When you fly with the same person for several hours, you can get used to each other to the point of complacency.
Your CFI might let you get away with a slip, like forgetting to use a checklist during the preflight inspection, which can lead to a normalization of deviance. Or you might be paired up with an instructor who is building their hours and following the syllabus by “checking the boxes” but not really teaching. Or maybe something got lost in translation or technique as it was taught, and the learner is ill-equipped for solo flight.
The sad thing is the learner often doesn’t know they are doing something incorrectly or potentially dangerous until they fly with another instructor, as we are usually unaware of our own soft spots.
“Close to solo” is a phrase that makes me—and many other CFIs—wary.
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I have flown with pilots who told me they were “close to solo,” yet they didn’t use the checklist “because they weren’t in the military or at the airlines” and/or who had no concept of aircraft systems because “it was too early to do ground school,” or who kept their feet flat on the floor, allegedly because their CFI told them not to use them yet.
Something seriously got lost in translation there, and thankfully, these are worst-case scenarios. Most of the time, I am happy to say, the pre-solo checks reveal a pilot that, with a bit of polish, is ready for solo. Some are more memorable than others.
I was paired up with a pre-solo learner whose regular CFI hadn’t been able to get him over the hump to first solo. The learner’s performance was inconsistent primarily due to scheduling challenges. He worked erratic hours, and his regular CFI had a very full schedule that was not flexible.
I was impressed as I watched the learner use the checklist for preflight, engine start and taxi, run-up, and takeoff but was surprised when he tossed the checklist into the back seat.
Puzzled, I reached for it as the learner applied full throttle and then grasped the yoke with both hands like he was driving a car. He held the aircraft on the ground as VR came and went and the nosewheel shimmied, then he jerked the yoke back, like getting a dog to heel, and forced the aircraft into the air.
“Do you always do takeoffs like that?” I asked.
He replied in the affirmative.
He used the two-fisted yanking technique for the flair as well. It was a hard landing to a full stop. At this point I took the controls and explained that the airplane did not need that kind of horsing around and admonished that we try to avoid “carrier traps” in the Cessna 172.
I explained and demonstrated the one-hand-on-the-throttle, one-hand-on-the-yoke technique for takeoff, explaining you do not need two hands to yank the aircraft off the runway as the laws of physics are strictly enforced. When there is enough airflow over the wing and enough lift is created, the airplane will fly off the runway. And that shimmy in the nosewheel? That was the airplane saying, “Yo! I’m ready to fly now! Let me up!”
To stress that you didn’t need two hands on the yoke, I reminded him I am a female with “less upper body strength” than him and then reached back to my debutante days as I flew with two fingers on the yoke and my right pinkie sticking out as one holds a cup of punch. The checklist was utilized as well, with the callouts for “Airspeed alive,” “GUMPS check,” and the application of flaps and verbally verifying the appropriate airspeeds on downwind, base, and final.
Intrigued, the learner tried the one-handed technique. By the end of the lesson, his takeoffs and landings had greatly improved. He was grinning ear to ear as he also adopted using the checklist in the pattern and the pre-takeoff briefing, which included the “what we will do if we lose power” scenario. I insist on this, as I have read and written far too many stories about pilots who lost engine power and attempted the “turn back” with poor results.
The two-fisted takeoff and landing technique was traced to a particular CFI. I saw this when I flew with another of his learners—and then with him for an instrument proficiency check. To be clear, there is no FAR that states where you should put your hands during the takeoff and landing in a light trainer. However, if able, having a hand on the throttle during takeoff and landing gives you more reaction time should you need to add power or subtract it, like to abort a takeoff.
According to this particular CFI—just as I was taught to have one hand on the throttle and the other on the yoke or stick—he was taught to shove the power in and have two hands on the yoke. No doubt the CFI who taught him learned this from someone else.
