How to “train” on touring

Same here. We fly to France with our students from time to time at our club’s school. Another ATO at our field does it as well.

During my PPL training the Dutch border was about 5 nm away if you departed via RWY 26 and kept RWY heading. We never crossed it during the entire PPL course. I don’t remember what was the exact reason for this.

MedEwok wrote:

I don’t remember what was the exact reason for this

For many instructors this would, unfortunately, mean leaving their comfort zone, as they rarely do significant flights by themselves. Of course there are exceptions: IIRC @terbang recently made a somewhat longer trip on his own to make himself current for the occasional flight to France with a student

tschnell wrote:

For many instructors this would, unfortunately, mean leaving their comfort zone, as they rarely do significant flight by themselves

Comments like this, how do you think most people interpret them? Just curious (not really ). Just by becoming an instructor, you have showed an ability to go way outside what the average PPL pilot consider his comfort zone. The role of an instructor is to teach the candidate what he needs to fly safely from A to B. All fresh PPL pilots know how to do that. The role of an instructor is not to hold pilot’s hands, helping them to get out of their narrow comfort zones. That’s the job of friends, clubs, maybe even sites like EuroGA will help. But most of all it’s the job of the fresh pilot himself. An instructor can teach you how to walk, he can show you the doors, but he is not going to carry out of the doors. You have to go through the doors yourself. We actually have a word for this, it’s translated as the “instructor trap”, or “instruction trap”.

For instance. After a few hours flying local trips, the fresh pilot decides he “needs” more instruction before flying further. It could get dark on a trip, and a VFR night course is exactly what he needs. So he use the darkness the following winter to take VFR night rating. 5+ hours of flying and an equal amount of theory. All in the cozy comfort of the instructor. He feels great. Then spring and summer comes with no use of his night rating, so he just fly a few local hours “waiting” for winter and darkness again, so he can train his night rating. Winter comes, with lots of bad weather. It’s also a long time since he flew in the dark, so he needs a couple of fresh up hours. But, the poor weather makes him think. He decides he need more experience in poor weather. So he ask the instructor to come along in less than optimal weather, and there you have it going. He is trapped. He will always find one excuse or the other to “freshen” something up, to “learn” something new. " I have never been to that particular field. They say the wind condition and the terrain can be very difficult. I better do it with an instructor to become more experienced".

I mean, a PPL gives you the opportunity, ability and privilege to explore flying on your own. It’s all up to you. No one can do this for you. You have to do it yourself (but it’s probably easier with fellow flying friends etc). It is what PPL is all about. If you come fresh out of school without this basic philosophy printed in your brain, I would say the school has failed in the worst possible way. IME I have never met an instructor who doesn’t do his best to express this philosophy, but I have met many pilots who just aren’t ready to let go – ever.

LeSving wrote:

Just by becoming an instructor, you have showed an ability to go way outside what the average PPL pilot consider his comfort zone

I am not sure if I agree. Prerequisites for an FI are minimal in terms of practical flying beyond what is required for the PPL. No acro, no NFQ, no IR, and the furthest distance you have ever been away from your base can still be as little as 100 NM. I fail to see how this takes you “out of the comfort zone”. Of course, you need to be confident enough to train manouvering, stalls and such (which you will be sooner or later, because you do it all the time), but this has nothing to do with international touring (which you will not do regularly, at least not in your instructional role).

The role of an instructor is not to hold pilot’s hands, helping them to get out of their narrow comfort zones

Absolutely. I am a huge advocate of expanding one’s envelope without having someone in the RHS to bail you out all the time. And this is something an instructor should encourage actively. But do you think he does this by finding excuses for not doing a small teaser-trip into another country during the PPL-course? Heck, there must be something hugely complicated about it then, right?

No acro

They have to demonstrate spin recovery, although the average 152 struggles to achieve stable autorotation and FI spin recovery is only after one or two turns, so technically more incipient spin than recovery from a stabilised spin.