I have watched this thread develop and have resisted the impulse to chip in - until now. To take the responses in turn:
Noggin 26/12/00 - Hardly worth a comment.
WWW 26/12/00 - Excellent response! If you place flying hours above training quality you are ,at best, a scoundrel (AP take note).
MorePower 26/12/00 - Please e-mail me, I would like to enrol my son in your school!!
juswonnafly 26/12/00 - You are a fool and deserve to be exploited.
El Cid 26/12/00 - You were a fool but have now seen the light. You have a skill which should command a living wage.
Noggin 26/12/00 - Your point being?
fallen eagle 26/12/00 - You may be right, I'm not a taxman.
El Cid 26/12/00 - ditto
Whirlybird 26/12/00 - ditto
TooHotToFly 27/12/00 - Que?
Mr B. Tupp 27/12/00 - An interesting and perceptive insight into the average FTO management - probably very good at producing widgets but f... all use at managing people. Fits, in my experience, the management of OATS, BAe, Cabair and Seacoat.
MorePower 27/12/00 - No comment.
Mr B. Tupp 27/12/00 - No comment
PT6Driver 28/12/00 - See comments above
BigAir 28/12/00 - Good point - do the punters want quality or quantity? More important, do we, who have to share the same airspace, want them to be competent?
The NVQ is a red herring - the government did not abolish it, it was the fault of all the self-seeking, egocentric w@nkers who registered, solely in order to gain tax relief, and then made no attempt to obtain the NVQ. Those who now cannot get VTR should consider those grasping vermin beneath contempt!!!
ComJam 28/12/00 - What gives you the idea that the government has any interest in the matter? An instructor has complainrd to the IR who, in turn, have taken the matter up with the courts. The government has nothing to do with it.
sd 29/12/00 - You make the ubiquitous mistake of distinguishing between 'career' and 'non-career' instructors. Why should a PPL student receive any lower quality of instruction than a CPL student. Instructional standards should be equivalently high throughout the industry, something that is possible only if every instructor is paid according to his skill and ability.
The sooner we realise that flight instruction is is worth paying for, the safer we all will be. If this results in the second (and third) rate flying schools going out of business I, for one, will be cheering.
aerotowman 29/12/00 - What has flying a turbo-prop got to do with flight instructors getting a living wage? The rest of your post seems to support by previous point.
squeakyunclean 29/12/00 - If you hadn't had to leave your FI post to earn a living as a turbo-prop F/O, your students would not have had to put up with the inexperienced AFI who replaced you and might have become better pilots.
Mr B. Tupp 29/12/00 - FTO management only treat you like dirt because you (collectively)let them. They will never treat their FIs like human beings because said FIs never behave like human beings. Were they to stop tugging forelocks and stand up for themselves, they might get somewhere. As long as the thirst for flying hours overrides common sense FIs will always be exploited, and deservedly so.
Qhunter 29/12/00 - The whole point is that the minimum wage does not apply for 'every hour you are in attendance and that's it', it applies for a set working week (35, 40, 45 hours or whatever). Slavery was around for a considerable number of years, it doesn't mean it was right.
TooHotToFly 29/12/00 - Right on!!
WWW 29/12/00 - There speaks a dedicated career instructor - How much did you sell out for?