. What matters is that you are  now in IMC.

The “discussion” broke into 2 camps: do a 180 degree turn back to VMC, or climb and contact ATC.

The 180-degree turn back to VMC

The rationale here is that you know what the weather is behind you, so why not just go right back to it? I can’t say where I heard this first, but I’ve heard it many times: the lifesaving 180 degree turn. Detractors to this response have a good point though: many good pilots–even instrument-rated pilots–kill themselves trying to make that 180 degree turn out of an IIMC encounter. And it is true that turning puts you at risk for spatial disorientation and all those sensory illusions that you read about in the PHAK. Conclusion:never make a 180 degree turn, especially at night.

Climb, contact ATC, get vectors to VFR or an ILS

Okay, turning is dangerous, so climb out. Can’t hit the ground if you’re high enough above it, right? Additionally, you can then contact ATC and get their help. This is advice has also been doled out, especially with respect to lost procedures, and you might remember it as the 3 or 4 C’s (Climb, Confess, Communicate, Comply, Conserve, etc, etc). The other side of the argument goes that climbing will guarantee that you remain in IMC, increases your workload (especially if you aren’t proficient), and might stick you in icing conditions. Conclusion: climbing is for morons.

Other options then?

There is actually a “right” answer in there. Both sides make good points for and against their approaches to the problem. So how do you approach this scenario? It starts during your pre-flight planning, and from there adapts to your circumstance.

  • Plan an en route altitude for obstacle clearance. In my training, we usually flew as low as possible (500-800 AGL). Lots of reasons for that, but in this case it’s night with surrounding weather. You want to be high enough that if you suddenly can’t see obstacles around you, you know that you can safely make turns or continue straight ahead without hitting them. The easy way to do this is to fly above the Maximum Elevation Figure (MEF) on your route. Not always practical, especially if you fly adjacent to high terrain. What I’ve done for my night VFR flights is planned them as if they were IFR, climbing to some altitude above the highest obstacle within 4 NM of my flight path. Once you have your instrument rating, your ways of thinking about how to establish an en route altitude open up: MEAs, OROCAs, the 4 NM rule, MSAs….
  • In flight, set a hard deck that will maintain obstacle clearance. At the RHC Safety Course, somebody recommended turning around or landing if you have to descend twice because of weather. I think this advice is mostly a way of imposing a limit on how many times you’ll descend to stay clear of the ceiling, and not necessarily something you should follow. But if you do, plan your en route altitude to take this into account. If you’ve made a descent and are now below your highest obstacle, your options have changed.
  • In an IIMC encounter, you don’t have to react fast. IIMC might be an emergency, but your response shouldn’t make a bad situation worse. To me, this one bit of advice settled the whole argument. Fly the aircraft. Get level and in trim. Relax. Commit to flying by the instruments. Once you’re in a stable situation, decide what you’re going to do. Turning when you haven’t fully transitioned to instruments does put you at risk for spatial disorientation, and climbing might not be necessary. This article from AOPA summarizes the rationale nicely.
  • Once you are flying straight and level by instruments, decide whether a climb or turn is indicated. Climb if you’re below your highest obstacle. If not, consider a turn if you still think there’s VMC behind you. Or contact ATC and utilize that resource. Either way, with the aircraft under control and your mental state adapted to the situation, you have time to think.
  • Stay on your instruments. Transitioning back to VFR from IFR can be a challenge, and for most of us, the closest we’ve come is flipping the hood out of the way. Getting partial spatial information from your peripheral vision or as you’re coming in and out of IMC is another risky area.

Conclusion

This could start as a lesson in determining en route altitudes for a night flight. Set your student up to do a night flight, and ask him what altitude is appropriate (although for a lesson in an R22, the decision would probably be to not make the flight, so you have to tweak that). Once he’s IIMC, you can discuss the decision-making processes that his flight planning left him with. The last part is discussing alternative options that he might not have considered. In this case, Capt Easy set up his flight so he was high enough that obstacle clearance wasn’t a concern. He transitioned to instruments, and made a 180-degree turn back to VMC. If he’d been in an R44, not instrument-proficient, and had descended to below his highest obstacle, his decision-making process would have been different.

The key lessons here are:

  • Your en route altitude should take into consideration the conditions you expect to encounter during the flight;
  • Changes to your altitude en route will also affect the options available to you if you encounter IIMC;
  • If you are IIMC, aviate first: control the aircraft and commit to flying by instruments;
  • Once the aircraft is under control, you have time to determine the best course of action.

wikiRFM Proof of Concept

Last week this thread was on the VerticalReference.com Flight Training forum; in writing a response to it, I decided to just go ahead and develop the lesson plan for helicopter pick-ups/set-downs. I think it illustrates the limited tools available to new instructors and overwhelming task they’re faced with. From the student’s perspective, you can also see that there’s a lack of accessible, quality training resources to start with, and to fall back on when the instructor isn’t able to help. Here’s the OP’s question:

I’m…close to soloing, but not real happy with my lift-offs. Most of the time I don’t seem to have the cyclic centered properly while lifting off, so there is usually some horizontal movement that needs to be dealt with….

I also take way too long pulling the collective…. The last time I tried to speed things up I shot up off the ground and everyone got a little excited.

My instructor wants me to use a little left cyclic to make sure the left skid comes up first, pause briefly when light on the skids, correct and then lift off, but not being able to tell where neutral position is, things get a little hairy at times.

This is a student who’s getting frustrated. He’s not happy with his progress, and his instructor isn’t communicating what he needs. To me, this type of circumstance is exactly the type of situation where the wikiPPLH syllabus and maneuver guide can help a student (and instructor) out.

Think of the maneuver guide as a starting place for your training’s standard operating procedures. My experience was that most schools don’t have a published training manual/”SOPs”, and they don’t use the RHC R-22 Maneuver Guide. This is a critical problem: if your school doesn’t have a written reference for teaching flight maneuvers, how can you study for a lesson in advance? How can you be assured that you’ll get the same training from one instructor to the next? A secondary problem is that the guides that are out there (like the Helicopter Flight Instructor’s Handbook and R-22 Maneuver Guide) are pretty bare-bones manuals that focus on the technical aspects of the maneuver. Unfortunately, they lack context and practical training tips. Add into the mix an inexperienced CFI or two, and you can have a very confused student and an inefficient training program.

For students then, if your school doesn’t have a training manual, here you go. The day before you start practicing a new maneuver, wikiRFM is a place where you can start learning about the purpose of the maneuver, specifics about the configuration and completion standards, and different ways to go about learning the maneuver.

Back to the case that started this all. The student is concerned about his lift-offs, and needs help “centering” the cyclic/preventing lateral drift. Now, the student’s instructor is telling him what he needs to know, but for learning to occur, that info has be be presented and received. The instructor is essentially telling this student what he needs to know, but he’s not delivering it in a way that makes sense to the student: you can see this in the last paragraph, where the instructor is advising the student to prepare for the pick-up and use a 2-step process. You also get a hint about where the student’s confusion is coming from: does he need to neutralize the controls, or does he need to neutralize the movement?

From my own experience, I can think of a few things that could be going on:

  • No correlation: some aerodynamic (eg, translating tendency) and mechanical (torque/anti-torque) concepts aren’t getting translated to the real-world. If the student just reads the assigned books front to back, this is what happens (and was my point in this post). The instructor’s job is to correlate book knowledge with practical skills, and the easiest way to do this through a well-thought-out syllabus. It’s a hell of a task, and more trouble than it’s worth for any individual instructor: that’s where a Part 141 syllabus should help, but failing that, it’s what this site is about.
  • Inadequate pre-flight briefing: it’s so easy to just go out and fly. At a busy flight school that uses 2-hr blocks, you’re hard-pressed to get an hour of flight time, and an instructor that goes all out is lucky to slip in short post-flight briefings (most of which is filling out the log books) and get a drink of water between lessons. In this situation, there’s a good chance that the pre-flight briefing is going to happen on the ramp or in the cockpit–informal environments that lack access to learning aids, are fraught with distractions, and not conducive to quizzing and review to ensure that the student understands. Not the best set-up for an efficient lesson. In this case, the instructor might help drive correlation by setting the student up this way: “Eyes outside. Little left cyclic for translating tendency, little left pedal to correct for torque. Raise collective until we’re light on the skids….” For this to work, the student needs to start the maneuver knowing not only about the steps in making a pickup, but having also learned all those ground lessons that apply to it: that’s what the pre-flight briefing is for.
  • Inflexibility: sometimes cancelling a lesson or changing plans is the best course of action. If during a pre-flight briefing, the instructor finds that the student doesn’t have the required knowledge, a ground lesson is in order and a flight lesson is inefficient. This is where the intersection of a student’s enthusiasm for flying, an instructor’s motivations, and pressure from owners to maximize flight hours come together in a way that can screw a student.
  • Not sticking to a lesson’s goals and objectives: Have a plan for a lesson and stick to it. Sometimes this means going back to the ramp 20 minutes into a lesson. If you brief a lesson on quick stops and go out and do 3 or 4 perfectly, the lesson’s over. The temptation, of course, is to go practice or learn something else, in which case you aren’t getting the good pre-flight briefing you need to make the lesson valuable.
  • Limited tools/experience: This instructor is teaching his student in a way that made sense to him during his training. From what the OP said, it looks like the instructor hasn’t formulated the insight that the student is confusing “neutralized controls” and “neutralizing movement.” He also hasn’t impressed on the student that, for learning pick-ups, it’s okay to be slow and deliberate in the beginning. And the 2-step pick-up process’ purpose (minimizing the risk of dynamic rollover) also hasn’t gotten through to the student. Preparation, knowledge, and experience can all help an instructor recognize when and why a student isn’t receiving the message. Helping instructors prepare, developing and organizing their knowledge, and drawing on the experience of others is where I think wikiRFM can really help. In addition, several respondents to the OP’s question added other techniques that hopefully will add to the student’s knowledge and approach to learning pick-ups. This is a double-edged sword: some techniques were useful and things I had never heard of before, other things were probably inappropriate for this student’s level of experience.

I should also point out that being an armchair instructor is easy, and I’m not criticizing this guy’s instructor. Teaching takes practice, and I doubt I could reliably do a better job. This became obvious to me last week while I was reviewing the aerodynamics of vortex ring state with another pilot who’s sitting for his commercial check ride. Even though I know this topic pretty well, have practiced teaching it a few times, and had my lesson plan right there in front of me, this student threw me off pretty easily simply by saying “thrust” and meaning “induced flow” in a question he asked. Queue me up as the babbling idiot. From my experience teaching CPR, it took me teaching that class probably 20+ times to get to where I could feel confident walking into a room knowing that I could handle 95% of the curve balls students could throw at me.

True vs Absolute Altitudes

In one of the recent AOPA newsletters I get, there was training tip on remembering the different altitude terms. Indicated, pressure, and density altitude are all pretty easy to remember–and, since you use them all the time, they’re also easy to understand and apply, right? Density altitude is what you use on your performance charts, and it takes into consideration 2 things: pressure altitude at the landing site and temperature. Not an elegant definition, but a working one. Pressure altitude is corrected for…atmospheric pressure, or is what the altimeter shows when set to standard pressure. And indicated is…wait for it, wait for it: what you see on the altimeter.

The 2 that trip me up, especially on tests, are true and absolute. The best excuse I can come up with for this is that you just don’t use those specific terms day-to-day, even though you constantly apply the concepts of both true and absolute altitudes. What we (or maybe just “I”?) need is a memory aid to help us when somebody asks for true or absolute altitude, or we see those specific terms in our studies. I got all excited when I read that newsletter:

Memory aids may help you remember the meanings. Indicated altitude is just that—the altimeter’s indication at the current altimeter setting. Pressure altitude is what you get when you set standard pressure (29.92 inches hg) on your altimeter. Density altitude is an important calculation telling how air density at any level is affected by nonstandard temperature and pressure. True altitude is defined as the “vertical distance above sea level.” Think of it as the true yardstick measure. Absolute altitude is the vertical distance of an aircraft above ground level, and is an exception to the above rule that altitudes are usually referenced to sea level.

Well, those are a little helpful, but a memory aid should be something that really sticks with you. For example, during grad school, I walked into class one day, and the last lesson from the class before was still scrawled on the chalkboard: “Some Say Marry Money But My Brother Says Big Breasts Matter More.” Can’t tell you what my class was about, but never forgot that.* CAMAFOOTS, IP-TA-FER, 7-5/taken alive! are some of the ones I like for required equipment, position reporting, and squawk codes. Here’s what I came up with for Absolute and for True:

Absolute = Altitude Above ground, or just remember that the A in Absolute is for the A in AGL

True = altitude in the Troposphere

Not elegant either, but maybe they’ll provide a some simple terms that help you form a mental image of these two terms.

*(it was the med students trying to remember the order of sensory and motor neurons)

Only 1 Kind of Hypoxia I Care About…

One thing all teachers have to face at one point or another is a student asking “Who cares? Why do we have to know that?” I was recently faced with that question while working with a helicopter pilot who’s sitting for his commercial ride. First some background on this pilot: he’s good. His level of confidence and skill going into his commercial ride well exceeds mine at any time during my training. He has a few things in his favor: he owns and maintains the helicopter, flies it weekly, and has over 300 hrs in it. He’s also been flying airplanes for many years, and knows more about aviation than I may ever know. Most of his flying has also been outside of flight schools. It’s awkward for somebody with as little aviation experience as myself to be “teaching” somebody at this skill level, and if anybody’s learning, it’s me.

His weak point is his book knowledge, and most of my time has been spend going over the PTS knowledge topics with him. After our last meeting, I gave him a list of topics that we needed to cover before I could feel good about signing him off, and I thought I’d heard him say he’d been studying. So I thought I’d put him to the test, hoping I could sign him off for the practical. I started with a topic we’ve all learned at the rote level: “What are the 4 types of hypoxia?”

“There are 4 types? Only one type I care about…the type where you ain’t getting enough oxygen!”

In the ensuing uncomfortable minutes, I fell into a trap that so many other teachers have. Since I couldn’t tell him outright why he should care that there are more than one type, the motivation I provided is that this is something you just have to know for the test. If he’d said “This is stupid!” or “This crap is just relevant for plank drivers” I’d have probably agreed with him as well. And what message would this have sent?

I’m going to try and atone for that now, and I’m going to try and do it with a couple of scenarios that hit the highlights. If you don’t remember, here’s the lesson plan for hypoxia. As part of a lesson on “The 4 Types of Hypoxia” these would be pretty obvious, but as part of a general lesson that included ADM scenarios, you might be able to get a student thinking beyond the rote level.

You’ve been contacted by a rancher who needs to clear some feral goats off his property. He lives in Lakeview (KLKV), and his ranch is to the east (N42 4′ 30″ W120 8′ 20″); you’ll be working mostly to the south and west in some foothills. He’s retired military and a former cop, so he wants to do the shooting. Assume you’re qualified to do the flight and you have access to a helicopter that can perform this mission safely. The rancher offers to put you up Friday night so you can get an early start Saturday morning.hypoxia lesson plan

You arrive the afternoon before the flight and discuss the flight with the rancher over dinner. It sounds like he’s familiar working around helicopters and doing aerial predator control. After dinner he pours you a scotch and, when you decline it, says something about not letting good whiskey go to waste as he drinks it quickly. He has a few more drinks and puffs on a cigar as you chat into the evening. By the time you head off to bed, he’s slurring his speech slightly.

The next morning he’s up and puffing another cigar while you have breakfast. As you review the plan for the day, you notice the bottle of scotch and figure that he probably had 1 or 2 more drinks after you went to bed. He doesn’t seem to be hung over this morning. As he shoulders his rifle, he asks “We ready?” Can you legally and safely do this flight?

Three things come together in this case: the elevations where you’ll be working are generally above 6,000 MSL. Although this is lower than where most people would be be feeling the effects of hypoxia, at those altitudes there is less oxygen available to breathe (hypoxic hypoxia). On top of that, smoking definitely affects a person’s ability to utilize oxygen (hypemic hypoxia), and so can alcohol (histotoxic). Although this rancher might not be visibly impaired, could residual alcohol in his system further sensitize him to the affects of altitude? In this type of operation–where judgment, reaction time, and a good aim are necessary–is this client prepared to conduct this flight safely and efficiently?

You have a commercial student who’s check ride is scheduled for next week. He’s ready for it, but bad weather has kept him from getting his night solo flights done. It looks like the weather tonight, and maybe tomorrow night, will be above the school’s minimums for night solo flights. As you’re reviewing the student’s pre-flight planning and he’s briefing you on his plan for the flight, you notice he has a bruise and needle mark on his left arm. You make a joke about him getting his heroin habit under control, and he tells you there was a blood drive yesterday at work. The weather turns out to be better than expected, and the student appears to be well-prepared for the flight. Any concerns about sending this student out to wrap up his required night solo flight hours?

The issue here is that night vision can be affected at altitudes as low as 5,000 MSL, and supplemental oxygen has been recommended for night flights at or above 6,000 MSL (although this is not in the current PHAK). In this student’s case, a blood donation can cause a hypemic hypoxia condition that lasts for several weeks. If he’s flying out of a high altitude airport, his night vision could very well be affected by the combination of altitude and anemia.

I think these 2 scenarios are both reasonable and realistic, and can be used to teach students the effects and types of hypoxia closer to the application-correlation level. Are they putting unreasonable expectations on the pilot? Like the SCUBA lesson, these topics are here so that you can evaluate your own fitness for flight, and possibly recognize conditions in your clients and passengers that could affect their comfort or health.