Just Quit Training

[Matthewc66]

I need some advice.

I am in the middle of the cross country phase of my training and I have suspended training.

During this cross country phase I have spoken to dozens of pilots and they all tell me the same thing:

"We all have to do this but you will never use it again" .. He is referring to top of climb, diversions, etc..

I keep asking why do we need to do this if I will never use it again? He keeps telling me that is the way they do it, its the way they have always done it. He is not sure why they do it, knows we won't use it but doesnt want to change.

He uses Foreflight and keeps reminding me that all this training that I am paying for is essentially worthless as I will never use it again.

Truthfully, I think I am "flown out" and am so bored with training right now I can't even look at it.

I would like to find a school that trains with Foreflight so I can learn with what I will use in the cockpit.

I am not sure there are schools like this and I am at the point where I am not going to continue training if I have to do top of climbs all day.

At a cross roads, need some advice..

Matt

Ps I am in North County San Diego near Palomar..

 

[Jim Logajan]

"We all have to do this but you will never use it again" .. He is referring to top of climb, diversions, etc..

I don't recall encountering the term "top of climb" in my own training so I looked it up:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_of_climb

Ah - yes, I did take that into account in my cross-country flight planning but just never used that term.

I'm guessing that perhaps you have some math-phobia or issues with doing such things in flight like diversion computations? I somehow managed to get a college degree in physics, yet did find recomputing time and fuel and such in the air with the venerable E6B and such tools to be one of the more difficult challenges in my training.

Ground practice at home is the only way I can think of to get practiced at that sort of thing. Learning how to do it should, in theory, provide you a depth of understanding of fuel consumption that will be of value in your later flying that you would presumably not otherwise grasp if you only ever relied on numbers coming out of a computer.

Flying, like a lot of things, isn't for everyone. I suspect you could conquer these issues if you were motivated enough, but that of course is a matter of personal desire.

 

[Jim Logajan]

Sock Puppet? Maybe he gets is rocks off by making an inflammatory post and siting back to watch he fireworks.

Unlikely - note that he joined PoA in December 2011. Nothing in his post was inflammatory at all - actually just some of the replies were inflammaory!

A simple cry for help understanding the point of some of the things students are still being taught. One of the whole points of having online forums like this, in my humble opinion.

I too had wondered why some procedures are still being taught that were designed back when vacuum tubes were all the rage.

 

[Jim Logajan]

I too had wondered why some procedures are still being taught that were designed back when vacuum tubes were all the rage.

Can you be more specific which ones?
Pilots should no longer learn how to use VOR?
Pilots should not care about basic pilotage skills?

Teaching the use of a manual E6B. (Some CFIs still seem to demand this on the theory that the one time you'll need it in the air, the battery will be dead - and shortly thereafter - so will you.)

Teaching the use of Loran-C and/or ADF. Guess if you have them installed in that 40 year old plane you have to learn them. Sigh.

Using airplanes whose radios still use half duplex amplitude modulation transceivers. The technology in your average cell phone is vastly cheaper and allows for not only full duplex audio, but digital data. Aviation is stuck in a communications time warp.

 

[Jim Logajan]

I grant you these are good examples but his post really had nothing to do with them.

He wrote "I would like to find a school that trains with Foreflight so I can learn with what I will use in the cockpit." I'm assuming (probably incorrectly) that statement was a result of being told to do fuel usage estimates and diversion computations in the air using paper, pencil, and a manual E6B rather than something more straightforward.

Looks like he has given up, though.

 

[Jim Logajan]

You got piled on because of a bad attitude...

Which merely proves that a lot of posters aren't qualified to handle people who express frustration.

And quite frankly a bad student.

And you're a bad poster.

That and you come here saying you quit. Why would people give advice to someone who quit?

You skimmed post 1 in this thread too quickly.

 

[Jim Logajan]

I was reminded of kids in class asking, "Am I going to need to know this for the test?"

And the answer was always, "Yes."

The OP actually never asked that kind of question.

His was more along the lines of "Why am I being tested on something you, as my teacher - and every teacher I've asked - says I will never need to use?"

 

[Jim Logajan]

I learned one thing about this thread.

There are a lot of Matts.

Matt

Matthew was a top-5 name from 1981 to 2006:

http://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/top5names.html

Just be glad you weren't named Michael - a top-5 name from 1949 to at least 2010.

 

[Jim Logajan]

I got a polite private message today from the original poster in response to my own private message to him that I had sent some time back.

For those interested, he is working on his ground studies and has every intention of finishing up. He is not, however, following this forum anymore. He received my message only because PoA sent him an email telling him of my message.

The cacophony of responding posts appears to have turned him off. So while he has given up on PoA, he has not given up on aviation.