Originally Posted by 12Watt Tim
wg100
Do you really think you will make a good PPL instructor when you have presumably never held a PPL and have simply been trained to be an airline FO? It is nothing personal, I don't know you, but the only instructor I knew who had been an integrated student was very poor and made errors precisely because he had no idea of a PPL. Have you done any club flying, to know that it suits you? Your attitude is promising for the future, that an instructor rating is a good thing to have done for your general flying, but why not simply take a non-flying job and wait for the inevitable upturn?
To me this really illustrates one of the big reasons not to take an integrated course. I know it's too late for you to change your choice, but do your reasons for doing so in preference to a modular course make any sense now? Do you think a modular course would have prepared you better for being in this position? I think others should learn from this, and I have always disliked the integrated course for just such reasons.
I may not have gone down the PPL route, however, I've been tought to fly SEP (to PPL standards) and MEP (to CPL/IR standards). Yes, the overall theme was to develop us as FOs, but I'm a pilot first and foremost. The FI course teaches you how to teach at PPL level. I've also got plenty of training/teaching experience from a previous job, so I'm sure I'll be able to instruct with the minimum of 'errors'. A colleague who did his FI course earlier this year is instructing successfully and competently, so it may well be that your experience with a poor instructor was a one off. Who knows?
As to doing the FI rating vs getting a job. I'm fully intending to get a 'normal' job, but it is proving rather hard to find at the moment. The FI course is occuring alongside my job hunting. I'm multi-tasking!
Club flying? Yes I have. I regularly fly from my local club and enjoy doing so. I figured it was ridiculous to spend so much money on gaining a license and then not put it to good use. Some of my colleagues haven't touched an aircraft since their IR over a year ago.
It may have been the wrong decision to do an integrated course, but it made sense at the time as i didn't have any other committments and I wanted to throw myself into the training. I whole heartedly agree that people entering these courses at the moment need to take a long hard look at themselves. I certainly wouldn't have considered starting in the current climate and the modular route may now be the way to go. I wouldn't change anything though, as I made some good friends on the course and have gained a skill for life along with plenty of life experience... You can't change the past, so I've just got to look to the future and make the best of a bad situation.