Rhino, I see those guys doing what you’ve described and I’m impressed. Thirty days is a very short time…
The other day I watched a student learn how to land, every try getting better until one was ‘not a crash’ and the next was a ‘good enough’ landing. After that they quit on the high note – I didn’t know them or even the plane but it was obvious what was going on. I guess that student may already have taken their check ride by now 
Thanks for all your comments! That makes me feel a bit better, I must admit
Now, here’s the problem:
Two days after these flights (i.e. on Monday) I received an email from my head CFI, accusing me of
This floored me totally, I have to admit. Especially as my head CFI didn’t bother to talk to me or the student before sending what I consider to be a very aggressive email.
On Tuesday, I received another email in the same vein from my other instructor colleague, who has obviously decided boyz should stick together and appears to be taking sides with the Head CFI, Well, that’s my interpretation, anyway. (We are a team of 3 – the head CFI, myself and my instructor colleague).
So that’s why I wanted to ask your advice. And the consensus seems to be that you don’t see any downsides to flying twice in one day provided one plans a break and takes account of fatigue in the lesson plan?
Jojo, the problem seems to be a dysfunctional flying club not the two lessons. Maybe you should all just sit down and talk.
Doing two flights won’t bust a student’s budget by the way as he was going to have to do that hour anyway. Also, by doing things in closer repetition you may well have saved him a little bit of time before he is competent.
If this happened in a club environment, as I presume, I humbly suggest you discuss the story perhaps first with the CFI but certainly with the club board. It seems obvious the CFI is taking liberties that she/he should not, or not without being backed by the board. At the very least, the student’s budget is no matter of concern for a CFI, who should IMO only care about matters of flying technique, and PERHAPS of pedagogy.
The board might be interested to learn that pranks of this kind do little to your motivation to work for the club for a less than rich reward.
Of course you could dryly reply to the CFI’s message, requesting to know where the relevant rules are written, either in the club’s book or in the FI training syllabus. If you do, cc the board members!
As for the third man (haha): without having heard or seen his version, I feel he is not making a very strong impression as a colleague. Provided he’s a good instructor, that is not very relevant, though, perhaps.
> And the consensus seems to be that you don’t see any downsides to flying twice in one day provided one plans a break and takes account of fatigue in the lesson plan?
From a student’s perspective, nope. From the perspective of tons of flying schools running intensive courses in this manner successfully: nope.
> Rhino, I see those guys doing what you’ve described and I’m impressed. Thirty days is a very short time…
Granted, this was only made possible by the magnificent restaurant at the airfield, spending our lunch breaks out in the sun with any of those impressive burgers…. I’m sure you know what I mean. ;-) Wish we had a place with that spirit at my local airfield now…
Jojo,
I’m left wondering what would your CFI make of a qualifying cross country involves which, God forbid, three flights on the one day!
It’s obvious from the replies that you’ve received that the complaint is without merit.
Taken with your previous thread, I can’t help but thing that the CFI is attempting to build a paper trail against you. We may know that flying twice on the same day is a non-issue, and in fact likely to be helpful, but someone outside aviation may not. This email might but intended to help buid a paper trail for someone outside aviation (eg a court looking at unfair dismissal, or a committee that isn’t actually involved in flying).
It’s a very awkward situation, becuase the student could clearly make the CFI look like a right idot by simply explaining, in writing, that the dual lesson was at their request, to facilitate them, that they found it very useful, that they would like to repeat the format and that it was well within their budget. But unfortunately involving the student might look unprofessional to an outsider too.
At a minimum, I sould suggest that you document in your own notes how the dual lesson came about and what your considerations were at the time. You could also, casually, ask the student (without making reference to the email you received) if they found the format useful and whether they considered it a ‘success’ in hindsight or a mistake, and make your own private notes of the converation. Note taken close to the even will be more credible, than memory many months after.
What, if anything you ever do with those notes, will be up to you, but at least you have some documentation to counter that being generated against you.
Jojo,
When I was working on the PPL (last summer), just like your student I was struggling to align work, family, weather and instructor availability. At one point I was stuck in the circuit and couldn’t get to go solo. I decided to take a few days off work and booked 2 lessons every day. This was no issue at all. Yes it was tiring the first day but then I got used to it. I also think that the intensity actually helped loads as I did manage to go solo and proceed with the next phase of the training.
One thing I would say is that schools sometimes have limits on the number of slots a student can book. My school has a limit of 2 lessons a day. I believe this is mainly so that someone doesn’t hog the instructor/aircraft for a long time for other students.
So really I don’t know what the CFI is on about… I believe it’s up to the student to decide how he spends his money no?
Can anyone see a problem with this?
I’m more interested to know why you ask this question.
Had to look in my log book. My 2nd, 3rd and 4th lesson were on the same day. Then several years later when I took tail wheel rating I had 3 1/2 hour (2 hour + 1 1/2 hour) with in total 49 landings on the same evening That included lots of delay turns as well for traffic. I remember I actually felt sorry for the instructor
I’m more interested to know why you ask this question.
See post #12
Could it be a case where the training manual calls for a maximum of one flight per day per student?
There’s no real reason why you couldn’t do more than one flight per day, but it usually takes a while for the brain to assimilate the new information and make room for new impressions. So, I’ve always recommended my students to do just the one flight per day in the first 10-15 hrs after which the basic skills are in place and one can accelerate the training. But that’s just me. I don’t have scientific data, just my own experience.
That being said, young students have a very different learning capability compared to “ahem” old blokes.
