Ye old Instructors
Sadly the world has changed!
The current demand on an Instructor to pass at minimum the JAACPL exams which cost between £2000 and £3000 for what is now a mandatory course. The far more stringent demands of an Instructor Course Approval also means that the cost of doing an Instructor rating amounts to another bill circa £5000, on par with training for a commercial licence, has unfortunately meant the demise of the 'club Instructor' due to a total cost of £8,000 to £10,000.
The 'club Instructors' may have been, in the past, a local wanting to turn their 'days off' flying into more than just a hobby or perhaps a retired military or airline pilot. the mix was great. Even the retiring military guy must nowadays pass the CPL exams and do the full Instructor course (BEagle correct me here if i'm wrong) so they don't.
Unfortunately the young potential commercial pilot is already into so much debt by the time they make instructor that they quite understandably need more money than most clubs can pay. What a miserable state of affairs.
Like it or hate it, what can be paid to an Instructor is what the PPL student can cough up, so we have an irresolvable dilemna.
We have in the UK within Europe, other than perhaps France, the most comprehensive tradition of flying training CLUB networks. We are slowly forgetting the 'CLUB' and what that means.
In my boopk these future airline pilots with Instructor Ratings always wingeing about wages within these columns, should see the bargain. They get experience and 'hours, and their fellow club members gain the PPL. Seems fair to me.
The Flying clubs with few exceptions will never be able to pay their (the potential airline pilot) loans. Like so many are already suggesting we need dedicated instructor knowledge exams to compliment the flying course. However we cannot go back to the old requirements where thew knowledge level of the 150 hour PPL Instructor was often dreadful but we do need the dedicated Flying Instructor back to lead and enrich the team.