Princedietrich
Retired Starchecker
- Joined
- Oct 27, 2004
- Posts
- 1,437
About 6 years ago I was a CFI at LUK, and one of my students was this little 17 year old twerp that was getting lessons because his daddy wanted to live vicariously through his kid. Anyways, this kid was bitten by the flying bug eventually but didn't have enough brain power to go through with a career path intelligently (he told me one day that he was going to drop out of high school, commit himself full time to flight training, and then get a GED later). He'd been signed off for solo by another instructor at my school and I'd picked him up later to finish his private cert.
He was scheduled to fly a night cross country with me one evening, and about 4pm or so there was a huge evil looking thunderstorm moving towards LUK. The sky had that nasty greenish tint to it, the kind you see before the mother of all tornadoes comes through and bulldozes your town into toothpicks. I called the contact number for him and got the answering machine, so I left him a message saying that the flight wasn't going to happen that night due to very poor weather conditions and that he should call to reschedule. He was my last student that day, so I decided to call it a night.
In the parking lot on the way to my car, who should I run into but this student. He said in his usual overly-excited tone 'are we going up?" I replied in the resoundingly negative, and he asked why in a very whiney annoyed tone. I pointed at the massive thunderstorm that was 20 minutes away and said "THAT'S why." He then asked if he could go up solo instead, and my reply was "I would advise very strongly against it." He just nodded at me and wandered inside the building, and I got in my car and went home.
About three weeks later I get called into the boss' office and was informed about an inquiry from the tower about an incident with one of my students. THIS student. See, after I'd left and after I'd told him it wouldn't be a good idea to go up solo that night, he went anyway. Not only did he fly solo during what was officially night time WITHOUT a night solo endorsement, not only did he fly during a TORNADO WATCH, and not only did he cut off a Falcon 20 on short final, but he topped it all off by landing on the wrong runway at LUK without a clearance. This was the first I'd heard of any of this, and my expression of suprise seemed to convince the boss that I really did have no idea about these events. I'd flown with this kid twice since this incident, and he never told me about it. I called the control tower to get the details from the controller who was on duty at the time, and after doing several mea culpas I assured him that I did not endorse this behavior and assured him that the student in question was going to get my size 13 shoe planted firmly up his backside.
The kid was scheduled to come in that evening for another night cross country with me, and when he arrived I was sitting at the front desk with my hands in a Mr Burns pose and a very annoyed look on my face. He said, in his usual tone, "are we going up?" I replied that we weren't going anywhere until he explained to me why he'd gotten in severe trouble with the control tower and didn't bother to tell me, and until he explained why he blatantly disregarded my advice not to fly that night. He got a deer-in-the-headlights look and just stared at me, because obviously there was no good explanation other than being a total idiot. I asked him to hand me his logbook, which he did, and I quickly turned to his solo endorsement and signed it off as being invalid (not sure if it was an FAA legal thing to do, but at least I felt confident that it got the point across). I then told him to get his butt out of my office and never come back.
Two days later, guess who's voice I hear over the radio of a trainer plane at the school down the street. And yes, he was solo.
Anyway, the moral of the story and the bonehead mistake that I made as CFI was not to be very specificly clear that "No, you are NOT flying solo tonight. Go home." By leaving it somewhat open-ended by "advising stongly against it," it allowed him an option to do something stupid. Now, who is to say that he wouldn't have gone up anyway if I had been clear and direct? We'll never know.
He was scheduled to fly a night cross country with me one evening, and about 4pm or so there was a huge evil looking thunderstorm moving towards LUK. The sky had that nasty greenish tint to it, the kind you see before the mother of all tornadoes comes through and bulldozes your town into toothpicks. I called the contact number for him and got the answering machine, so I left him a message saying that the flight wasn't going to happen that night due to very poor weather conditions and that he should call to reschedule. He was my last student that day, so I decided to call it a night.
In the parking lot on the way to my car, who should I run into but this student. He said in his usual overly-excited tone 'are we going up?" I replied in the resoundingly negative, and he asked why in a very whiney annoyed tone. I pointed at the massive thunderstorm that was 20 minutes away and said "THAT'S why." He then asked if he could go up solo instead, and my reply was "I would advise very strongly against it." He just nodded at me and wandered inside the building, and I got in my car and went home.
About three weeks later I get called into the boss' office and was informed about an inquiry from the tower about an incident with one of my students. THIS student. See, after I'd left and after I'd told him it wouldn't be a good idea to go up solo that night, he went anyway. Not only did he fly solo during what was officially night time WITHOUT a night solo endorsement, not only did he fly during a TORNADO WATCH, and not only did he cut off a Falcon 20 on short final, but he topped it all off by landing on the wrong runway at LUK without a clearance. This was the first I'd heard of any of this, and my expression of suprise seemed to convince the boss that I really did have no idea about these events. I'd flown with this kid twice since this incident, and he never told me about it. I called the control tower to get the details from the controller who was on duty at the time, and after doing several mea culpas I assured him that I did not endorse this behavior and assured him that the student in question was going to get my size 13 shoe planted firmly up his backside.
The kid was scheduled to come in that evening for another night cross country with me, and when he arrived I was sitting at the front desk with my hands in a Mr Burns pose and a very annoyed look on my face. He said, in his usual tone, "are we going up?" I replied that we weren't going anywhere until he explained to me why he'd gotten in severe trouble with the control tower and didn't bother to tell me, and until he explained why he blatantly disregarded my advice not to fly that night. He got a deer-in-the-headlights look and just stared at me, because obviously there was no good explanation other than being a total idiot. I asked him to hand me his logbook, which he did, and I quickly turned to his solo endorsement and signed it off as being invalid (not sure if it was an FAA legal thing to do, but at least I felt confident that it got the point across). I then told him to get his butt out of my office and never come back.
Two days later, guess who's voice I hear over the radio of a trainer plane at the school down the street. And yes, he was solo.
Anyway, the moral of the story and the bonehead mistake that I made as CFI was not to be very specificly clear that "No, you are NOT flying solo tonight. Go home." By leaving it somewhat open-ended by "advising stongly against it," it allowed him an option to do something stupid. Now, who is to say that he wouldn't have gone up anyway if I had been clear and direct? We'll never know.
