How do you “knock the rust off”? The most common mode is to simply “bang it around the patch.” Another option is the hundred-dollar hamburger flight — usually CAVU, not too distant, lots of cholesterol. Unhappily, both are lousy options. The cockpit is a terrible learning environment. It’s noisy, it’s bouncy, there are a zillion distractions; do it wrong you’re gonna die. Additionally, unstructured training isn’t focused on specific skills and goals, and we end up reinforcing bad habits. What we need is training that features the fundamental moves needed for success in a particular skill. The movements may be instinctive but proficiency is not, which sounds a lot like flying skills. Educators call this “physical literacy” and this leads to another sordid tale of inelegant flying from Jonesy’s logbook.
