I never have subscribed to the view that Moderators should be moderate. Personally my husbandry of my forums involves keeping things lively - elsewise all you get is a million threads about who's sponsoring and which is the best school. All very dull. Much better to have some hurly burly. I bet this thread has caused the hit rate of Private Flying to spike up a bit.
I think what I said originally was that "I don't believe that happened". Which is subtley different from running around yelling "Liar, liar pants on fire". A student pilots perception of events is often a bit skewed as its all a bit new and amazing to them.
Anyway - I can't get excited about it. You can't take PPRuNe too seriously or too earnestly people.
And Whirly - I've been an instructor now for a decade I - quite scarily - just noticed. No sign of burnout yet but my cynicism is as intact as it ever was.
There are shoddy schools out there and I've trained at them. There are near death trap aircraft hired out to student pilots and there are plenty of underpaid, miserable, dispirited instructors who frankly don't give a damn for anything other than your money and another logbook entry.
There are some things to look for that you only ever find out about until after you've got your license and some experience.
I suspect that the majority of pilots out there look back on their PPL training and see how they would have done it differently to make it better.
Cheers
WWW