Originally Posted by
Shed Dog Tosser
Many of the above arguements are also true for the present regime for Flying Instructors, a bare CPL plus a 50 odd hours course, then they are out teaching others how to fly.
That seems a little strange, does a pilot with 200 tt actually know how to fly themselves ?, not wonder the standard of the bare CPL is so low, you can not learn something from a teacher than does not know it themselves.
How can you say instructors don't know what they're teaching? Even a fresh JG3 has just completed countless hours in theory and briefings and learning how to teach, in addition to the 50 flying hours learning how to fly accurately and describing/explaining every move - surely that qualifies them to teach EoC, climbing, turning etc as well as someone with thousands of hours. These instructors have to start somewhere.
An instructors job is to best prepare a CPL student for a career in aviation - that means leading by example, encouraging self learning and insisting on a high level of airmanship and professionalism.
The knowledge you are referring to will be gained in the years after their training is complete - hours and hours of command time in a commercial environment, which i agree, is invaluable knowledge.
Instructors have additional knoweldge: they know how to pass it on. I think one should judge an instructors' ability on their skills as a teacher and a role model, rather than the hours in their logbook.