I quite agree and in my time as an instructor some of the most rewarding lessons were taking poeple up for there first flight ever and getting them to do both the takeoff and landing.
But if the regulations change which make the school have to hold a A to A and comply with its limitations while conducting the air experence instructor lesson there are going to be problems.
How many of the trial lessons have you done when there was honestly a chance of the student continuing the training?
And the reason why i said the they have been thinking about trying for years to clamp down on it. Is because thats what the man at the CAA (flt ops inspector) said when you get your interview before starting the process for the A to A.
The problem is the instructors out there who don't treat it as the lesson it should be. We have all i am sure had punters who have refused to touch the controls and only wanted to look out the window. And what about the punters who get a trial flight per year for there xmas and brithdays, one bloke i took up had 5 hours to do and he wasn't going to touch the controls. Andwhat about the punters who want to go up for photo sessions of the local area then hey presto the photo appears in the local paper 2 days later.
And do you create a training record for every trial flight? Because if it is a lesson you should.
Looking back on my instructoring career there were so many dodgy situations which were in the grey areas of everyone does it but if you read the letter of the regs it is actually illegal. And we all get through it and move on or we become career and can avoid it. I would hate to be a low hour instructor and be the test case in court because when it comes down to it we are PIC and the blame stops there.
MJ
BTW I think instructors being made to go on FTL's is a bloody sensible idea.