Ed Guthrie
Cleared for Takeoff
Auburn_CFI said:I read about 6 different aviation publications per month and have been reading most of them for several years, I have never seen a single article that says that we have a problem with the performance of CFI's nationwide. You are suggesting that we do in fact have some sort of major problem, and I was wondering where you are getting this information.
I'll let others chime in with their personal bad CFI experiences if they choose, but my opinion is based on 19 years of personally sampling the product. During those 19 years I've met and flown with some really, really great CFIs and I've met and flown with some really, really dismal ones.
As one example of my experiences, about 3 years ago I traveled to every FBO in this area and interviewed every CFI I could find who met the requirements to teach an initial CFI. I interviewed for personality match, etc., but I also asked every CFI one simple question:
What will we do during the first lesson, and what should I read, study, or do to prepare for that lesson?
Every single CFI I interviewed failed the test. Even after I moved from subtle to blunt, "Could I see the proposed course syllabus and the proposed first lesson plan", not one CFI offered me the training syllabus, the first lesson plan, nor did any CFI suggest any home study. Every one of them seemed surprised when I told them, "How do you propose to teach me to create and use a course syllabus and lesson plans if you yourself do not use them?"
Me experience, YMMV. Hopefully some others will chime in as well.