Spouse Co-Pilot Training

[PMcClure]

My wife and I had a great trip down to the coast this week. We are multiple business owners and parents, so it is rare we can get away together. The mooney provided a great platform. Weather was ideal, no wind, severe clear, and no turbulence or clouds. She has rarely shown an interest in flying beyond the utility of it but yesterday she started asking more an more questions. The kids are about to be out of the house and she wants to travel with me on business and to vacations. She asked me what to do when if I were to be incapacitated. Rather than overwhelm here with autopilots, buttons etc.. I told her I would check around about sidekick training. She is a great woman, but no way will she ever become a pilot. But we both agree it would be good for her to learn how to manipulate the controls, find an airport and slow down enough to possible save our skin if needed and to communicate with ATC. We have been married 24 years so I know better than to try teach her myself. What have ya'll done? Any suggested resources? 

[3914N]

No suggestions, but I'll say that I'm in the same boat.  Fiance gets extremely anxious in turbulence, and a coworker friend of her's suggested she get some "pinch-hitter" training.  I've been told that learning a bit more about the airplane can calm nerves.

[carusoam]

PMc,

Mooney girl has a program for right seaters.  'Right seat ready' she presents this with the wife of one of our favorite MSC owner's wife.

Search for Jolie and Jan Maxwell.

The program covers all the details of how to get a Mooney to the ground safely.

Getting your right seater to do as much as they can or desire is good for you as well.

Best regards,

-a-

[Bob]

1 hour ago, carusoam said:

PMc,

Mooney girl has a program for right seaters.  'Right seat ready' she presents this with the wife of one of our favorite MSC owner's wife.

Search for Jolie and Jan Maxwell.

The program covers all the details of how to get a Mooney to the ground safely.

Getting your right seater to do as much as they can or desire is good for you as well.

Best regards,

-a-

I second the "Right Seat Ready" program.  Also think 2-5 hours of good instruction in a trainer plane would be very valuable.

Thinking it may be time for a few hours of good training for my daughter.  She tends to have the Co-Pilot seat during family travel.

[steingar]

Always wanted to get a pinch hitter course for Mrs. Steingar, but I suspect its pretty useless in the Mooney.  No way could she swing the bar.  I suppose they cold train her to land it gear up. 

[TWinter]

I think they just had one in TX. I would really like to see them have a course in the TN or northern Alabama, Georgia area.. Lots of us have spouses that are very nervous passengers. Kind of takes the wind out of my sails sometimes..I've just learned to roll with it. If she wants to go bad enough, she will. 

 That's okay though..I enjoy the "me time" while I'm up there.

[Hank]

My wife isn't nervous, but she does want to learn more. She attended the Right Seat Ready preview at the Summit last fall, but there was neither flying nor simulating, only pretending. She enjoyed it and wants more. Shocked me, but in a good way; we just couldn't make the Maxwell event last month (my typical bad timing).

[Mooneymite]

Hank, I suspect Debra's really ready for some real flight lessons with a young, good looking CFI.  

(You'll notice, I self-disqualified as her future CFI.)

[Danb]

Seems like most of us are in the same boat, except my wife won't take any lessons, we've been flying together for 30 yrs or so. On Ifr trips she's an awesome copilot and can catch most errors I may make. She can handle the radios, navigation and most likely put in on the runway maybe in a ball of sheet metal. Since she's so proficient except in landing I'm going to try and trick her into taking Jolies course. Since there seems to so many of us in the same situation it would be a great idea to have a Mooney program for all our significant others. Jolie time to come out East.

 

 

 

[Bob_Belville]

5 hours ago, steingar said:

Always wanted to get a pinch hitter course for Mrs. Steingar, but I suspect its pretty useless in the Mooney.  No way could she swing the bar.  I suppose they cold train her to land it gear up. 

Jolie took me up on a offer to fly from MooneyMax in Longview over to Kerrvile for a plant tour last month. Coming back into KGGG she lowered the gear (JBar) from the right seat mostly to be able to share that info with her Right Seat Ready folks that weekend. Piece of cake. Of course her own plane is a '65E with a JBar.

However, she and Jan teach their workshops that the non-pilot in the right seat should plan on a gear up landing. I would agree with them that that is much, much safer. A gear up on a runway is a skid of a few hundred feet - probably a non-event, Landing with gear down at 75 mph with no brakes on the right side could very easily get very ugly in the likely event that the non-pilot could not keep it straight down a long runway or even more likely it bounces a couple of times.

 

[carusoam]

Right seat ready covers the various methods of landing. Gear up is primary.  It IS Mooney specific and it is focussed  on the safety of the passengers.

Message for Steingar.... Find the airspeed for putting the gear down with no effort.   The faster you go, the easier it gets. Caution: Unlocking the gear at cruise speed the J-bar comes through the cabin with amazing speed and crashes into the lock block. Start off on the slower end of the scale.  It is the opposite of putting the gear up, where the slower you go, the easier it is.  The gear doors are designed to be responsible of making this work.  While going slow, put the gear up.  While going faster-ish put the gear down.  It's almost effortless when done at the right speed.

Anybody that can do that can manage airspeed.

if they can manage airspeed, a short brake-less run is pretty easy...

if they get all that, she is going to want to sit in the Left seat and give you competition for flying with precision.

 

I have offered to help Jolie organize a NJ based right seat ready program.  It would cost some money to bring her out this way and rent some space or combine it with another organization's activities.  MAPA or 99s etc...

MAPA is having their program this fall in Atlantic City.  Might be good to ride the edge of that program...

Send up a signal if you want somebody to take the right seat ready class in NJ.  I have three family members that would be interested....

Thinking out loud again....

Best regards,

-a-

[mike_elliott]

I don't instruct a right seat ready course per se, but I have taught a couple of "right seaters" how to land a Mooney at the request of the owners. This isn't to take away from what Jan and Jolie do at all, but to give everyone encouragement to help their spouses' get an understanding of airspeed and landing technique in a real environment, using real Mooney equipment to help re-enforce what they have heard in a classroom type setting.

One of the key's to successfully landing a Mooney is airspeed control, Right? Why not let your spouse practice this airspeed control at altitude? Decend from cruise at a nice 3 Deg glideslope, 500'/min 90 kt decent, and have it decay to 80 kts in level flight. If not with you, with your CFI.

We are hoping Ron Jarmon receives his Redbird full motion sim for the Mooney Summit IV for just such a purpose, as it will add to the classroom sessions at previous Mooney Summits done by Carol Ann Garratt, and again by Jan and Jolie.

[midlifeflyer]

Right-seat-spouse courses are excellent. I've seen them from AOPA and the 99s. And like most other good training, there should be both a ground and air component, and they don't have to be coordinated. 

On the ground, we're really dealing with very general concepts. We're not going to teach anyone in 1-day program everything needed to know to fly a Mooney or a Bonanza or a Cessna 172 and any attempt to dot is going to end up producing a glazed faraway look. That's why the good ones are so good - then know how to teach essentials without firehosing.

The air component, perhaps obviously, should be as make-model specific as possible. Own a Mooney and, yep, that's what you want. If not and you rent various models, the more complex of them; then one you or most likely to fly together in, is probably the best bet.

[mooneygirl]

Jan and I will be teaching Right Seat Ready! in Orange County, CA on September 10th.  This course is sponsored by the 99s and is our six hour general aviation airplane course.  Many of you know that we just taught our two-day Mooney-specific course in Longview Texas with MooneyMax.  We also will be teaching at Mooney International during the week of MAPA Homecoming [October 20-23rd] I am particularly excited about this because while this is a short course, 4 hours, two of the hours are in the RedBird Sim with an instructor from Mooney.

We have had several of our attendees go on to get their pilots license.  That is a fabulous by-product. However our goal is that the right seat, or even back seat companion becomes a more active participant in the flight, which can be an aid to the pilot during any flight, and of course, be Ready of the Right © if necessary in emergency.  Jan has the remarkable experience of not only being an instrument-rated pilot, but the  co-owner of Don Maxwell Aviation one of the largest MSCs in the country.  I think that my being a Mooney owner that has experienced a crash, and a licensed psychotherapist helps round out the presentation emotionally/mental-health wise.

As was previously mentioned in the thread... many folks [men and women alike] get the "deer in the headlights" look. This is because the lower part of the brain, which is ancient, has become activated and they are experiencing freeze.  That part of the brain controls flight, fight and freeze.  With education, exposure, practice and reassurance, the non-flying companion can come to utilize the high part of the brain that we do not share with reptiles. 

We stress practice, practice practice. Practice does not make perfect as the saying goes...practice makes practice, and with practice comes mastery.  I suppose we all know this through our flying. We added having ATC attend our workshop at MooneyMax.  Our participants were able to have the experience of being "talked down" by an actual controller. 

Jan and I are scheduling 2017 Right Seat Ready!© courses.  We want to teach about four times a year.  If you would like more information please PM me, or email: jolielucas@charter.net   Our attendees also receive a double-sided emergency checklist.  As mentioned we have a generic single airplane version, and of course our Mooney specific version.  The goal is safety of all in the airplane, a by product is gaining a sense of mastery and perhaps inspiring a new pilot or two.  No seminar can guarantee how someone will actually perform in case of an emergency.  Here is a sample review.

I gently convinced my wife, Veronica, to take Jolie and your Mooney Right Seat class. My wife does not have any aviation passion & does not enjoy flying. As a direct result of Veronica taking the right seat class, my friends wife, Helen Bergantz also agreed to take it. Joe Bergantz & I were both amazed at lunch at Sharkeys on Saturday, that both of our wives were enthusiastic, interested & asking lots of questions about emergency procedures & basic piloting procedures and other questions about flying our Mooneys. We were even more amazed that they sat through the longer afternoon class & were still enthusiastic & more interested in basic emergency, pilotage techniques & other questions about our Mooneys. Joe & I absorbed lots of aviation & Mooney safety, operation & maintenance information, techniques, "lessons learned", recommendations & knowledge. However, the right seat class was more valuable to us because it generated some interest & passion for our wives in flying our Mooneys! They are obviously much more knowledgeable about Mooney emergency & basic pilotage procedures but more importantly your class greatly reduced their fear & anxiety when flying in our Mooneys. Thank you very much for setting up & conducting the Mooney Right Seat class
Darrel Caldwell

Mooney Girls are thrilled to have partnered with Lightspeed Aviation. Our attendees will be able to try the Tango wireless headset which is a breakthrough in technology and safety. We also do part of the presentation with our Lightspeed Tango headset on.  

Here is our video trailer: YouTube Video Trailer

Again, if you would like to schedule an event for 2017, please let us know soon. We get more requests than we can accommodate, yet Mooney-specific is our favorite course to teach.

[PMcClure]

Thanks for all your great advice. I will talk to her and see if she may be interested in the October MAPA course!