Originally Posted by
Aussie Bob
Perhaps Captain, perhaps. I have flown with a few RAAF pilots over the years and their skills have been exceptional but remember the old adage"
"Those that can do, those that can't, teach" - Bernard Shaw
Often thrown around in a derogatory manner, the adage still bears thinking about. My observations of exceptional pilots is that in fact they are poor teachers because their standards and expectations are too high. They cannot understand why others aren't like them. They resort to demonstration when the hapless student is incapable of either understanding or observing at the rate the instructor expects.
Give the bloke his grade 1 instructor rating, give all ex RAAF pilots who have taught one too. In that I am in full agreement, but wether they will actually make good ab initio trainers, the market will have to decide. Some no doubt will, many already have, some will fail miserably and be generally disliked. It's always been thus.
The adage does not work.
The reality is a good instructor is a good instructor, made better with skill and experience. You can learn about instructional technique, but more than anything it requires personality traits of patience, tolerance, empathy and curiosity. Patience is obvious, everybody learns in their own time, at their own pace. Tolerance, in that you have to accept there are multiple ways of doing things, not just yours, teach different people from different backgrounds and such without treating stereotypes. Empathy, in understanding what the student needs to progress, having regards to what other struggles they may be dealing with. And a level of curiosity to expand your own knowledge and also have interest in learning how and why a particular student is the way they are.
Do ex military all demand high standards? This all comes down to what you might consider high. Some are unwavering, this can be good if you want to achieve that, but, in GA the student can walk to another flight school to get training should they not like it. So even if the instructor (of any background) pushes too higher standard, the market will send them broke if nobody wants that, nothing wrong with them trying though. The market will decide in the long run whether that standard is sought after. But a good ex military instructor will show the traits I listed above, as would a good civilian instructor. So the point becomes moot as in both military and civilian life you will get instructors that don't fit the bill. The military however tends to be way more selective of instructors as the candidate is not paying for the exercise, the air force is. So there is a vested interest that the instructor is capable and competent to reduce training times and scrubs to minimal. In GA a bad instructor is tolerated as the extra training time is money in the bank for the flying school.
What I do see here a is a lot of comment from pilots with no instructional qualifications. I've trained pilots from all walks of life, including ex military from several different countries, some converted to instructing, others to airlines. I've trained instructors, inducted them into both flying schools and airlines. I would have no issue with a QFI being unsupervised training new pilots, after a check of their skills. Generally I'd be happy with most FIR G3s training unsupervised (Mentoring and supervision are two different things BTW), because in reality they do that anyway, no one is watching them actually conduct flights, you could possibly do this in a 4 seater, but not in a C152. You can sit in on briefings, but that's not going to show much, and safety wise, maybe you might stop a vicious paper cut, or ruler poke out an eye. Most PPLs could probably safely teach somebody how to fly without instructor qualifications, just some right seat practice before hand, not saying they would all be safe, effective, efficient instructors, however standards would definitely dwindle towards road type skills.