The most basic stepping stones to be traversed by a student pilot going after a certificate involve figuring out where she or he wants the airplane to go and learning the monkey motion involved in causing it to go there. We’ve gotten all sophisticated over the years and refer to that sort of thing as flight maneuvering tasks. Nevertheless, the process of teaching student pilots the rudiments of shoving an aircraft through the sky—straight and level flight (at the same time?!), turns, climbs, descents, slow flight, stalls and takeoffs and landings—have not changed a great deal since the Wrights set up their flight school. An instructor describes the maneuver, demonstrates it and then has the student practice it repeatedly, with coaching and feedback, until the student demonstrates the ability to perform it within acceptable parameters.
