Instructors
The knowledge of many Instructors including myself was so often depressingly low and the attitude of so many of the old type of instructors during the so called 'old golden days' was nothing to be proud about.
There is no doubt in my mind that the requirement to have passed the CPL/.ATPL exams and also to have completed a CPL flying course has vastly increased the current Instructors general knowledge and has standardised flying training throughout the country. All that must be a good thing.
However, the fact, is for so many PPL's, prepared to somehow find the cash to gain the CPL/ATPL; the Instructor rating is added on as an afterthought, only after being rejected by the Airlines and having been told "come back when you have at least 1,000 hours +.
If we are going to revive the PPL market it isn't by devising a very dubious licence such as the NPPL, plus an equally rather dubious Instructor designed to teach it. Nor is it by demanding the current very silly requirement of passing CPL exams in the way it is currently done and later to undertake two courses of flying flown in the main using a C172/PA28 or similar. One to teach you how to find your way about followed by a second to teach someone else to find their way about. For the Instructor, one course and one test.
We actually need an Instructor profession! We need a recognised body that will set the standards, devise the knowledge requirement and involve the flying clubs own Senior Instructors, at their club, to carry out 'on the job' training interspersed say, with any number of short weekend/midweek courses with FIC Examiners working for that recognised body, setting and maintaining the highest standards, nationally.
The current CPL exam content could be the basis of knowledge having removed those parts wholely related to heavy aircraft and airline flying. The requirement to cram knowledge and demonstrate it over a few days when confined to a sweating and smelly room should go!
A close friend, an AME/CPL/Instructor, describes the knowledge testing process well. You enter the hall. At one end of the room a line of tressle tables on which there is a line of vegetable colanders. Written on one you will find your name. Beside each colander there is a bowl overflowing at the brim. At the far end of the room there is another row of tables on which stand a line of empty bowls. Each has a white line painted 75% up from it's base. At the whistle the candidate dumps his colander into his bowl and runs bitterly to the other end of the hall and dumps his load. Should the contents now in the once empty bowl rise above the line. It is a pass! ALL CANDIDATES exhausted, some depressed, sludge back, each with an EMPTY COLANDER. The courses for all this are, from commercial need, geared whether part time correspondence or indeed full time, to be not much more than pervaders of what you need to know and exam technique.
I believe that a structured process towards becoming an Instructor undertaken in a progressive manner with the local club as the base will enable many more to participate who really want to do it. I also believe that those who may wish later to fly commercially will also see it as the first step and equally benefit. As important it will put some deperately needed cash into the clubs.