Instructors - raise your game!

[Say again s l o w l y]

Still having problems Luke?

I will agree that people need to make themselves available, but I think there is a sense of apathy in the industry in general. Of the 15 instructors at my school, only 5 are what I would call dedicated. The chaps who don't fall into this category have all trained in the last 2 years and are only using it as a stepping stone.

With the airline market so stagnant I have seen a large number of 'new' instuctors ,and whilst this is a generalisation, they have all been guilty of a large dose of apathy towards the job. Treating it as a last resort as you will and seem to actually resent it.

I recently flew with some of the aforesaid instructors students recently and I was amazed at the lack of notes and the fact they were on ex 12,13 after just 6 hrs! At the end of the flight infront of the whole school, the student said "Wow, I really enjoyed that, you made me do some work. XYZ normally just sits there."

I was gob smacked, I hadn't done anything different to what I would expect every lesson to consist of.
This set alarms ringing and we checked all students files and found the same issue was occuring with ALL our new instructors.

Serious talking tos were initiated and hopefully things have changed, but I'm not convinced yet.

I started instructing because of the airline market, but have tried to treat it with the same zeal I would a 'proper' job. Unfortunately, I think I may be in a minority.

Don't treat all instructors like yourself SoS, but do give people a chance, sometimes it isn't possible to just drop everything and head down the A14. Be clear in what you require of them, many will never have been through an interview for a flying job and try to be realistic in what you ask for/expect. A contrived scenario in an unfamiliar a/c, airfield and under what can be described as a test can throw even the most experienced chaps off let alone newly minted FI(R).

I agree with BEags on the point about an FIE. Being an instructor does not qualify you as an examiner, and the skills are quite different, especially when judging your peers. Something I found out to my obvious cost.....