B412, yeah, you're right, this does seem to have gone off the point a little. As Smartcol is still checking replies, its good to see a little common sense and a few words of sound advice.
However, the space aportioned to the debate of "customer or student" is worth getting into.
It has always seemed to me that the "usual route" for a budding ATPL is to do an FI course and get a few hours under their belt. WWWs comments on that are one insight to life as an instructor, which most professional pilots seem to do for a while, so I think even from Smartcols point of view it has to be a useful discussion.
Its also a good back up plan. One of my colleagues did the whole BA sponsered Oxford thing only to get dumped after a line check. The FI route was then available as a good back up plan. Having let his shoes get a bit scruffy and really getting into stick and rudder flying, he is enjoying it now. Its not just marking time to the next airline call. (Although more money would be a bonus, I suppose),
The perception of the customer by instructors as well as their attitude to business owners is cause for some concern. Whilst I believe that the student gets nothing out of being constantly congratulated, the relationship between instructor and Owner is not always pretty, in fact sometimes its taken as read to be a bad one. This was my initial query with
WWW. My concern is that the wider the "us and them" attitude gets, the further away we get from everyone involved in training making a decent living. FTO's and the industry are too small to afford give birth to the next Arther Scargill.
The marketing Demons are just as bad in some cases. I've never lost a customer by telling them the truth about the industry they want to get into. In fact, from a marketing point of view, its known as a fresh approach and the guy who has something different to offer always gets a good slice of the cake. Maybe we should all sing from the same hymn book.
Most instructors I know would say "Yeah, I am a career instructor, I love it, but I have to go to the airlines to pay back £35,000 of debt".
At the end of the day, Smartcol, getting paid anything to fly is better than paying for your flying when you're not humping parcels from one side of a warehouse or another, or flipping burgers for £4.20 per hour.
My Brother is a plumber. I never recall him at age seven saying "When I grow up, I want to fix blocked toilets" whilst staring dreamily up at the fluffy white things.
