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Chapter IV.-INSTRUCTION REQUIREMENTS AND THE SEQUENCE OF MANEUVERS

INSTRUCTION REQUIREMENTS

A student is required by the regulations of the Civil Aeronautics Authority to have a minimum of 8 hours of dual instruction before he is permitted to solo. There are many excellent reasons for this requirement, although to some of the less analytical and conscientious instructors it may seem a high minimum.

In the past, entirely too much emphasis was placed on the rapidity with which a student could be soloed and entirely too little on what he knew before being permitted to do so.

The student has no basis on which to judge how much he should know or how proficient he should be.  This is entirely up to the instructor, and if the instructor's standards are lower than the best, a false sense of security is produced.

Almost any student, if started immediately on take-offs, left-hand turns, and landings, can manage to get the ship off, around the field, and back down after 2 to 3 hours' instruction, but such a student is far from being able to take care of himself or the ship and knows practically nothing about flying.

Unfortunately, this type of instruction with the resulting inadequate background has been too prevalent. It too often produced in the student the belief that he knew all that was necessary and, as a result, this initial instruction was all that he could be induced to take until some circumstance forcibly corrected his erroneous ideas. This has often resulted in a very expensive lesson to both the student and the operator.

Many competent authorities believe that a student should have between 3 and 5 hours of air work as a minimum before being started on take-off and landing practice. This minimum, of course, will vary with individuals.

It is true that a student really learns to fly during his solo periods and is corrected and given further instruction during his dual periods. It would seem from this that the sooner a student could be soloed the more rapid would be his progress. However, the most direct way is not always the safest or the quickest way, and this particularly applies to learning to fly. It should always be borne in mind that there is a vast difference between a student's flying an airplane and the airplane flying the student.

While it might appear to expedite training to start practice of take-offs and landings as soon as the mechanics of the turn have been learned, a study of the results achieved by various systems of training proves the opposite to be true.

The average student will have mastered the mechanics of ordinary turns quite well after an hour and a half of instruction and practice. However, at this time, the results are still the product of considerable

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