Originally Posted by
oggers
Yartemis, I get the impression you are quite a sensitive soul. I think you do need to think very carefully about pursuing a career in aviation because you are going to have to spend a lot of time in close proximity to a cross section of characters. You may switch instructors when you are paying them but that will be different if you get a job and start line training. It is inevitable that you will be critiqued. One man's full and frank debrief is another man's "ex-military temperament".
I am asking myself how much of your issue is you and how much of it is the flying school but, frankly, nobody who was not there should be expressing an opinion on that. If you want to make a career out of flying then don't look back. You passed, the PPL course is over, and if your perception that you were treated unfairly is correct, and you truly believe that yourself, and you really want to fly, you should just be, as Slopey posted, getting on with it - present national emergency notwithstanding.
Thanks oggers for the comments. Sensitive soul could mean many things but you seem to mean that I find criticism difficult to hear. I disagree that a full and frank debrief can even be the same as an ex-military temperament, meaning in this case a form of toxic interaction that is used to serve, in this case, the trainer rather than student. I shouldn't tar all military with the same brush (some of the best trainers and motivational leaders I know were military) but being ex military myself, I tried to bring this into the real world when I left. It doesn't work for a lot of reasons. You can tell someone they are effectively sh!t and make them feel good about hearing it, leave feeling motivated to dig deeper. An obvious sign of good motivational leadership (think Chris Hoy, a modest hero). A toxic debrief leaves them feeling dejected, feeling they have an even higher mountain to climb and with fewer resources to muster. Why? Who is this serving? This is fine in a military environment as you then go to your mates who support you and that 'common enemy' forges very strong teams of independent and co-dependent confident people. Why anyone would think this is suitable elsewhere is a mystery to me.
I know relatively little about flying, being a noob PPL. But I train graduate engineers in the first few years of development I feel I know more about effective training than some instructors I have met. Many who, I'm led to believe, only likely become instructors to subsidize their own training and that is a weakness of aviation in my opinion. If I do end up in a situation again, I will just have to just get through it like everyone else.
I am p!ssed at myself and the flying school, there are things I would change if I did it again (reduce commute, consider a flying club rather than school, speak up! and be less reluctant to re-organise my plan as I have obviously not saved anytime cramming it in...). There are obvious failings in my eyes on the part of the flying school made more confident by other students experience. But this may just reflect a wider culture or scramble for resources as schools struggled to meet demand from students. Your second paragraph was my tipping point to resolve to draw a line under all that has gone on and move forward. I was holding myself back, for what? You are right that it is water under the bridge and I can dwell on it or I can set out to put things right, identify my weaknesses and make a plan to strengthen them. So that I what I am doing now