Why has flight training gone assbackwards?
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Going back to my first post here I found this comment on another forum about this school selling it's Super Cub.
Why would they refer to it as " The Kite " ?
The comments about a lack of tailwheel instructors rings true. At the time they had 27 instructors on the roster and only 3 of them would instruct on the Super Cub. The rest referred to it as the "kite." The 3 anointed ones were more experienced and I had some difficulty booking instructor time because of their other duties. Once I finished the checkout, I went back to my gliding club and that's when the real education began - towing gliders.
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The situation can only get worse. As the old school guys who actually know things, drop off the radar, and are replaced by kindergarten teachers of "Paint by numbers". How can that be reversed? There is eventually no one who remembers what flying is supposed to be, we will be required, by ElfinSafety, to fit guards over rotating props, jet exhausts will have to be cooled down to room temp within the aircraft, etc. there is no end to what progressive regulation could do as they become more and more ignorant.
As for the education system 'dumbing down', you should wish to be so switched-on and smart as teenagers these days. They don't know the difference between 'your' and 'you're' but they understand how the corporate world tries to manipulate and exploit them, how to collect and analyse data, and when they are being lied to. Not like the older generations of propaganda fodder
Things aren't what they used to be - thank God!
The world is much bigger and more complicated, and much more fun!
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. but in fact the situation is the exact opposite. As tired, complacent old farts and their dodgy aircraft drop out of the pool of GA we see higher standards of safety and airmanship.
Would I be a tired, complacent old fart in your opinion.
And as such I would not have as high standards of safety and airmanship as the new age switched on generation?
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No disrespect intended, but doesn't the "flight training is going down the drain on all counts because no one wants to fly taildraggers anymore" lament become a bit tiring?
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No disrespect intended, but doesn't the "flight training is going down the drain on all counts because no one wants to fly taildraggers anymore" lament become a bit tiring?
What I find rather difficult to understand is why one can hold a flight instructors rating but are limited to flying only nose wheel airplanes.
Sort of like driving instructors who can't figure out how to drive a car with manual shift gears and a clutch?
I don't know about you but I sure would not want to be a flight instructor and have a client want me to teach them how to fly their new RV8, because I was not competent enough to fly a tail wheel airplane.
IMO the problem with this watering down of flight training standards is cost vs outcomes. It doesn't matter what you are flying. So many times corners are cut because instructors have half an eye on the Hobbs and want to ensure their students are getting value for their money. Aviation safety's price tag is more than just dollars and cents because far too many people have paid in blood.
Tail dragger flying is alive and well in my neck of the woods, but since I fly strictly for fun, I cannot see myself getting a tail dragger rating because it just gets added to my list of planes I need to keep current in. I could go up in the clubs 180 but it costs almost as much as our Twin Comanche does to fly.
Tail dragger flying is alive and well in my neck of the woods, but since I fly strictly for fun, I cannot see myself getting a tail dragger rating because it just gets added to my list of planes I need to keep current in. I could go up in the clubs 180 but it costs almost as much as our Twin Comanche does to fly.
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What I find rather difficult to understand is why one can hold a flight instructors rating but are limited to flying only nose wheel airplanes.
Maybe because one can be a perfectly competent instructor for most settings without these experiences/endorsements, too? And if after my PPL SEP I want to learn taildragger, I get a taildragger instructor. If I want to learn gliding, I get a gliding instructor. If I want to learn ME, I get a ME instructor. If I want to learn aerobatics, I get an aerobatics instructor. If I want to learn flying helicopters, I get a helicopter instructor. Not so sure about the carrier landing though, but since I'd probably gonna be broke long before, that's just as well
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Maybe because one can be a perfectly competent instructor for most settings without these experiences/endorsements, too? And if after my PPL SEP I want to learn taildragger, I get a taildragger instructor. If I want to learn gliding, I get a gliding instructor. If I want to learn ME, I get a ME instructor. If I want to learn aerobatics, I get an aerobatics instructor. If I want to learn flying helicopters, I get a helicopter instructor. Not so sure about the carrier landing though, but since I'd probably gonna be broke long before, that's just as well .
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Oh, and Captain Chairborne, my cub is old but definitely not dodgy, thank you.
So many times corners are cut because instructors have half an eye on the Hobbs and want to ensure their students are getting value for their money. Aviation safety's price tag is more than just dollars and cents because far too many people have paid in blood.
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I do think the emphasis on quality of instructors of old or new is wrong.
There were excellent old time instructors and bad ones there are excellent modern instructors and bad ones.
For me this argument is about the training where I think there was far more hand flying emphasis in the past and less today.
Pilots of the past had to be more creative as they did not have the mass of pilot aids available today and somehow flying skills appear to have been lost with too much reliance on aids (while they work)
I would like to see much more basic handling and flying skills rather than the way it is now which is very much avoidance and fly by numbers.
Its not the instructors but the framework they work in which has deteriorated
Pace
There were excellent old time instructors and bad ones there are excellent modern instructors and bad ones.
For me this argument is about the training where I think there was far more hand flying emphasis in the past and less today.
Pilots of the past had to be more creative as they did not have the mass of pilot aids available today and somehow flying skills appear to have been lost with too much reliance on aids (while they work)
I would like to see much more basic handling and flying skills rather than the way it is now which is very much avoidance and fly by numbers.
Its not the instructors but the framework they work in which has deteriorated
Pace
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I'm not sure about that, Pace. I have limited knowledge of today's instructors but what I've seen doesn't impress. Example:
For my biennial check I usually engage a guy I've known for decades who's at much at home doing aeros in a Yak or flying an ILS in a twin. We'd do some aeros revision and some instrument work in the Chipmunk. One year I forgot and needed the biennial ride ASAP. The only availability was club instructor in a PA38. So I decided that as the PA38 is not the most interesting handling aeroplanes, we'd do an hour with me 'under the hood'.
All was going well until I noticed something was wrong. "I've got climb (full!) power set, climb attitude trimmed, ball is in the middle, but we're not climbing" I said. The instructor had no ideas why that might be. So I peeped out from under the hood. The wind was pretty strong, and we were in the lee of a very large hill. Once I'd taken us clear of that, normality returned.
I don't think any of the guys I did my PPL with back in the 70s would not have known about lee-side sink.
For my biennial check I usually engage a guy I've known for decades who's at much at home doing aeros in a Yak or flying an ILS in a twin. We'd do some aeros revision and some instrument work in the Chipmunk. One year I forgot and needed the biennial ride ASAP. The only availability was club instructor in a PA38. So I decided that as the PA38 is not the most interesting handling aeroplanes, we'd do an hour with me 'under the hood'.
All was going well until I noticed something was wrong. "I've got climb (full!) power set, climb attitude trimmed, ball is in the middle, but we're not climbing" I said. The instructor had no ideas why that might be. So I peeped out from under the hood. The wind was pretty strong, and we were in the lee of a very large hill. Once I'd taken us clear of that, normality returned.
I don't think any of the guys I did my PPL with back in the 70s would not have known about lee-side sink.
