Probably one of the most common reasons people don’t learn to fly is because they don’t understand the difficulty, costs or time commitments required for the endeavor.  Usually, would-be students are driven away from learning to fly because they believe the process will take years of rigorous training.  In reality, learning to fly a plane is only slightly harder than learning to drive a car. 

Consider the following example…

Take an average teen-ager that’s getting ready to get a driver’s license.  First they would get a learner’s permit.  Next they would spend time with mom or dad driving in parking lots, then on secondary streets, and working their way up to interstate highways.  How many hours will this person drive with mom or dad before they are allowed to drive by themselves?  Some states require as much as 50 logged hours before they can get a license.  Other states don’t have a minimum; however most responsible parents will spend 30-40 hours before letting their child “take the car.”  Some teens/parents will drive together for a full year together, taking as much as 200-300 hours before they get a driver’s license.

Now consider learning to fly.  I generally solo a student after 6-10 hours of dual instruction.  After generally 30 hours of dual instruction a student is prepared for a private pilot check ride.  Combine that 30 hours of dual with another 15-20 hours of supervised solo practice (a concept that isn’t replicated in the auto learning process) then the student is ready to get a license.

In both the case of the pilot and the driver there were necessary studies of the “rules of the road.”  In both cases there was a written test.  Both scenarios involved some form of medical evaluation, the pilot’s being slightly more thorough.

So there you have it, generally speaking it takes about the same amount time and effort to train a pilot as it does to train a competent driver.  The steps are similar, and the time required is similar.  Most of you might respond that it is easier to learn to drive because driving is intuitive.  There is some truth to that, but consider; by the time the teen age student driver is 15, they have spend 15 years watching mom and dad drive.  On day 1 of their lessons, the teen has significant knowledge of the vehicle and environment.  If you want to think this through a little further then consider using two student that have never seen a car or a plane.  Which would learn their vehicle first, the student pilot or the student driver. 

One element of inital flight training that new pilots often rebel against is the use of checklists.  Over and over I hear brand new students pilots ask the same questions.  Why do I need to use a checklist, why not just memorize the items and operate the aircraft without the checklist.

To a certain extent this attitude makes sense.  After all, in what other area of our everyday lives do we use checklists?

I usually explain checklist use by telling pilots that the point of using checklists as a student pilot is is to form a habit pattern that will hopefully stay with them for the rest of their flying days.

Why is that important?  Well, student pilots don't stay student pilots for long.  Some become private, commercial, ATP, and multi-engine pilots.  Most will transition out of the 172.  While it may seem meaningles to have an in range checklist on a 172, it's not on a 737.

By drilling the use of checklists into student pilots, we form habits that aid them in later endeavors.  Whether the student is transitioning to larger more complex aircraft, flying unfamiliar aircraft, or dealing with an emergency or unusual situation, the response will be the same - turn to the checklist.

Besides the simple directive of "use the checklist," the pilot also needs to be taught just how to use the checklist to make it as useful a tool as possible.  For example, when I train private pilots I usually tell them to use a flow pattern and then recheck their work using the checklist.  If there are two pilots then a PF/PNF challenge/reaponse structure is excellent practice to prepare them for airlines, corporate flying, and CRM concepts.

My final thought... students need to also be taught to challenge the contents of checklists.  As we've all seen there are many after-market checklists.  Often these checklists are missing items, have incorrect order, or bad parameters.  Sometimes the best practice is to consult several checklists and compile your own.  Just today I was instructing in a 182.  The checklist was missing any form of check for the fuel tank selector.  Go figure?