“Talk” If this isn’t the most important word in a flight instructor’s vocabulary, it's definitely in the top 10. I am increasingly amazed by the mighty muscle of this little word. From students to newly minted private pilots to flight instructors, the power of the spoken word proves itself over and over again. In this article, I share good and bad speech practices in the cockpit. This may seem like a weird topic at first but I think you’ll find it fascinating in the end.
Picture this: a student and his instructor are beating up the pattern shortly after the crack of dawn. Tension courses through the veins of the moment. Our student has been getting better and better at landings on each lesson. The word “solo” has been mentioned a time or two and the student has even completed his pre-solo quiz and all the required docs are onboard to make a potential solo legal. The instructor is rooting hard for his student; he wants him to solo TODAY! However, once graceful landings have turned to shambles. Our poor instructor just can’t believe his student is messing up so badly; everything was so consistent on recent flights. Reminders for altitudes, airspeeds, and flap settings abound.
Finally, out of frustration, the instructor sits back and utters one word to his student, “Talk.” Our frazzled flyer picks up the proverbial ball and starts talking through what he is doing. Magically, patterns and landings improve. Before long the instructor has been left on the ramp, radio in-hand and a new solo aviator is born! Some amazing events happened the moment the communication baton was passed from the instructor to the student. For one, the instructor stopped stating obvious facts that the student knew existed but didn’t have the mental capacity to fix. Our instructor realized the student was only three seconds behind his order of business, a mere moment in the grand scheme of things that really didn’t matter. When a distraction or case of tunnel vision presented itself, the brain didn’t accept repetitive words but urged the eyes to move back to a continuous scan. In short, our student pilot proved to his instructor that he did know what to look for and more importantly, he found an almost fool-proof way to avoid fixation.
Now, let’s look forward to a few years in time. Our former student now enjoys taking friends up to experience the wonders of flight. He has carried his talking commentary forward from that great first day of solo flight to the present. Onboard the packed Skyhawk are three passengers: one friend who really enjoys flying and two of his reluctant friends. Before they even boarded the airplane, our conscientious aviator took the time to carefully and methodically talk through every facet of riding in a little airplane. Some corny jokes, detailed explanations, and a soothing voice have put our passengers at ease. A ripple of excitement runs through the cabin as seats and belts are clicked into place and checklists are voiced out. Words like “mixture” and “magneto” don’t mean much to our new sky-voyagers but hearing them spoken in a professional calm voice gives them the confidence to know that their pilot knows his stuff.
After the engine fires up and everyone checks in on intercom, our pilot slightly lowers his voice and makes a call for taxi on par with any captain who flies the line for a major. The sights, sounds, and senses of each upcoming event are talked through with a detail and confidence that keeps our passengers in the loop. Before runup they know it will get noisy and drafty for a moment. What would have seemed like a needless and intimidating engine blast to an uninformed backseater is now an essential and understood part of the pre-takeoff checklist. By talking through the procedures, expectations, and senses of flight, our aviation ambassador has won a few more friends for air travel.
Time zips forward again and in the meantime, our student turned private pilot has gone on to earn his instrument rating and commercial certificate. He’s finally ready to prepare for the daunting flight instructor initial checkride. Based on the advice of many other instructors, our soon-to-be teacher of the skies has taken his talking to a whole new level. From his new vantage point in the right seat, our CFI candidate can talk through every detail of every commercial maneuver in minutia and is bound to impress the examiner. On the last practice flight before the checkride, his instructor assures him he will be ready because he talked through every maneuver all in one breath all while maintaining commercial standards. The checkride nerves build, the day approaches, and the new paper certificate is taken in hand. A new CFI is born!
The day finally comes; an intro flight sparks an ember of interest and our new CFI has his first private student. Before he realizes it, they are in the practice area standing a 172 on its tail in power-on stalls. For the first time, our instructor is no longer in direct control of the airplane. In effect, he is flying by voice command. So many little things are going wrong. Corrections are needed here and corrections needed there. The student barely gets a word in edgewise. Postflight discussions aren’t much better since feedback is given to the sweaty student but questions are rarely, if ever, posed in return. In a way, our instructor is all alone in his words.
Just as a craftsman slowly builds and refines his collection of tools over the span of a career, so does our flight instructor as he crafts his toolbox of words. What seemed like simple explanations are broken down and rebuilt as students give their own understanding of what they thought they heard. Elegant analogies, as fine as the chisel of the engraver, are slowly collected and employed. Jokes once shared during taxi are now saved for the walk back from the plane. One of only five needed corrections during a steep turn is carefully chosen and shared. Our flight instructor has gradually learned the power of focused, considerate, and carefully chosen speech. Words are selected for their greatest desired effect on the student. Gone are the days of the firehose.
Despite great strides forward in the tale of talk, our instructor still forgets his lessons learned from time to time. Words fly from his mouth and pass swiftly through his students’ ears but not to the controls. In his mind, things just need to be right and a bundle of words attempts to make it so. However, sometimes all that needs to be said is the word “talk.” The talking stick, so proudly accepted, enthusiastically applied, and refined, is handed from one pilot to the next, its many benefits helping all who apply it.
