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Advances and Plateaus

Assuming we have students that have sufficient external and internal motivation to fly we still see advances and plateaus in student progress. In particular we can expect to see the student stall a bit when the complexity of tasks increase. Often this increase in complexity can lead to reversals, as the additional stress causes the students to revert to the beginning of their instruction. If the initial instruction formed bad habits these will show up now and some re-training of fundamentals may be indicated. Of course the student may plateau, simply because of incompetent direction.

One of the keys to advancement is first teaching control of the aircraft and then the application. For example teach how to do the sideslip in free flight and then how to use it to control drift in the circuit.  Even with advanced students this principle should be followed. It is important to isolate the learning part and make sure that the fundamentals are well understood before proceeding to the application of the knowledge or skill. The plateau is often symptomatic of some aspect of the basics not understood properly.

Another key is not to halt all progress because the performance is poor in one area. Many instructors have made the mistake of doing innumerable circuits with a student at the expense of other airwork as that is what the ‘problem’ is. The result is often a lack of a sense of accomplishment as the only thing being worked on is what they are having difficulty with. In this case the instructor often creates more of a problem than the one they are attempting to solve.