I am not an instructor but based on my experience, I think there are some really good suggestions here and they could improve the performance of the instructors. When I went out to fly one time, my younger son, who was 20 at the time, went with me. I was flying a Thunder Tiger Stick and he asked if he could try it. I got one of the instructors to take him up on my buddy box but he didn't give him any instructions except what each stick direction did. My son was bombing badly on the turns. Each time he made a turn, the angle would get too steep, the nose would drop, and the instructor would have to recover. I stood beside him and watched his thumbs and he was doing exactly as I expected, giving aileron in the direction of the turn and holding it. I told the instructor to take it and I used the buddy box to show him how to make the turns properly. I then placed my thumb of my right hand on his thumb and gave instructions on making turns to the instructor and I duplicated his movements. When my son took over again, his turns were perfect. After 2 tanks of fuel, he was flying without the instructor having to take control. I believe that he could have been doing approaches on the next lesson if we had had longer to stay. His only comment was that it was much harder than he had thought.

I believe that anything that can help the student get a feel for the controls prior to flying should not be ruled out. We have to realize that this is a whole new world to the student and what we take for granted because of years of flying is totally new to him. We tend to forget what it was like when we learned and because of this, we fall short on teaching the basics before putting the student on the buddy box.