NAFI NOTAMs #51 |
Teaching Judgement Through the ACS~Guest Blogger Sarah Rovner, CFII/MEI/DPE
“Calculate your pivotal altitude” you say to your fresh new commercial student. It’s his first time doing eights on pylons. While you continue to explain and demonstrate the maneuver, you can’t help but think to yourself “why?” After all, in my short 9 years as an airline pilot, I’ve never done eights on pylons in a 737. I can’t see a situation where I would ever do eights on pylons in a 737. Even as a ferry pilot, I never did the maneuver outside of training. As I would teach and glance through the ACS or PTS, I have often thought to myself “why?” Just like going to college, you’re having to learn a bunch of seemingly useless tasks and perform them to a standard, only to never do them again after taking the test. While the ACS does talk about performing maneuvers with specific measurable standards, a lot of people only focus on the ability to perfect airspeed, pitch and bank to pass a maneuver. However, there’s two large sections of each maneuver that evaluate something equally as valuable: knowledge and risk management. All too often the instructor focuses on perfecting holding altitude during the steep turn as compared to understanding the risk management factors that are meant to be demonstrated during the maneuver. |