One of our own in the WSJ

arrrrrrgh! I despise the phrase "hobby pilot"
 
Great article

The comment on new CFIs not caring about teaching hits home. A friend is on instructor 5 and only recently did his solo xc after a year! Of training. The instructor’s were just not motivated other than (imo) logging hours.
 
Obviously the author had not seen any of the 6PC YouTube videos.

Actually, nice comments Bryan.
 
lah-mao what ballwash article. The peak irony of Muñiz of all people making those statements to the WSJ. Where was that Col when I was at said base, watching him be part of the marching band of sycophants cramming in the very dilution of military pilot training he's highlighting as the differentiating factor between civilian and military training rigor in the first place? Unreal.

Don't get me wrong, he's an affable dude in person. An O-6 is also generally too low a rank to effect policy anyways. Tough I'm perennially unimpressed with his kind (middle managers), I understand the duplicity. Which is to say and lest I'd be guilty of the same hypocrisy that I loathe, you certainly won't catch me making personally-identifiable (PII) statements in MSM or SM until I get my freedom papers either. This site is as far as I go; the rest I let my civilian spouse sockpuppet on my behalf if it's that pressing I gotta get something off my chest. Otherwise, life behind a cat picture and a labored disclaimer "mY opiniOs aRe my purView dO nOt reprEseNt pOlicy/viEws oF mUh eMployer" is all I can currently afford as a W2er without a sugar mama.

For those who don't follow the inside baseball, that dude headed the flying part of a HQ pilot instructor production base immediately prior to bouncing to 121 Shangri-la. As such, he oversaw at his (operational) level the dilution of military pilot accessions from the high-risk, high-performing per flying hours capita enterprise most civilians associate with military training, into the undercapitalized paper tiger it has become. Specificially, the planned replacement of military instructors and primary trainer (T-6II) with the very airline fodder time-building CFIs in question. They're calling it IPT and it seeks to supplant the bulk of in-aircraft training for non-fighter bound accessions (currently over 80% of usaf output) to piston 61/141 contractors. I can't divulge more on here, but it's going exactly as you'd expect if you have a modicum of causation/correlation cognitive ability. And of course, the usual suspect (ERAU) is getting rich off it. No chili those grifters can't stick their spoon in and externalize costs for others. Digressing.
 
hindsight2020 said:
lah-mao what ballwash article. The peak irony of Muñiz of all people making those statements to the WSJ. Where was that Col when I was at said base, watching him be part of the marching band of sycophants cramming in the very dilution of military pilot training he's highlighting as the differentiating factor between civilian and military training rigor in the first place? Unreal.

Don't get me wrong, he's an affable dude in person. An O-6 is also generally too low a rank to effect policy anyways. Tough I'm perennially unimpressed with his kind (middle managers), I understand the duplicity. Which is to say and lest I'd be guilty of the same hypocrisy that I loathe, you certainly won't catch me making personally-identifiable (PII) statements in MSM or SM until I get my freedom papers either. This site is as far as I go; the rest I let my civilian spouse sockpuppet on my behalf if it's that pressing I gotta get something off my chest. Otherwise, life behind a cat picture and a labored disclaimer "mY opiniOs aRe my purView dO nOt reprEseNt pOlicy/viEws oF mUh eMployer" is all I can currently afford as a W2er without a sugar mama.

For those who don't follow the inside baseball, that dude headed the flying part of a HQ pilot instructor production base immediately prior to bouncing to 121 Shangri-la. As such, he oversaw at his (operational) level the dilution of military pilot accessions from the high-risk, high-performing per flying hours capita enterprise most civilians associate with military training, into the undercapitalized paper tiger it has become. Specificially, the planned replacement of military instructors and primary trainer (T-6II) with the very airline fodder time-building CFIs in question. They're calling it IPT and it seeks to supplant the bulk of in-aircraft training for non-fighter bound accessions (currently over 80% of usaf output) to piston 61/141 contractors. I can't divulge more on here, but it's going exactly as you'd expect if you have a modicum of causation/correlation cognitive ability. And of course, the usual suspect (ERAU) is getting rich off it. No chili those grifters can't stick their spoon in and externalize costs for others. Digressing.
Click to expand...
You’re coming in garbled, say again please, words twice
 
I believe he said: military sellout talking jive, after lowering the quality of AF training to make themselves look better. But he can't say it more clearly, because the man would not be appreciating what he'd be laying down. So not a shot at our own here.

My best translation from HS to 70's street.

My opinion, I'm just happy a POA person was in WSJ in aviation that wasn't because of a Ponzi scheme or something to do with running drugs to fund some 3 letter government program.
 
Sounds about right.

WSJ:
"""
Eighty-five percent of pilots build time by flight instructing, which means inexperienced pilots are teaching the next generation of pilots. This also creates a conflict of interest when it comes to training student pilots efficiently. It’s not unheard of for student pilots today to fly 100 hours before they are signed off for a solo flight, rather than the more typical 10-30 hours, so that their instructor can accumulate more flight time.

“There are exceptions, but most instructors I see come in not wanting to teach, not knowing how to teach, not caring about teaching, and not caring about the students,” says Doug Stewart, a master certified flight instructor and FAA-designated pilot examiner based at Columbia County Airport in Hudson, N.Y.
"""
 
I don't know if he'd remember me, but I know Doug. He was my DPE for sport pilot in a cub. Kind enough, and smart enough, to loan me a blanket to put over the engine while we did the paperwork, because I took my checkride in January. He's friendly and an engaging speaker, but he doesn't mince words much.
 
I guess I was lucky with my training, my first instructor was relatively newly minted, but she was definitely interested in training her students (and didn't give a rats-patootee about building time) and my instrument instructor was an older (sorry Jim) experienced instructor (again, not interested in building time).
 
All my instructors over 50 or more years have been retired Military Pilots except one in Florida who runs a flying/maintenance operation with his wife and where I go for BFR's in a Seaplane.
 
While I like Doug, I don't agree with his assertion that most instructors don't care, either. Maybe I've been very lucky, but all that I've worked with have been great and truly enjoyed flying. That said I did talk to two that I didn't work with, that gave me a disinterested vibe. So maybe it was luck and that I'm a halfway decent judge of character.
 
Re: the author: "Kate lives in Houston, Texas and is an instrument-rated, single- and multiengine commercial pilot."
 
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