Student Pilots Learning From Mistakes Is Part of Process

Making mistakes is part of the learning process.

In aviation, as long as the mistake doesn’t compromise safety or bust an FAR, sometimes it is in the best interest of the learner for the CFI to allow the mistake to happen. It can also be better for the student pilot to figure out they’ve made an error, especially when they get behind the airplane, and figure out how to fix it rather than the CFI immediately calling it out.

There are some caveats.

When flying in an aircraft with retractable landing gear, if the landing gear is not down and locked on downwind abeam the intended point of landing, that airplane is mine as the CFI, and the gear is deployed.

To be clear, I’d rather have it down and locked on the 45 and then checked downwind, base, and final per the checklist. I know too many CFIs who thought the learner was going to lower the gear on final, and it didn’t happen. 

The Altimeter Mistake

During a flight the CFI noted the clouds were increasing, and visibility was starting to diminish.

The front, which had been forecast for later in the day, was ahead of schedule. With a surreptitious tap of the screen, the CFI sneaked a look at the METAR at the home airport—the altimeter pressure was decreasing. As learned in weather class, you can expect clouds, wind, and rain when that happens.

• READ MORE: There’s a Responsibility That Comes With Solo Flight
• READ MORE: Pilot Training With a Passenger: What You Need to Know

The CFI remarked that the clouds were increasing and wondered out loud if the weather was changing. The learner, focused on steep turns, did not access the AWOS from the nearest airports, and the CFI didn’t push it.

After about an hour in the practice area, it was time to head back to the airport. The learner pulled out the prelanding checklist, which begins with obtaining the one-minute weather, but the learner skipped over it, saying they were too far out. The learner performed the other items, using a flow to check the throttle and mixture, magnetos, and carburetor heat, but didn’t access the weather.

The CFI dropped a few more hints, like “I wonder what runway we’re using?” and “Do you think the wind has increased?” But the learner did not pick up on the need to access the weather.

The learner made the appropriate radio calls before entering the airport traffic pattern. When the aircraft was on downwind, the learner remarked that something appeared off, as they appeared to be “low,” although the altimeter was showing pattern altitude.

After landing, it was noted that the altimeter was off by perhaps 100 feet. Remember the phrase “from high to low, look out below,” which means you will be lower than the altimeter reads. That was the case this time.  It wasn’t much, but it was off, and the learner had an “Aha!” moment.

From that day on, the learner was a stickler about getting an altimeter setting whenever they noticed the clouds increasing.

Same Frequency, Different Airport

When operating at a nontowered airport, radio communications are often done using a common traffic advisory frequency (CTAF). There are just a handful of them out there, so it is not uncommon for airports many miles apart to have the same frequency, such as 122.700.

When transmitting in the pattern, you begin and end the transmission with the name of the airport: “Such-and-such airport, Cessna 1234 on downwind for Runway 17, such-and-such airport.”

Using the name of the airport to bookend the transmission is important, because of the shared frequency, and at altitude sometimes you will hear calls from other airports on the frequency. I have had the experience of being on short final for Runway 17 at Pierce County Airport (KPLU) in Washington state when another pilot reported “short final for Runway 17.”

While my learner flew, I looked around quickly, and not seeing anyone or a shadow on the ground indicating we had company, I keyed the mic to ask, “Runway 17 at which airport?” The response was “17 at Arlington—sorry, Meg!” We got a good laugh out of it, and a few months later  the CTAF at Arlington Municipal Airport (KAWO) was changed to 122.725.

When the Airport Gets a Makeover

As we approached the closest run-up area at an airport that had just been given a surface makeover, the learner noted there was an aircraft already in it, engine running, and I mean dead center in it.

We could move in behind that aircraft, but there wouldn’t be room for the other aircraft that we saw taxiing toward us.

“Is there another run-up area?” my learner asked.

“Do you think we’re all the way off the taxiway?” I replied because I had a pretty good idea our tail wasn’t clear.

Before the learner could respond, another airplane—a CFI and learner—heading toward the departure end of the runway asked us to pull forward slightly, letting us know the tail wasn’t off the taxiway. The aircraft sitting in the center of the run-up area heard the call and pulled forward, allowing us to do the same, and the other aircraft was able to get by.

Run-up complete, we headed to the departure end of the runway. That’s when the learner noted there was another freshly paved run-up area, and had we continued a little farther down the taxiway, I am pretty sure we could have utilized it.

My learner was reminded of the need to study the airport diagram before leaving the parking area. The other learner received a lesson in “sometimes another pilot does something that surprises you,” and both of them learned that occasionally we get sandwiched when another pilot does something nonstandard.

Here’s the kicker: The CFI in the other airplane was someone I helped train years ago. At the end of the day, we conversed via text about the experience, sharing our perspectives.

As far as we CFIs were concerned, it had been a productive day, as our respective learners had gained insight from the experience. Learning had definitely taken place.