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Teaching Analog Skills in a Digital World

As we have progressed to a digital society, fewer and fewer learners and even instructors know how to use analog tools.

Learning new skills isn't just for students. [Courtesy: NOAA]
Gemini Sparkle

Key Takeaways:

  • The article highlights a decline in fundamental "analog" skills among new learners, such as using a paper book index and reading analog clocks, posing challenges for aviation instruction.
  • It criticizes the recent redesign of AviationWeather.gov, finding it less efficient and more complex for obtaining essential flight weather information, contrasting with its previous user-friendliness.
  • The author stresses the importance of teaching diverse information-gathering techniques, including traditional paper resources and calling for weather briefings, as crucial backup skills alongside modern digital tools.
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“If you don’t know something, don’t try to b.s. the examiner. Look it up.”

Do you remember getting this admonishment before your private pilot check ride? I do. It meant picking up the appropriate text—more often than not the FAR/AIM—and going to the back of the book to the index. The index was pretty easy to use as the words are arranged alphabetically. Sometimes it took a few tries to find what you were looking for—would the airspeed indicator be listed under airspeed or required instruments for VFR flight?—but with a little patience you could find it and follow the page number to the appropriate section.

Meg Godlewski

Meg Godlewski has been an aviation journalist for more than 24 years and a CFI for more than 20 years. If she is not flying or teaching aviation, she is writing about it. Meg is a founding member of the Pilot Proficiency Center at EAA AirVenture and excels at the application of simulation technology to flatten the learning curve. Follow Meg on Twitter @2Lewski.

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