The reasoned comments of most contributors to this thread seem to be overwhelmingly conclusive; although the presence of ex-pat or ex-UK military instructors in certain US flight schools perhaps means that those flight schools are probably unrepresentatively higher in quality than other US schools, the balance of opinion seems to indicate a generally poor standard of instruction in US flight schools. Oh, and by the way, quite what was the useful contribution to this thread that Leading Edge felt that he had to offer? Apart from petulant rhetoric, that is?