The Pilot as Romantic Engineer

If you take enough education courses in college, sooner or later you'll find one that discusses the "modalities" of learning. I haven't the least idea what that means, but I took a course that used that word all the time and part of the final grade was based on the promise that I use the word indiscriminately. Another word I would love to be able to work into a conversation is "Notwithstanding," a great compilation of prefixes and suffixes used only by obscure Victorian Romantics (see Charles Brockton Brown's unintelligible novel Wieland) and part 91 of the FAR's. Notwithstanding the preceding discussion (I did it!), it should be self-explanatory that people learn in different ways and at different rates.

It is so self-explanatory that entire graduate schools of education are dedicated to proving this. To me, it's even more obvious that there are really only two different styles of learning and those different styles manifest themselves most clearly in student glider pilots.

Engineers

It is with trepidation (see reference to Romantics, above) that I single out this group for many reasons, all of which most Club members are or have been in this illustrious discipline. Engineers think. Engineers measure. Engineers compute, calculate, subdivide and notate everything. Those quantity scales on the outside of baby bottles aren't for parents to note how much formula junior has been uploaded. No, they are a training device for infant engineers, to mull over and convert to metric in their little developing, calculating minds. As they mature, playing with crib toys, which all seem abacus-like in design, crawling over to reprogram the VCR, setting the oven to come on at 3:00 am, using discarded kitchen implements to build electron microscopes, these people exhibit an innate logic. A teenage engineer can disassemble your watch and explain how all the pieces work, but be completely disinterested in putting the pieces back together. This cool, logical mind can explain how a planetary gearbox works, install a hard drive, understand DOS and actually read computer enthusiast magazines, but sometimes end up two states off when driving home.

Liberal Arts Romantics

People in this group "feel" a lot. Romantics use figures of speech to describe rather than measurements ("My love is like a red, red rose," rather than "My love is 1.67 times my pulse rate at rest plus the length of the mean chord line"). Romantics emote ("I adjusted the whatsis on the ##@*&! computer with a rock and a stick and it still smokes when I plug it in!"). Romantics "know" answers without the slightest idea where the knowledge came from. The most feared request for a Romantic is "Show your work."

These two genetically pre-determined groups exhibit totally different learning modalities (and you thought I'd never get to it), and therefore require different instructional styles from the dedicated flight instructor.

For the engineer, or E-type personality, a rule, regulation, measurement or immutable law of the universe must be given for each action the pilot takes or will take. Never should the instructor say simply "Bank left here and we'll see if we can make the thermal work for us." Instead he will be required to state the desired bank angle and the allowable standard deviation, explaining adiabatic lapse rate, lifted index and how that differs from the Standard and Poors index of leading economic indicators. During this animated discussion, the student deftly flies at best L/D into 9,000 fpm sink away from the airport.

The Liberal Arts Romantic or LAR-type will carelessly blunder into the thermal at an airspeed that fluctuates 30 knots or more and wobble into a totally uncoordinated turn somewhere near the thermal, and while the instructor busies himself in the back seat with a small white plastic bag, randomly climb to 12,000 feet quietly humming snippets from John Denver songs.

How does all of this relate to soaring and the teaching of soaring? Who knows. It just does. Do I have to show my work? Oh, my God! This is like swimming in a vat of lime Jell-O! Sorry, I emoted and similied there for a moment. Each of us exhibits one of these learning styles or a combination of both in some infinitely variable ratio. In an informal way, we are all "instructors" by example. Our "students" are all other pilots who see and learn from the actions of other pilots. One way people learn is by inductive reasoning (Horses don't fly, pigs don't fly, salamanders don't fly and I won't fly, therefore domesticated animals, newts, and people have sense.) People create a general rule from the specifics which they experience. We are all under an obligation to help our E-types feel and our LAR-type calculate.

It is only through the marriage of these two styles of learning (notice how I deftly avoided the alliterative quality of the expression "modality marriage") that one can truly appreciate both the technical and the aesthetic qualities of soaring. No matter how much the engineer quantifies and defines, the E-personality will eventually feel the beauty and wonder of flight. No matter how much the LAR-personality says, "If it feels good, just do it!", he has to master the specific details and apply the rules and regulations to make flight safe.

It works for soaring; is it a good approach for life? Nah.

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