Flying Keys
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How do you account for CFIs that aren’t teaching solely for the end goal of certifying pilots? There has to be a better metric.
Lawsuit Filed in Fatal Flight School Accident
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The good ones that want to keep instructing can keep instructing. But you weed out the bad ones when they want to make it to the airlines. If they knew that is a selection criteria, they'd up their game.
I disagree with the first part of your statement and I agree with the second part.
It's not a perfect system. Open for other suggestions. But better than what we have now, when the goal is mainly to make it to the airlines and not certify pilots.
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MauleSkinner
Touchdown! Greaser!
But as you noted, the goal is to certify pilots, not to get them good experience. If it is better, it’s simply because it’s less bad. Less bad doesn’t solve anything.
Yes it does. We didn't get from the Wright Flyer to the 747 in one step. Gradual improvement is the path forward.
MauleSkinner
Touchdown! Greaser!
I’ll give you that if you’ll agree that if “how many pilots did you certify as an instructor?” was a valid metric, the airlines would’ve figured that out a long time ago.
bonefishpete
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Well maybe if you paid instructors airline wages you'd get career instructors.
You’d still have the quality problem.
GaryM
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All competing for the handful of students willing and able to pay $75K or so to earn a PPL.
bbchien
Touchdown! Greaser!
No, pete, that was in the ratty BARON!
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One does not exclude the other.
I'll take anything better than what we have right now, where plenty of people have had their confidence and dreams shattered by people whose only goal was 1500 hours. Those people paid those richardheads to be taught how to fly. Instead, they got their time and money stolen from them. I have a problem with that.
It also contravenes 14 CFR 61.153(c)
Federal Register :: Request Access
www.ecfr.gov
hindsight2020
Final Approach
heck, not even airline wages proper. Airlines pay sim instructors a career wage, and those guys' worst outcome is burning their lap with the coffee when inadvertendly elbowing the motion button while running the console.
From where I sit, anything where I can mort of blunt force trauma, to say nothing of in-actual IMC work, spin training, or Vmc work with neophytes not previously vetted for manifestations of apprehension/panic/startle reponse, should helllllla pay more than [redacted] sim work. I'll be charitable and settle for "ok, samesies" on the compensation front.
But anything less, and you'll get people in there who have no business being in the seat, which is how this thread became a thing in the first place.
In the .mil the running joke for this dynamic is: "you too could be the best of what's left". In .civ land it becomes a case of "you too could be who's willing to do it for less". Those are very perverse incentives in public safety jobs. Colgan 3407 FAFO, except with even more plausible deniability because pedestrians are somehow socialized to view 100 kills 2 at a time, as somehow a lesser quantity than 100 kills 100 at a time.
From where I sit, anything where I can mort of blunt force trauma, to say nothing of in-actual IMC work, spin training, or Vmc work with neophytes not previously vetted for manifestations of apprehension/panic/startle reponse, should helllllla pay more than [redacted] sim work. I'll be charitable and settle for "ok, samesies" on the compensation front.
But anything less, and you'll get people in there who have no business being in the seat, which is how this thread became a thing in the first place.
In the .mil the running joke for this dynamic is: "you too could be the best of what's left". In .civ land it becomes a case of "you too could be who's willing to do it for less". Those are very perverse incentives in public safety jobs. Colgan 3407 FAFO, except with even more plausible deniability because pedestrians are somehow socialized to view 100 kills 2 at a time, as somehow a lesser quantity than 100 kills 100 at a time.
Not with career instructors, especially when salaries will make people like me come out the shadow inventory and crowd out the time builder applicant. The presumption being, the dual given barrier to entry would eliminate it as a time building affair. Much in the way EMS isn't favored for time building.
MauleSkinner
Touchdown! Greaser!
Well, since we’re moving away from 1500 hours being the only qualification, maybe the problem will solve itself.One does not exclude the other.
I'll take anything better than what we have right now, where plenty of people have had their confidence and dreams shattered by people whose only goal was 1500 hours. Those people paid those richardheads to be taught how to fly. Instead, they got their time and money stolen from them. I have a problem with that.
It also contravenes 14 CFR 61.153(c)
Federal Register :: Request Access
And the circle will remain unbroken. For primary part 61 and even 141 training, we’re talking $120/hr billed for 1000 hrs a year to net $75K as a starting point for a career instructor and it’s got to go up from there, like every other career allows for.
I think about currency restrictions we had where I could only count 50% of my requirements when acting as an instructor. That’s a something small the FAA could do, along with deepening other requirements, such as 100hrs multi PIC and 500 dual given in the preceding 24 months as a prerequisite for the MEI.
pfarber
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This is great.. so many people agree with me that most CFIs are trash and the FAA's CFI program is hot steaming trash.
If airlines want pilots they should open dedicated schools to pipeline pilots from PPL to ATP. They should also do the same for AMTs. Current 147 schools teach nothing useful about jets and 147's are so wildly inconsistent that its a JOKE to think that the FAA has any sort of standards. Perfect example: at ERAU your turbine classes you tear down, inspect, assemble and actually TEST RUN a turbine engine. A true gold standard. At most 147 schools you might have a few donated turbine carcasses that haven't run in decades. My school has some beat up PT6s we fumbled through a hot section inspection and we were extremely lucky the ONE turbine that did work 1. had fuel and 2. started. Yet both lead to the same certification because the FAA says they do. LOL no FAA, you're drunk.
Its the same thing for flight schools. Going from PPL/IFR/Commercial now means you know enough to teach? No. The reason there is an 80% PPL drop out rate is garbage CFIs with no desire or experience are supposed to 'pass on the knowledge. What experience? What knowledge? Tell me how shooting a LNAV approach correlates to teaching stalls in a 152. Or how learning a WWI fighter maneuver is useful to anyone, anywhere other than ONE checkride.
Being a CFI should entail at least 2 years of formal schooling in relevent subjects like psycology, aerodynamics, mechanical engineering, climetology etc. The FAA or some orginization blessed by the FAA should develop and create true CFIs that have the wisdom to INSTRUCT. Becuase they've done more than tool arround mindlessly in a 172 or DA-20 clicking off hours.
If airlines want pilots they should open dedicated schools to pipeline pilots from PPL to ATP. They should also do the same for AMTs. Current 147 schools teach nothing useful about jets and 147's are so wildly inconsistent that its a JOKE to think that the FAA has any sort of standards. Perfect example: at ERAU your turbine classes you tear down, inspect, assemble and actually TEST RUN a turbine engine. A true gold standard. At most 147 schools you might have a few donated turbine carcasses that haven't run in decades. My school has some beat up PT6s we fumbled through a hot section inspection and we were extremely lucky the ONE turbine that did work 1. had fuel and 2. started. Yet both lead to the same certification because the FAA says they do. LOL no FAA, you're drunk.
Its the same thing for flight schools. Going from PPL/IFR/Commercial now means you know enough to teach? No. The reason there is an 80% PPL drop out rate is garbage CFIs with no desire or experience are supposed to 'pass on the knowledge. What experience? What knowledge? Tell me how shooting a LNAV approach correlates to teaching stalls in a 152. Or how learning a WWI fighter maneuver is useful to anyone, anywhere other than ONE checkride.
Being a CFI should entail at least 2 years of formal schooling in relevent subjects like psycology, aerodynamics, mechanical engineering, climetology etc. The FAA or some orginization blessed by the FAA should develop and create true CFIs that have the wisdom to INSTRUCT. Becuase they've done more than tool arround mindlessly in a 172 or DA-20 clicking off hours.
Flying Keys
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I agree CFIs should be better and most of the “wisdom” and educational topics you mentioned could promote that. But you can’t force people to do it that way - spending a lot of extra $ and time to achieve the current “reward.” Especially not to the point it will meet the required average throughput for pilot training that would still exist. You’re basically talking about enlarging CFI as a career profession, which again is a noble dream, but how do you incentivize it?
There are so many connected pieces that would have to be addressed, not the least of which is the economy built on the pathway to the significantly more incentivized pilot career apex of the airlines. You can’t just wave your hands and say “we should do this,” because it will effect so many other connected pieces up and downstream.
In short: it’s the economy that’s responsible for the way things are. Not the national economy (though that plays into it), but the economy of the aviation industry. Gotta make it worth it to spend the time and money to achieve it, just like anything else.
Doc Holliday
En-Route
Actually just a few. And those doing the complaining don’t even hold a CFI rating.
Some foreign carriers already do that. The end product is actually not any better than the way it’s been done in the US.
But somehow you made it through that “joke” 147 you attended. And with some of the commentaries you’ve made on maintenance practices perhaps you are right on the inattention of detail your school taught.
Teaching depends upon the individual and their grasp of the subject coupled with an ability to teach it to another individual.
Actually that drop out rate centers more around discretionary income, people realizing there’s more to it than just jumping in the airplane and going, discovering it’s not for them, etc.
Been that way for the past 50+ years, nothing new.
Granted, some CFI’s aren’t great at teaching. The puppy mill rated CFI’s are only regurgitating what the previous CFI taught, and that guy what his CFI taught and so on.
People who are serious about learning will take the time to seek out a quality instructor. Then you have those who believe they know more about it than the instructor and resist the training using terms like “garbage CFI” to justify why they can’t progress.
Are we talking instrument procedures (LNAV) or aircraft flight characteristics (stalls)?
Not sure which “WW1 fighter maneuver” you are referring to. But maneuvers show aircraft mastery and thus why different certificates require demonstrating certain maneuvers.
I got my initial CFI in 1982. I remember studying those above subjects (not in-depth on mechanical engineering) but psychology was covered, aerodynamics, climatology among many other subjects.
Each level of CFI required more studying on even more expanded subjects.
It’s very apparent you know little to nothing about what’s required to obtain a CFI.
But just for fun, let’s say you got your wish and the FAA suddenly invalidated all CFI’s and required a two year full time course to qualify new instructors. With really tough standards say only half graduate.
Think these new improved CFI’s are going to instruct at today’s rates?
Some have, others haven’t.
My CFI certificates cover CFI Single and Mult-Engine airplane and Helicopter, CFI Instrument Airplane and Helicopter.
Lindberg
Final Approach
Wait till you learn that parents can teach their own kids to drive.
Clip4
Touchdown! Greaser!
Generally no, although there are some exceptions for the top 5% of graduates.
The reality today is the flow to the regionals has slowed and schools can hire CFIs with more experience today.
Clip4
Touchdown! Greaser!
insurance companies kinda have a lot of experience with this. I am pretty sure they don’t need advice for people wanting them to satisfy personal agendas.
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Zeldman
Touchdown! Greaser!
Dang, I did it in ratty ol C-210s...
I could've just added an eye roll, like you do, but I'll behave like a responsible adult and tell you why I disagree with your statement:
The vast majority of student pilots don't know what they don't know. In their mind, someone who chooses to be an instructor is a dedicated professional who is willing and able to work with them and adapt his teaching style to their particular needs. If they don't make good progress, most of them will believe that it's their aptitude and skill that's lacking, and not the instructor's fault. They will be hesitant to fire the instructor that's wasting their time and money, even as they start realizing that he might be the issue, as they want to avoid a potential conflict or retaliation at the flight school.
A lot of students lack the aviation connections required to learn training right from wrong and restore their confidence. They are the ones that drop out when they're 100 hours in with no solo.
We had such a guy join our EAA chapter a couple years ago. Paired him with a good CFI, 10 or so hours later he was flying by himself, 20 hours later he passed his checkride. Now he's a CFI. Not because he wants to be an airline pilot, but because he wants to give back to the community that restored his dream of flying.
Doc Holliday
En-Route
For people that are serious about learning whatever, be it golf, tennis or flying, it’s not that difficult to search out quality rather than just show up and drop a credit card on a counter and say “let’s do this”.
Trying to paint all CFI’s with the broad “garbage CFI” moniker is silly, if not childish.
MauleSkinner
Touchdown! Greaser!
Leveling off at MDA requires the addition of power to prevent the stall, just like in a 152, and if you forget to add power when you level off at MDA, you have the tools to recover from the stall that you’re about to get into.
The one thing you fail to realize is the FAA mechanic standards are minimums. And the only reason the ERAU program could be considered a “gold standard” is simply because it takes a bucket of gold to attend it. So if you think that paying $50,000 at ERAU vs $8000 at the local CC for an A&P certificate will make you a better mechanic, you are sadly mistaken.
What's even more ironic is the FAA follows the same ICAO requirements for mechanic certificates as other member countries where obtaining a mechanics (engineer) license can cost you over $100,000. Yet those added costs and modules don’t statistically make their aviation operations any safer. Regardless, if you look hard enough, you’ll find it's the person that makes the certificate, not the certificate makes the person no matter where they obtained it.
dmspilot
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Teaching is a talent many people do not have and increasing the hour, experience, or training requirement will not help. Colleges are full of professors that can't teach, what hope is there for CFIs making $20/hour?
skyking3286
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Missing Duane Cole’s passionate voice..,
hindsight2020
Final Approach
Small quip: academia is they way it is because the incentive is grant-mining, not teaching. Those are researchers hiding behind the banner of pedagogy. Absentee landlords up and down.
But the fundamental difference is that as opposed to college "professors", it's the CFI transactional/cynical approach to their job the one getting people killed.
Bacho
Line Up and Wait
I have found zero correlation between the A&P school and the quality of my mechanics. The school is about learning how to follow manuals and some familiarity with the basics. Head of our program made it clear on our way out the door that while we had our certificates, we were not qualified to do anything.
Yes, from the airline industry POV there are certain things I wish these programs touched on a little more. I don’t recall anything in that school about the fine points of using a grease gun!When I was doing PPL training, I certainly shopped around CFIs some and found the old corporate pilot who wanted to fly more. I have certainly recommended the same (shopping around) for everyone who has asked.
Unfortunately, the lack of a similar CFI with a compatible schedule has now become a primary excuse for not continuing training.
Kenny Phillips
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Yeah, right before COVID I was gonna retire and become a CFI (I had actually started the training decades earlier; life intervened.)
But given lots of time to think it over (pandemic, delayed retirement, prostate cancer), I won't go that route at all.
pfarber
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I honestly cannot truly reply or I'm 150% positive I'll get another break.
You surely must have heard my eyes rolling as I read your responses.... if you don't know what WWI maneuver I am talking about then that sums up the effort you put into understand the real basis of my recommendations.
I admit that there are some excellent CFIs.. I found one on MY EIGHTH TRY at a PPL. Most are hot garbage ripping off students who are just to wide eyed and amazed that someone has (OH MY GOSH!) 1100 hours! Of ACTUAL FLYING!!!! That same CFI will dump a days worth of students to get 1.2hrs right seat turbine time.
The stats constantly prove my point. An 80% drop out rate is not because of money, its because the FAA is hilariously bad at their job.. second only to the garbage CFIs they anoint.
Kenny Phillips
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In the real world, those who may be the best teachers have no desire to teach. It's been a "time builder", with pittance pay, forever.
Occasionally you find the retiree from big iron that loves to fly; my first flight instructor nearly 50 years back was like that.
But that's a rarity. I'm getting back into flying after selling my plane a decade back, and have heard the instructors talk about how they wanna get outta there and fly for the airlines.
Kinda hard to teach, if that's your deep-down attitude. Though I am pleased with my instructor; she has ~1,600 hours, and will leave for airline training in a few months, but at least in the plane, she's fine.
Doc Holliday
En-Route
So enlighten us to which maneuver you are referring to and explain to us how it has no relevance.
There's also another way of looking at this. I don't believe it was a CFI problem, seen this before.
Can you post the source of those "stats"?
Anoint?
You may have a point about the FAA being bad at their job. After all you did obtain your "AnP".
bonefishpete
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Without owning a plane you can’t “shop around “ for a CFI.
Old days I learned at a old fashion FBO. They had fuel, rental planes, tie downs, flight instruction, aircraft sales, aircraft maintenance, air charter, rental cars and they were a small business all under the same roof.
Same airport today they have Atlantic and APP which supplies fuel and rental cars.
Large flight school is only outlet for aircraft instruction on the airport.
Old days I learned at a old fashion FBO. They had fuel, rental planes, tie downs, flight instruction, aircraft sales, aircraft maintenance, air charter, rental cars and they were a small business all under the same roof.
Same airport today they have Atlantic and APP which supplies fuel and rental cars.
Large flight school is only outlet for aircraft instruction on the airport.
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Cap'n Jack
Final Approach
I'm trying to think what fighter maneuver you may be talking about. The only one I can think of that was invented in WW1 is the Immelmann turn. If so, both my instruction and check ride were lacking because I never did one in the C-172 used for both. However, I won't pretend to be an expert of fighter tactics from any war that used aircraft. Would you please explain which maneuver you mean?
Doc Holliday
En-Route
Sure you can. By doing a bit of legwork it's not difficult to find out who a good instructor is and where he works. Conversely it's also not difficult to figure out the ones to avoid. But it does require due diligence on the student's part.
MauleSkinner
Touchdown! Greaser!
There are other airports.
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My money is on chandelle, but he's missing the point of the exercise.
Nauga,
and his degrees of freedom
Cap'n Jack
Final Approach
Thanks. My primary flight instruction was still apparently lacking because we didn't do them during my lessons nor on my check ride.
I did do them, and lazy-8's, 8s-on-pylons, and 180-degree engine-out landings on a point during various flight reviews. We did these after the flight review was done at my request. I felt, that by learning these, I had better control of the plane in all phases of flight. But none of these were for a PPL checkride.
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It's a commercial maneuver...but when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Nauga,
high and wide
Care to give an example of how a prospective student pilot, with no aviation knowledge and connections, can figure out who is a good instructor and where he works?
If he's lucky, he has one or two flight schools within reasonable distance to choose from. What is he going to do, walk in the school and ask "hey, which one of you is a good instructor?"?
Same as above, walk in the school and ask "which one of you sucks?"?
Again, how? If he has no aviation connections, how can he find any useful information about the instructors at the school(s) that's within his acceptable travel range?
If I need a good doctor to replace my hip, I usually talk with my PCP who might recommend a few specialists. I can then look them up on Google to see if they have any active malpractice lawsuits or any other litigations, and maybe find some patient testimonials. I can maybe talk to a doctor myself, but without any medical knowledge I can't tell the good doctor from the bad one. In the end, I'll still have to rely on my PCPs recommendations or testimonials of other people in my group of friends/acquaintances thag had their hips replaced recently.
But my group might not have any pilots in it (for a vast majority of future pilots). And most likely not anyone that has any experience with whatever CFIs are in season at the local flight school.
And if I go on Google and search for "Is Doc Holiday a good CFI?", I won't find anything useful.
What now, Brown Cow?