I reckon it's a very good thing if your instructor has actually worked outside the training environment for a period , be it Charter , airline RPT or any other commercial operation and can bring that valuable experience back into the flying school however it is a rarity .
Yes, it would be a good thing in some cases. Whilst instructing I had a number of ex-airline, turboprop GA etc pilots become flying instructors (for the first time or back for another shot). Things often started off okay, but it didn't take long for some of these experienced pilots to become jaded flying 'little' planes and pass poor attitudes on to students. Experienced pilots didn't always equate to good flying instructors, much like inexperienced pilots didn't always equate to poor flying instructors. Again, it was down to the individual, their motivations and stage of life, but why would a pilot want to drop down the ladder to instructing unless they were forced or wanted a seachange?
Personally I wouldn't want to go back to instructing unless I lost my job and had no other options. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed teaching people to fly at the time but the state of flying school GA doesn't encourage anything but a mostly transient group of pilots. Why wouldn't I want to go back?
- Even as a Grade 1, multi-engine instructor I'd be only earning 30-50% of what I earn elsewhere. Why would an experienced pilot become a Grade 3 instructor for only around $35K a year?
- CASA have made a serious effort in recent years to destroy the souls of instructors during renewals/upgrades, and basically label anyone that didn't learn to fly in Chipmunks as terrible pilots. They expect you to know the square root of the pickle, which I discovered in the real world is never actually required. They don't encourage a culture of passing on 'real-world' experience but rather tick the boxes that make up the Day VFR Syllabus.
- The flying to paperwork ratio would increase dramatically, not in flying's favour.
- The constant stress of students being put up for flight tests. Again, ATOs with agendas and a RAAF mentality make life very hard for some. Not everyone has the ability to be an air force pilot - they shouldn't be assessed that way.
- In the last 10 years I have noticed a greater proportion of student pilots become lazy and only put in minimal effort. Many students are there just to post on face book that they are a pilot, rather than having a true passion for aviation. This gets you down after a while.
There has been talk of increasing instructor minimums since I began learning to fly. But would this really work? Why would someone want to go back to flying single-engine Pipers or Cessnas once they've gained experienced and their career was advancing? Better pay and conditions would need to be offered to attract such pilots, which would have a dramatic effect on the wafer-thin profit margins of flying schools.