"Immersion" Flight Training for the working stiff...

My training background began in the Navy.

We had about 400 crew members on the Aegis guided missile cruiser Bunker Hill (CG-52). A mere 567' long ,the crew with an average age of 20 coexisted with 130 missiles, 36 torpedoes, a thousand cannon rounds... Machine guns, rifles, pistols and shotguns. Two helicopters, seven jet engines, a hundred cabinets of electronics all floating on a half million gallons of jet fuel.

It goes without saying that we did a lot of training, and we did it without a single professional trainer, instructor, teacher or professor.

From day one, weather officer or enlisted, each sailor started training. Beginning with finding your 'rack' then figuring out where you worked, then the galley... Laugh hall you like. You spend the better part of your first week lost.

You are given firefighting training materials first, and professional qualifications for your job... You spent months researching and answering questions to get signatures in your books from senior crew members.

Then there are the drills. Fire and security drills daily in port. About every third time I touched a weapon, I heard, or gave, a safety briefing. Battle stations at sea in all warfare areas, along with briefs, debriefs, and repetition.

And it worked. Because we quite literally LIVED it. My rack was 20 feet from the weapons locker, 120 feet from the galley and 200 feet from Combat Information Center.
Of course, few of us can do that while flight training. It seems even more difficult for some, once we get rated, to maintain proficiency. I find that my focus dials in when I'm chasing a goal, then I spend some time picking up the things I dropped while I was fixating on flying. Lawns to be mowed and fences mended.

There are ways that we can increase our focus on flight training without completely abandoning our real lives and day jobs.

When I left the fleet and became a classroom instructor, I called it the spaghetti on the wall method. If you take a strand of spaghetti and throw it at the wall,it's likely to stick. If you toss the whole plate, you're going to end up with a big red splotch, and a bunch of spaghetti on the floor.The mind works much the same way.

Immersion in the shipboard environment facilitates learning in two ways. First, you get constant opportunities to learn. You're THERE. Fire drills might happen everyday, but most sailors suit up and participate only once or twice a week. But they hear the calls over the announcing system, and then visualize what's going on. Secondary learning is pretty powerful stuff, and helps the strands on the wall dry, so you can flick a couple more up there. Eventually, you'll have a whole pot of pasta on a vertical surface!

The second is the mindset change. At first living inside a floating killing machine seems surreal. Most of your learning is about moving, eating, sleeping and just living in the environment. Six months later you're in the groove. After a couple years, it seems oddly... Comfortable, if not like home.

The important point here is, the more comfortable you are, the better you learn, the faster you learn, and the deeper your understanding becomes. The sensory overload of engines, rolling waves, helicopters, alarms and such become background noise. It leaves your mind, and allows for next-level learning to the point that the FAA calls “correlation”.

Okay, so those are great sea stories, Ron. How do I immerse myself without getting fired from my day job and ending up single in a house surrounded by weeds?

Three things on the checklist.

1- Keep some 'spaghetti' with you at all times. Keep a book handy, or print up a topic every day to review. Keep it WITH you.
2- Flick a couple strands on the wall a couple times every day. Whip out your printed wiki on VOR navigation while waiting in line at the bank, on break at work, or during a commercial.
3- Find ways to spend time in airplanes and airport environments.

The first is easy... There are a thousand ways to flick spaghetti! Gleim test prep books are $20. Suck it up and cut some pages out. Take a couple pages, fold them up in quarters and stuff them in your left rear pocket. When you're done with that couple pages or study unit, swap it out with the next.

As another example, I used the King Schools DVD course for Private. On these disks, the 2-5 minute video segments can be copied in to a folder. The file names tell you roughly what each video is about.

Copy some to a laptop, phone or Ipad...Count each one as two strands of spaghetti. Watch one a day...

If you're creative, the possibilities are endless. Find some that work for you!

Try to find slots in your routine where you can read a page or watch 5 minutes of video...

These are your 'learning opportunities' for the day. Your little bit of immersion while waiting in line at the grocery store.

Then there is the environment... How can you get accustomed to the environment, get REALLY comfortable in an FBO, airport, ramp and cockpit when each hour in a cockpit costs you$150+ per hour?

I've started a meetup.com group for just that. We're planning events, connecting flying buddies, safety pilots and mini-courses for all levels. Sure, you might belong to a flying club that's an ACTUAL club, or a flying school that's an actual school, but many don't.
So you have to hunt down the intangible benefits of association and positive 'peer pressure'. Yes, peer pressure. Another powerful tool used by the military since the invention of the club.


Having a 'flying buddy' or two is invaluable. Especially if they are already rated and you're not. Sure, if you split the cost of the plane rental, you'll only be flying half the time. But you'll learn a TON flying with someone other than your CFI... Sometimes you'll learn what not to do, but of course that's valuable too.

Once you are rated, you can build time being a 'safety pilot' for a buddy who wants to practice IFR...Another GREAT learning experience. And, (refer to FAR 61.51 and 91.3) you can even BOTH build PIC time... At half the cost per hour!

Just being in the airport environment is valuable. Maybe I'm a bit of a head case, but if I haven't flown for a while, I get out of sorts when I go to the airport again. Then IlI get the jitters until I've knocked out a couple landings and calmed down.

This can be remedied by embracing your inner airport bum.

If you don't have an old school FBO or flying club to hang out at, find a local organization. EAA, CAP, CAF, something like that. They have volunteer opportunities that can lead to opportunities to fly, and if nothing else, immerse yourself in the environment for a little while! And if you just want to show up and help out, they can be FREE.

If you are in flight training, do yourself a favor. If you can, take a few days off work, maybe three.

Make sure good weather is forecast.Wake up in the morning like you would if you were going to work, pack your flight bag like a briefcase, and go to 'work'.

Have two flights scheduled each day.Spend the rest of the time prepping for the next flight, or studying.Take breaks and talk to the instructors and airport bums. Have lunch at the FBO or near it...

Spend a little time 'hangar flying'. Go through the motions of emergency procedures... Touch the buttons and switches as you walk through checklists. This teaches what we sailors used to call 'Buttonology' and it's a great way to get yourself comfortable in the cockpit. It's also free... But do your FBO a favor. Don't turn on the master for more than a couple minutes and kill the battery! It makes your FBO manager and maintenance guy grouchy.

Of course getting a transceiver and listening to air traffic control while you watch people land will help tune your radio skills. An old trick!

I took some time off to fly when I was a newly minted pilot, and got to fly as a safety pilot from San Diego to Eloy Arizona one day. It was an amazing experience, and I learned a TON! All because I decided to study in the ready room...

This little slice of immersion can change the way you look at flying. It'll help you FEEL like a pilot. Like you belong at an airport. Your level of comfort in the airport and cockpit environment will solidify. In three days, your steep turns will be better, your landings will be dialed in and your checklist and radio habits will gel.

Most of all, it can be a whole lot of fun!

I've still got a world of aeronautical knowledge yet to learn. Aviation is a big pot of pasta... And I expect to be learning for decades.

My hope is that you will as well. I look forward to seeing you on the ramp.

Fly Safe!