Smartcol you might be a wind up but I am going to bite anyway.
You sound like a complete pain in the arse.
I've seen the likes of you go through training. Indeed you sound a bit like one of my ex-students who is currently flipping burgers. He would turn up sometimes like he had just managed to stumble out of bed at 11 in the morning.
Hair unbrushed, no shave, tie half done up swaying from an unwahed collar above unpolished shoes. He too messed up a few exams and ended up taking a bit longer than he expected.
He just didn't get it and perhaps you didn't either.
You were being TRAINED to be a professional pilot. Thats not quite the same as being trained to fly an aeroplane. I DEMAND that my students strived to meet the same standard that I set. Be that on the ILS, in the circuit or in the briefing room. Be that doing a walkround, filling in the tech log
or polishing one shoes.
It can be fun starting the briefing with a 'Who's got the shiniest shoes competition'.
Thats what a GOOD flying school/instructor will strive and help you to do - emulate the highest standards until they become your own.
Frankly I don't give a damn what you are paying. You are NOT a customer to me. You are my STUDENT. I am your INSTRUCTOR. This is AVIATION and this is how it has always been.
This is not life like you have known it at home, in school or university. There are
no prizes for everyone, everybody does not have a valid point of view and self expression is not encouraged. If you cannot show enough self discipline for a year to adapt to your FTO environment then I doubt whether a lifetime of adapting to the demands of airline life will work out very well for you.
Do you think I can turn up at work without a tie? Without a shave?
Do you think your patronising arrogant ex RAF type instructors are in any way different from the Check Captains and Sim Instructors that you will meet in your first airline?
As far as FTO's go, frankly I will not change my stance on this, yes I am disheartened with the situation, but for those of you who did their flying at large school, which included self-sponsored and sponsored students, you will understand where I am coming from.
And what about all your course colleagues that got on well with the course - you sound like the course whinger to me you blames everyone else for their ills. Buy a mirror pal.
It took a lot for me to get money and get into this course, at 22, it was a massive step for me. And to be honest it didn't really go according to plan, I made a mess of some exams, and battled through, it eventually took me nearly two years.
Hey, join the club. Its big and full of people who paid and risked more than you. Training rarely goes according to plan. Why did you make a mess of some exams? I have seen some pretty 'un-academic' people achieve high first time passes through putting in the hours and then putting in some more. Or were you in the social club most nights?
During that time I felt I was treated poorly by the school, I was not allowed an opinion, I was to conform to their way of being and really I felt as if I were to fend for myself, which made me all the more determined and stick two fingers up when I did eventually pass, is that the right way to treat a paying customer ???
Well if ALL students felt that way the school would have a pretty poor reputation that I would be aware of and I am not. How can you not be allowed an opinion? People may ignore or discount it but you can have it. Life in the real world and in airline flying relies on you conforming your behaviour and on you fending for yourself. I think it likely that the two fingers you stick up at your old instructors would be swiftly returned...
The patrionising and the arrogance and the RAF military style of these places does not rub off on me,
You just didn't get it did you.
being a customer to a business as so many of you are calling it, I expect more, not to be treated like a schoolboy and have to be made to feel inadequate to ludicrous extremes such as not wearing my tie, or having not shaved, or not wearing my hair like some would like, what rubbish !!!
The marketing department are there the massage your ego. The instructors are there to turn a complete numpty into something resembling a fledgling professional pilot in 12 months. A sometimes painful reshaping. Sometimes impossible...
I am paying for this, if I want to fly in my pants I should be able to !!! And before everyone rants on about that being stupid and they are trying to teach me respect, well that is not the way to go about it.
Says a 22 year old wonder kid with very little knowledge of the ways of the world.
I think the course was difficult enough without me feeling stressed and getting grief from people who decided they did not like me because I did not brown nose their arse like the others.
Son, your instructors didn't want you to brown nose them. They don't need your admiration or respect. You needed theirs.
By god would I go the extra mile for the nice guy student who was a bit hopeless but tried hard. All instructors will.
The world owes me a job, nobody likes me, I am a customer, this school is crap barrack room lawyer types - like you appear to be - would get the standard brief and the standard sortie. If they didn't "get it" then repeat until they run out of money.
Perhaps this is why your training didn't quite run as smoothly as you had planned.
You can ponce about this bulletin board for as long as you like whining about not having a job and how horrible your school was. Just don't expect an easy time from me.
I know too many ex-students who were superb during training, who pulled theirselves up by the bootlaces to become excellent pilots who are now flipping burgers waiting for that first break.
In fact none of them are flipping burgers. Some are training as we speak to be cabin crew with Britannia. Some are working as baggage handlers with an eye to becoming a despatcher at Luton. Some are working the Ops desk in Liverpool at the local airfield charter outfit.
These are the people you are up against and if there is any justice they will get jobs ahead of you with your fly for free leanings.
Son all you have done in aviation so far is write a big cheque. You want a job - go out and earn one.
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