Remember trying to “drive” the airplane on the ground with the yoke the first time you attempted to taxi it? Some people still fall into this habit when tired or distracted. It’s known as the Law of Primacy, as they learned to drive a car before they learned to fly.
In most airplanes—the Ercoupe is the exception—you can’t steer on the ground with the yoke. The urge to apply automobile technique to the airplane is an example of negative transference, which is when previous knowledge (driving a car) is applied to a new situation (taxiing an airplane) even though it is the incorrect procedure. Basically, old habits get in the way of learning and practicing the new skill.
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The opposite of this is positive transference, when a previously learned skill supports one you are learning by reinforcing useful habits and knowledge. There are some things you probably learned before you became a student pilot that may be of use as you pursue your certificate.
I say this because it is highly likely that an experienced CFI will ask about other activities you do such as sports you play or have played, or what you do for a living. We’re not being nosy. EWe’re looking for something that may help us teach you what you need to know by drawing comparisons from familiar-to-you activities. For example, a surgeon easily embraced the use of the checklist, saying they used them in the operating room to make sure all instruments were accounted for before they closed up the patient.
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You never know when a skill you learned for something else can be applied to flying. It may be something far in your past—maybe even back to childhood.
Sports and the Pilot
When a coworker complained about a student pilot who kept his feet flat on the floor in the airplane instead of on the rudder pedals, I was reminded of an exercise my childhood soccer coach taught us to learn ball control. For the unfamiliar, when you are learning to play soccer—especially when you are a little kid—there is a tendency to boot the ball, rather than dribble it with control. This is akin to stomping on a rudder rather than applying control pressures.
The coach came up with an exercise we could do at home. The player sits in a chair with a soccer ball on the floor between their feet, and while looking straight ahead, the player passes the ball back and forth between their feet—-left, right, left, etc., focusing on controlled movements. Basically, this exercise helps you become more aware of your feet and how little effort it takes to control the ball.
I told my coworker about the exercise and, lacking a soccer ball, I used my full and therefore heavy water bottle to demonstrate how it was done. The coworker showed it to his learner and explained its purpose. A week or so later the coworker reported that the learner was doing the water bottle exercise at home, and his rudder usage had improved. It could have been a coincidence, or maybe we found the key to helping that learner. I still recommend the between-the-feet drill when a learner is having a challenge learning to use the rudders.
I have heard from other CFIs that racket sports like handball, pickleball, squash, and tennis help develop and enhance hand-eye coordination and footwork, which can help improve your landings. I think they may also help improve your reaction time, as you have to anticipate where the ball is going to go based on the force applied, just as you have to stay ahead of the aircraft and know where it is going next.
Music and Flying
I have held a CFII certificate for approximately 20 years, and I have noticed that practicing musicians who have the ability to read music often pick up the ability to brief and approach very quickly. The idea of briefing the approach is to know what to expect during the execution of it—the missed approach procedure, approach type hardware and weather minima, radio frequency and VOR radials, time if in a timed approach, inbound heading, and final altitude.
The acronym for all that is MARRTHA. Getting “MARRTHA’d” requires the pilot to obtain an awful lot of information in a short time while simultaneously flying the aircraft. Division of attention is key. Just like when one is playing a piece of music by sight reading. When you are singing or playing a musical instrument, especially brass or woodwind, you learn how to divide attention, allowing you to play, read ahead, and plan for the next step, like taking a breath before that next long phrase and hitting the next notes.
Application by CFIs
The best CFIs can take what they know of you and use it to create teachable moments. When I started my instrument rating I had just adopted two kittens. They were brothers, and they got into everything—and I mean everything.
Everyone at the airport wanted to know how the “babies were doing,” and I gladly shared exploits, noting that I was going to have to have to crate them when I wasn’t home because “baby proofing” my apartment didn’t work. I knew this because I watched 6-week-old Worf easily pop the correctly installed childproof lock on the pantry, which had proved impervious to a coworker’s 2 year old.
Like so many instrument candidates, I had, at least at first, a tendency to fixate on one instrument and lose track of the others. When this happened, my CFI called my attention to it, intoning: “Think of the instruments like a box of kittens. You can’t fixate on one because the rest will get out and into mischief.”
Learning took place.
