"Chris, we are really glad to have you and it looks like you have a lot of instructing experience. I've assigned you two students. The first is a Private student starting from zero time. She got a 98% on her written test and seems pretty motivated. The second, well, the second is more of a challenge."
A challenge. Coming from the Chief Flight Instructor at flight school with a business model that caters to foreign students, this was a troubling first conversation.
"Your new student is from Egypt and is a LITTLE older. He is 34 and has had problems with his last two instructors and we think it's because of the age difference." Many of the flight instructors here are fresh out of college and many of them look young. Being a little older, he did not appreciate criticism from his younger flight instructors (whom he referred to as just children) and requested a new one. I wasn't really surprised when I was given the older student. I know it may not have been an experience thing for them (there are plenty of flight instructors here with a year or more of experience). They saw me as an older looking flight instructor who might be able to give criticism without offending him. So, I just smiled and said I'd take anyone. I know I wasn't the best flight instructor or pilot, but I know that I'm a pretty good teacher.
March 17th, 2012
Yes, I fast-forwarded almost 2 months. When I was first given this new student, all he had left was 4 flights. We were going to go on 2 cross-country flights and two practice for the end-of-course check ride flights. It should have taken a week. To say that his skills were lacking was an understatement. He had a hard time understanding air traffic control, he was consistently missing important details, and he was dangerously unsafe in the air. After a month of flying and simulator training, I put him up for his end-of-course. I knew he wasn't ready but he insisted. As expected, he didn't get out of the simulator portion. So, for another few weeks, we got him ready for the recheck and he failed again.
I used to think with enough time and money, anyone could learn how to do anything. I'm not entirely sure I believe that anymore. In the last few weeks, he seemed to be regressing. We actually had to spend a few simulator lessons going back to fundamentals of instrument flying. It was depressingly frustrating to watch someone fall apart the way he did. After a week in the simulator, we finally got into the airplane again to polish him up. If you've been reading my blog, you've probably heard me tell stories of the student who froze and wouldn't let go of the controls. This was the same guy.
When we got into the air, we started the first of 3 or 4 planned approaches. The first was so bad that I had to take the controls twice to get him back on course. My persistent nagging to fly his heading wasn't working. On his missed approached, he almost flew us into the Daytona International Speedway.
"Approach, Epic 523. We'd like to cancel the rest of the approaches and return VFR to New Smyrna."
"Epic 523, so you don't want to do the VOR 18, RNAV 7 or the Hold?"
"Affirmative, we would like to return VFR for a full stop in New Smyrna. Epic 523"
"Epic 523, proceed direct to New Smyrna, descent approved, squawk VFR, and contact tower."
He seemed confused. I told him that we'd talk about it on the ground but we aren't going to do any more approaches today. His first approach was so bad that it appeared like he had completely forgotten how to fly the airplane. I could almost sense the dejection from him and tried to lift him up a little. His landing was good so as he rolled onto the taxiway, I told him that he had a really good landing but knew that it would be no consolation.
We went back up the next day and everything was a lot better. As we got out of the airplane, I said, "Well, that was really good today. I'm going to go ahead and put you back up for your end-of-course."
"Thank you Chris. This will be my last shot in my life to do this and I will not let you down."
His comment caught me off-guard. When you get into the grind of instructing daily, it is sometimes easy to get lost in what you are doing. I never once made him fly with me because I wanted to make more money or get more time. I am 100% positive that I do what I do so that he can be the best pilot he can be. On the other hand, my time with my students is a direct correlation to how much money I make. When he told me this was his last shot, I couldn't help but feel bad. I thought of how I would feel if I was in his shoes. I couldn't imagine if I had to say that this was my last shot at living my dream. What a humbling realizion to make.
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