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Retention

With simple tasks, assuming suitable motivation, the average student can remember about 70% of it after two days. Without review, this memory drops down to about 50% within a month. We can improve on this somewhat and maintain retention at the 70% level if we review the skill within two days. To achieve a higher rate of retention at the 90% level, a further review would be required at 28 days. There are probably many factors at play in these patterns. There appears however to be two major stages in learning tasks. The first is just comprehending and acquiring the material, and the second is integrating or relating it to other information. To really understand material it must be comprehended and placed in context. While the above schedules relate primarily to the conscious or rational recall of information, they are probably applicable to the more intuitive processes as well. It should come as no surprise that it takes some time and reinforcement to sort out the more complex intuitive reactions.

From the above, there appears to be an optimal path to follow in flight instruction which allows for good reinforcement of skills that have been previously learned, and optimal readiness to proceed with the next step. For most persons this means that to optimize flight training in gliders no more than four (4), 12 to 15 minute training flights should be done in any given day. Students can tolerate about 2 hours ground instruction during the same day. A little more is possible if this is an interactive process as opposed to straight lectures. As much as possible, training should be done each day, until the pilot is solo. This may mean, that even on a day with low ceilings, or poor conditions, that a single training flight may be beneficial. However it is likely that more than one flight on a poor day may not be useful (Effect factor). If you keep up this regimen, it is possible to complete a fairly comprehensive flight training curriculum in about 25 flights. This translates into 8-10 days of flight training. The key factor,in terms of skill retention, is using previously learned skills within 48 hours. Training in this fashion is not always possible, however, if a student can fly on both days of a weekend, they can reinforce previously learned skills on a 7-day cycle, which is the next best compromise. This schedule represents about a 1-month period of weekend flying to achieve the same goal. Of course this is subject to the vagaries of the weather, and usually results in another 10 flights to make up for the diversions.