Beyond Rote Learning
A Principles-based Approach to Flight Training
By Rich Stowell, 2014 National FAASTeam Rep of the Year & 2006 National Flight Instructor of the Year
According to the FAA’s Airplane Flying Handbook, airmanship includes “a sound knowledge of and experience with the principles of flight.” The classic treatment focuses on things like the atmosphere, airfoil design, and theories about lift. But these are the principles of designing an airplane.
Two questions come to mind:
- What are the first principles of flying an airplane?
- Would training in the context of such principles help push knowledge and skill to the correlation level of learning and help them to solve problems?
After months of thinking about the first question, I identified nine first principles of flying small airplanes. They fall into three categories as shown in the graphic: Mechanics, Mindset, and Motion.
The terminology is familiar and simple. That’s no coincidence. We’ve been using these words and alluding to these principles all along. We see fragments of them in training manuals. We hear whispers of them behind the words used by flight instructors. But the principles aren’t explicitly declared anywhere.
Because flight training isn’t tied to first principles, concepts and maneuvers tend to get compartmentalized. Take turns around a point and rectangular courses, for instance. One teaches pilots how to judge and compensate for the effects of the wind. The other models the traffic pattern. Correlation means blending the concepts and skills developed in these maneuvers when flying real-world traffic patterns. Yet too many pilots don’t correct for the wind in the pattern.
Reaction
I published the nine principles in October 2022. Some instructors aren’t sure what to do with them yet. Others have embraced the challenge of making them an intentional part of the training they provide.
Nine-time master instructor Michael Phillips said that “first principles serve as a roadmap for optimal teaching by instructors. That in turn can lead to optimal learning by their students.”
Bruce Chase, designated pilot examiner and chair of the Flight Science Department at LeTourneau University, wrote:
“First principles are the foundation of pilot training. Mindset, Motion, and Mechanics provide simple but deep concepts from which a pilot can grow. Without a grounding in first principles, pilots often attempt to memorize wholes while failing to comprehend the parts. This leads to faulty assumptions and error.”
The nine principles offer a comprehensive foundation for understanding the core principles of flying small aircraft.
I also had ChatGPT critique the principles. The chatbot said:
“[T]he nine principles … offer a comprehensive foundation for understanding the core principles of flying light [small] aircraft. These principles cover the essential knowledge and skills required for safe and proficient flying … .”
As part of an experiment in optimal learning, the nine principles informed content that will be delivered during EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisc., this year. The non-traditional approach to teaching and learning will be tested over several days at the EAA Pilot Proficiency Center. (For more information, see bit.ly/4aQFt8m.)
Assessing Learning
The FAA Aviation Instructor’s Handbook lists the basic levels of learning as rote, understanding, application, and correlation (RUAC). The handbook also gives a generic description of each level. Instructors can recite the levels of learning (a perfect example of rote learning), but can they give practical examples of each level to their students? How do students know where they are on the RUAC scale?
Here’s where principles can help. The graphic above shows an example of the RUAC levels filled in for the Mindset principle, fly the airplane. Of course, other examples of the levels of learning are possible for this principle.
Per the FAA’s Aviation Instructor’s Handbook, an authentic assessment of learning requires pilots to exhibit “in-depth knowledge by generating a solution instead of merely choosing a response.” Flight training is also supposed to create pilots who are safe and competent. A deliberate, principles-based approach can steer this process for instructors and students alike.
A Thought Exercise
For the second question I presented earlier, consider this thought exercise. Imagine that on day one of training, we introduced students to the motion principles of lines and circles and roll, yaw, and pitch.
Guided by the instructor, the student works out that all flight paths are made up of straight lines and circles; that lines can be described as level, climbing, or descending; and that circles can occur in the horizontal, vertical, or oblique. Note that “turns” and “loops” are synonymous with “circles” and “curved flight paths.”
Also on day one, imagine the student learns to perceive roll, yaw, and pitch motions relative to them like this:
- Roll appears as a head-to-hip movement.
- Yaw appears as an ear-to-ear movement.
- Pitch appears as a head-to-feet movement.
Roll, yaw, and pitch will now look the same to the student no matter the attitude of the airplane.
Once intellectualized, the student experiences these motions through visualization or in a simulator and then gets to see and feel roll, yaw, and pitch motions in flight.
The student also learns about secondary effects such as adverse yaw, torque, P-factor, and slipstream. They then experience these effects using training exercises described in Advisory Circular 61–67C, Stall and Spin Awareness Training.
If we base flight training on first principles first, maybe more pilots would reach the correlation level.
Another Level
Let’s broaden our thinking even more. Now imagine you’re looking at the tail end of an airplane. It’s in level flight, banked 30 degrees to the left. You don’t know how it got there, or where it’s going. You’re seeing a snapshot during some maneuver.
Assume that:
- The airplane is approved and capable of any maneuver.
- The pilot has the skills to do any maneuver.
- The energy is whatever is needed for whatever is next.
Thinking in lines and circles and roll, yaw, and pitch, what’s next? What’s possible?
A level turn to the left is an obvious choice. But what about a climbing or descending spiral? Or a chandelle? Why not an inside or even an outside loop tilted 30 degrees to the left? How about an inside or an outside rolling turn? What else can you envision?
What if we found similar ways for students to play with all the principles like this during training?
Toward Correlation
Like Neo in the film The Matrix, we’re able to see the underlying code at the correlation level of learning. These two motion principles reveal the simplicity of flight: lines, circles, roll, yaw, and pitch. We build our maneuvers by combining these elements in different ways. We can also deconstruct maneuvers into these elements. Think whole-part-whole learning.
The FAA calls straight-and-level flight, turns, climbs, and descents the “four fundamentals.” Through the lens of first principles, you can see these are just lines and circles. You can imagine the combinations of roll, yaw, and pitch needed to go from straight-and-level flight to a wings-level climb or descent, from straight-and-level to a climbing turn like the chandelle, or from a level turn back to straight-and-level.
But don’t confuse simple with easy. We can combine lines, circles, roll, yaw, and pitch in a near-infinite number of ways. Some of the other nine principles are also in play — energy management and stalled flight to name two.
Design and maneuver limits, airspace, regulations, weather, and human factors play roles as well. These and other factors make flying a complex activity. Yet the principles remain the same.
Results Matter
If we base flight training on first principles first, maybe more pilots would reach the correlation level. Maybe more than one-third of them would correlate changes in angle of attack and G-load with curving of the flight path, especially when asked what will happen when pulling the elevator control aft during normal cruise flight.
With a knowledge of first principles, no pilot would wonder how an airplane can fly upside down. Or how it can be stalled with the nose below the horizon. No pilot would be confused about what each control does or which one is used to bend or straighten the flight path.
We would also realize that flying doesn’t happen to us. It happens because of us. It’s our mindset that we bring into the flight deck. We control the motion. We manage the mechanics. And our actions have consequences. Supported by principles, maybe fewer of us would lose control of our airplanes.
Rich Stowell is the 2014 National FAASTeam Rep of the Year and the 2006 National Flight Instructor of the Year. He has provided 9,400 hours of flight instruction, logging 26,000 landings and 35,000 spins along the way. For more information about The Nine Principles, visit RichStowell.com.
