"A procedure in which repetition of a sequence of operations yields results successfully closer to a desired result."

When David Soucie figured out why a Boeing 737 fuselage section blew off, it triggered aviation changing from hours to cycles. The Army kept the annual 100 hours requirement but added the Aircrew Training Manuel with its iterations of various techniques.

I was privileged to fly three aviation jobs that provided opportunities for iterations, many iterations. They were Army aviation, Ag, and pipeline patrol. The POH is a good starting point for operations, but by definition does not produce results successively closer to the desired result. Like golf, the desired result (perfection) is not attainable. Default iterations of good technique, however, get us closer to the desired result.

This is not new to me. I grew up with a dad to whom finished did not mean I had moved the dirt or had gone over the ground. Finished meant there was no more before evening nautical twilight, no more light in the day.

I am encouraging and may sound like a superpilot. Guilty the former, innocent the latter. I just have the advantage of iterations. Hours, I have those too, but iterations are what appear to be super. For anyone, not just me. I believe, like my dad, that we learn best by doing. Others here agree when they advise new pilots to invest in gas. Zero timer students, after one loop on the pipeline, where ready to solo. And they were proficient in low ground effect takeoff (13 iterations,) Dutch rolls, energy management turns (1,000 iterations,) and the apparent brisk walk rate of closure approach (13 iterations.)

When I was a young pilot, before integrated instrument and PTS, "Stick and Rudder" application resulted in iterations of safe low VFR technique. Because IFR had an extremely well defined and monitored airspeed, altitude, and procedural track, it got pilots away from low altitude maneuvering technique. Integrated instrument VFR did not. IFR requires iterations called currency. A VFR Flight Review every two years does not.

We know that dual instruction is more effective than video or audio instruction. I have, however, finished Ag students in single seat airplanes using only hand held radio. The video on this site is excellent. Most of our children and grandchildren will do zoom learning until the government gets control of the virus. Buy some gas and start some iterations of safe maneuvering flight techniques. They are not difficult, just different. When a vaccination is available, I will fly with anybody anytime free. I will talk, not fly. And I guarantee that in a short time you will be doing safe maneuvering flight techniques better than I do them. I am not a superpilot, but I have super students. Mine is not the only way that works and my hat is off to instructors who can play the ACS numbers game, but my students have found these techniques to be safe and effective. Not everybody has to maneuver too low to recover from inadvertent stall...Wait! All VFR aircraft have to maneuver too low to recover from inadvertent stall every time they takeoff and every time they land! And what about those must be 600' + or - 50' level, you got to be kidding me, level ground reference maneuvers that fail to teach good wind and energy management. Who actually flies that way, or should fly that way. Use airspeed to get up a bit and slower to turn, use the roller coaster by allowing the nose to go down in the turn, and please don't teach the dangerous downwind turn at 600.' Manage the wind to put us onto target. A skill we can use in real life.

I often point out to aviation new comers this thought. Managing an airplane is the ipotomy of continous professional development. Aviation is about experience and hopefully the experiences learned and the event that occures all come together on the same day.

My hope was to draw out the question, If contact has so many iterations how can I make better takeoffs, landings, and energy management turns. Currency. I haven't flown more than a few hours, a few iterations of techniques, in years. I am disabled. I might demonstrate what I am having trouble talking you through, but I mostly talk. Just like what I am doing now. I provide some experiential comfort as you know I have been there many times before, but you are doing the control manipulation. In just a few days or weeks of normal flying, you will get many more iterations than I do (manipulation of the controls) in a year.

So yes, you will be the superpilot. I will just be the guy who talks too much. I do stop when the control manipulator says, "Shut up Jim, just let me do it."