Among the aviation blogs I follow, John Ewing’s Aviation Mentor is a favorite. He’s a northern California-based former freight pilot who left that business to return to instructing (already you’ve got to admire the guy, right?). His topics are worthwhile reading, the entries invariably well-written and annotated. That alone sets him apart. “A show about nothing” might have been a recipe for success on “Seinfeld”, but it doesn’t carry much water when you’re writing a blog.

Anyway, he recently posted something thought-provoking about the increasing prevalence of digital flight planning tools, some of them so portable and powerful you can hold it in your hand and easily “plan” a flight from anywhere to anywhere with no paper whatsoever. Federal regulations, weather, charts, airport directories, even logbooks are all available on these little devices. And so John asked the question I get from many students: isn’t planning flights on paper passé?

The widespread availability of sophisticated GPS receivers, digitized aviation charts, and internet-based weather information is changing the way student pilots are learning cross-country flight planning. The introduction of new technology and techniques always raises questions: Should student pilots be taught to use paper charts, plotter, pencil, and a slide rule E6B or encouraged to switch entirely to electronic charts, calculators, GPS and computer-based weather briefings?

I’m a big fan of computerized flight planning and use them on a daily basis myself. There’s no doubt that they make what admittedly can be a onerous task faster, more efficient & enjoyable, and in some cases safer. However, when it comes to students learning to fly, there are several problems with not planing cross country flights “by hand”.

First among them is that without doing it by hand, students don’t understand how the computer is coming up with the output it delivers. Students therefore never figure out how to determine whether that information makes sense. It’s incredible to watch pilots — even experienced ones — on dual flights take bad data from a computer as gospel when a critical look at the numbers would reveal that something was wrong. Usually it’s bad input from the pilot — the junk-in/junk-out syndrome that computer programmers have known for years.

One of the most egregious examples of this was an instrument-rated commericial pilot flying what was supposed to be a short cross country blindly follow a course to a place that was more than 4,000 miles away, not realizing he was headed south when his destination was to the north. When the error was pointed out, he truly felt that it was no big deal. I tried to convince him that he had been lost, but he just refused to accept it, and in doing so became one of the few people I was never able to approve for solo privileges at the FBO.

The final check on any data from a computer must always be the pilot-in-command, but unless students have done these computations by hand, they won’t know what they don’t know. There are many advantages to using digital tools to plan cross country flights, but you have to learn to do it long hand first. Otherwise, why not use software to do the weight and balance or any other tasks? Are we aviators or bus drivers?

From a practical standpoint, printed charts can prove superior to computers at times. Trying to figure out complex multi-layered airspace around L.A. or the S.F. bay area when you’re unfamiliar with it is much easier on paper than on a computer screen because printed charts don’t require panning and zooming, nor do they suffer from limited screen resolution.

Computerized tools also fall prey to unintentional programming. For example, digital maps can frequently be “decluttered”. It’s disturbing to watch someone fly happily along without realizing there was airspace in front of them which had been turned off by the declutter function. The purpose of flight training is to teach people to fly, not program a computer.

I do agree that there are places for digital tools like the iPad. Many places, as it turns out. Every try folding a chart in a Pitts? Quite a feat. iPads also make great geo-referenced backups for glass panel aircraft, as they have their own power source, antenna, and don’t require anything from the airplane systems to function. They’re handy if you have to divert into an area your chart doesn’t cover. They save the weight and bulk of large paper collections. I’ve even seen them make flight possible for those who might not otherwise have been able to do it. For example, a student with one arm was able to use an iPad when folding a paper chart would have been impossible in flight.

The list of benefits is long. But I would not train a student pilot without having them do it by hand quite a few times. You’d be surprised at how many people (highly successful ones, even) have a very difficult time with basic math and navigation concepts. Flight planning by hand will help uncover these issues early on.

In my opinion, it would be irresponsible to train a pilot without ensuring they could do the computations by hand before bringing them into the 21st century with the automated tools that most of us now routinely use for our flight planning needs.

Today, a bit of a rant — for which I will apologize in advance, my friends.

Flying is just about the only avocation I can think of where people can be found spending their free time at work by choice.

Think about that. In an office environment, folks typically get to work no earlier than necessary. Likewise, they leave as soon as possible when their work day is over and would never even entertain the idea of hanging out at the office on their day off.

But in aviation? It’s the polar opposite. At the end of a long week spent at the airport, they’ll spend their day off… at the airport. This is a major shift in motivation from the average workplace, and it contributes to a positive attitude and happy demeanor there.

Imagine an office building where everyone inside couldn’t wait to get to work in the morning. It would be a much different place, wouldn’t it?

Perhaps that’s why I don’t understand the disparaging attitude many people harbor toward instructing. It is widely viewed within the aviation industry as a bottom-rung starter job which must be endured in order to get to a “real” flying gig. And I suppose if that’s all you make of it, if that’s all you put into it, then that’s what it’ll be.

Here’s one instructor’s take on it:

Here’s the way a flying career works.

1) A person wants to become a captain of a big airliner and make lots of money
2) To do that, s/he need to be the first officer of a big airliner
3) To be hired into a major airline, s/he needs to build a bunch of jet time, so s/he works for a regional airline for a painfully low salary
4) To be hired at the regional airline, s/he needs a bunch of flying hours
5) To get those flying hours without paying for them, s/he becomes a flight instructor – that way the student pays for the hours
6a) Because the purpose is to build hours and not to make real money, flight instructors, in general, don’t get paid much at all (e.g. $11/hr in many places)
6b) Because most flight instructors actually want to work for an airline, they leave instruction as quickly as possible, so there are very few truly experienced flight instructors around
6c) Because these flight instructors don’t care what they make, they depress the entire instruction industry – it’s hard for anyone to charge more

Keep in mind this was written by a CFI. He goes on to wonder if the change in Part 121 mandatory retirement age will “destroy the short-lived increase in pay that I’ve seen for CFIs, now that the existing CFIs won’t be able to find airline jobs and will probably be stuck being instructors”.

Stuck? Please. Life is what you make of it. Just because instructing is a low-cost way to build hours doesn’t mean that’s all you can get out of it. There are float planes, glass panels, helicopters, turboprops, and a hundred other specialties out there to be mastered. If you want to be just another guy teaching primary students in a beat up Skyhawk, be my guest. But there’s so much more out there if you just have the vision, work ethic, and patience to pursue it.

I’ve got news for you, buddy: some of us actually enjoy instructing. Some instructors specialize in high performance aerobatics, formation flying, experimentals, warbird transitions, antiques, biplanes, tailwheels, and other such interesting airplanes. That’s what I do. I might fly a Pitts one day, a Columbia 400 the next, then a 1928 TravelAir, then an Extra 300, then an RV-6 or a Harmon Rocket. I coach aerobatic competitors, ferry aircraft, fly formation, and get paid for all of it.

I get to be home at night. I set my own schedule. And I charge whatever I want. There are very few instructors with the hours and credentials to gain insurance approval on these aircraft, so for the most part I’m in the driver’s seat.

It’s really a shame that those who teach primary students (poorly) for a couple hundred hours and simply look at their CFI time as some trial they must endure to get a “real job” are considered to be in the same category as CFIs who’ve spent many years honing their craft.

I’ve cleaned up the messes left by countless CFIs whose instruction was criminally poor, unprofessional, and incomplete. I say good riddance to those CFIs. As far as I’m concerned, the airlines can have them.

The ironic thing is that aviators with that attitude aren’t going to be happy when they reach that Part 121 job. They’ll decry the pay, the hours, the equipment, and look ahead to the next thing. The next plane, the upgrade to the left seat, the move to a “major” airline. We’ve all met people like that. The challenges of instructing don’t sit well with these types.

Make no mistake about it. The starting pay can be poor, the conditions rough, the hours long. In many ways instructing is like flying for a regional, come to think of it. The difference is that instruction allows you to play a pivotal role in a life-changing event for a person; you get to shepherd them toward the fulfillment of a dream which probably hearkens back to their childhood. How many jobs let you do that?

One final note about primary instructors, as they are probably the least respected of the CFI ilk. The longer I instruct, the more I’m convinced that primary instruction is one of the most difficult (and potentially rewarding) jobs a CFI can pursue. It’s a major undertaking to transform a civilian who doesn’t even know how to open the door of an aircraft into a pilot with sufficient knowledge of aerodynamics, navigation, aircraft systems, emergency procedures, airspace, meteorology, aviation law, aeromedical factors, etc. to safely operate that aircraft with passengers aboard.

I think it’s high time that CFIs — especially the career instructors — got the respect and recognition they deserve.