lobstaboy wrote:The problem for the instructor is a simple one. No matter how daft or how brilliant the student is, if they do move the stick forward at the wrong time the instructor won't have time to save the nose wheel. If that happens the chances of that student going on to develop the required finesse are minimal.
It's important for students to moving forward successfully in their training. That means telling them what they need to know now and nothing else.
(And I can see @riverrock has beaten me to the same point. )
For the record, I don't disagree with any of the above, and I don't disagree with the invisible ratchet as a teaching device.
In response to @riverrock, I do think it's funny how, even with the written word (let alone the spoken word, where the problem is much worse), people still imagine you've said what you haven't said. As I said above,
Prohibiting a positive push forward is fine as a blanket rule to avoid ham-fisted students applying gross control inputs while they are still learning the finesse.
and
I also agree that for a really whopping great balloon due to a massive gust or just an overenthusiastic heave when rounding out, a go around is a good plan in the early days
and (this time with the obviously invisible clauses in bold)
if you've got enough runway, there's nothing difficult, once you've learned some control, about pointing the nose down a bit, applying a bit of power if needed, and effectively repeating the round out
Not sure how any of this can be misinterpreted as advice on how to instruct new students.
I'm not a
flying instructor (although I have decades of experience as a private tutor to young people aged 8 to 22), as anyone that reads my posts will know. My sole
flying instructional experience consists of teaching someone to land once, after three qualified instructors had failed to, and given up on her. However that experience, and others over the years, not least seeing hundreds of very poor landings by dual students who are obviously not being taught to do it properly, has proved to me that being an instructor is not the same as being a good instructor.
But somehow, my instructor taught me (not a particularly quick or slow learner) to land without once telling me not to move the stick forward, or about invisible ratchets.
And that was in an AA5A which I'm still flying today - with its notoriously vulnerable nose leg, which I have still failed to land on, even once.
I tend to take the view that the student pilots on here are all intelligent adults, and are perfectly capable of reading and thinking about discussions of some of the more nuanced aspects of things, without assuming that they are to be immediately incorporated into their flying training.
To any stupid ones that I may have inadvertently led astray, I apologise.