In an ideal world you would have one instructor with two students and the instructor would have .75 of an aircraft to himself. You would do two training events a day. An event might be a solo flight, a dual instruction flight, a simulator session or a solo/dual SPIC flight. Occasionally it would be an indepth brief hopefully during a time of bad weather.
During the intensive early sorties leading up to the first solo navs then ideally you ought to be flying a morning and afternoon sortie and backseating your mates, i.e. getting airborne four times a day.
In my experience smaller FTO's will pair you up with someone on a course, allocate you both to an instructor, then let that instructor organise your training as suits. There will be less chopping and changing of instructors, aircraft and flying programs in a smaller FTO. These are usually the main gripes one hears coming from the mouths of those at the larger FTO's.
At a smaller FTO though sometimes one aircraft going tech can wipe out 33% of the flying program. Nowheres perfect.
Me. I'd go to a small FTO where my money meant something and CFIs desk was 4ft away not in another building, up the stairs, guarded by a secretary.
Cheers
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