WIX Flight School

[Vessbot]

Active CFI reporting in, sounds like a fine idea.

[Saabmeister]

UND Commercial Aviation student here. I'm currently in the multi-engine course, and I'm up to about 160 hrs in Piper Warriors, Arrows, and Seminoles.

[Lynn Allen]

I have used Gleim through all my ratings and you can't go wrong with them.
You can take some practice test at this place as well. Good luck...

http://www.exams4pilots.org/faatest.cgi

[RyanShort1]

I'm working on my CFI rating right now. Just got my high performance endorsement yesterday - in a 182 (not a Harvard... ).

Well, it's taken a while, but I finally passed the checkride today! Now for the scary part... I might actually have to solo a student and be responsible for his actions.

Ryan

[LadyO2Pilot]

CONGRATS !!!!!!!!!

Happy for you

[mtpopejoy]

CONGRATS Ryan. Shows what a bunch of hardwork and perserverance can do!
Regards,
Mark

[RyanShort1]

Anyone else still working on or doing flight training?

Ryan

[Dudley Henriques]

Anyone else still working on or doing flight training?

Ryan

Yup. Never stopped learning.

[RyanShort1]

Anyone else still working on or doing flight training?

Ryan

Yup. Never stopped learning.

Hope I can always say the same! I think CFII is next.

Ryan

[Dudley Henriques]

Anyone else still working on or doing flight training?

Ryan

Yup. Never stopped learning.

Hope I can always say the same! I think CFII is next.

Ryan

That's a good path. If you ever have some spare cash, a short course in aerobatics and unusual attitude recovery will fine tune your basic flying skills as well. Once you reach that stage I found that heavy concentration on learning how to teach for retention will round you out as an instructor.
If I had to pick one single thing that made me a good instructor I'd say in a nano second that it was listening to and paying attention to my students. Between them and the airplanes I flew, they were the finest instructors I ever had.

[RyanShort1]

Well, I can officially say now that my first student had a very successful solo flight from historic Stinson Municipal Airport today! I've probably been sweating it more than he has!



Ryan

[Dudley Henriques]

Well, I can officially say now that my first student had a very successful solo flight from historic Stinson Municipal Airport today! I've probably been sweating it more than he has!



Ryan

Congratulations to you both!

With your kind permission I'll pass on to you a simple but cardinal rule I followed all through the years. It served me well. I've passed this on to every new instructor I've met through my career.

When you feel you are approaching the point where you are about ready to let a student go solo, look for 4 very distinct things to happen before you get out of the airplane.
1. Convince yourself the student is ready to go.
2. TELL the student they are ready to go.
3. Make at least one more dual trip around the pattern as this allows the student to do that realizing you won't be there the next time around. This is a HUGE confidence builder and allows the student to relax rather than being thrown into the solo cold.
4. This is the most important step of all. Tell the student to tell YOU when they are ready to go. When they do, let them go!

[RyanShort1]

Dudley,

Thanks for those tips! I can honestly say I did all but the last of those four. We flew most of the practice with partial tanks, then landed and gassed up (a little trick I heard about to help with the weight differential when the instructor steps out) and I told him I thought he was ready and should solo. I offered him the option of my flying the pattern with him one more time, which he accepted, but I wasn't sure I wanted to give him the option of not doing it, though if he'd absolutely balked, I would've backed off.. I'll keep it in mind next time.

Ryan