Originally Posted by
Silvaire1
Formality, approved training organizatons, low hrs instructors and all that crap are counter productive IMHO... So in that sense I would agree that I think lower regulation can definitely produce better outcomes.
The General Aviation fatal accident rate in the 1940's and 1950's was 400% higher then it is now. Many of the accidents were low altitude stall spins. Things were a lot less regulated then too........
Sounds like you had a pretty good PPL course. However if the blueprint for a better PPL is everybody goes out and buys a 1940's taildragger and then finds an instructor who will work for 40$ a flight then flight instruction in the USA will pretty much instantly stop.
Sadly
AFAIK I am the only instructor at my quite busy home airport that is qualified to teach a PPL on a tailwheel aircraft. A pretty common situation IMO. So we can pine for a totally impractical model of flight training or take today's reality of low hour instructors flying C 150/172/Pa28's and ask what is the art of the possible to make today's instructing better. My personal opinion is that there should be a real push to reinforce the development of foundation flying skills. I am talking about the boring unsexy things like holding a stable and correct attitude for the phase of flight, having the aircraft always properly trimmed, keeping the ball in the centre etc etc. For example before you should start worrying about recovering from a spin you should be able to do a 30 degree banked turn at 1.1 Vs.
Equally sadly I don't see that many students that are willing to pay for quality flight training or even want good training. The majority want the minimum that will get them through the flight test
Fortunately I have a day job flying a large T prop airliner and instruct part time as a hobby. This allows me to be very choosy on who I teach.
BTW I think the your instructor was a fool. I charge $50 an hour for all my time, ground and air, for the PPL and considerably more for advanced training and I should probably charge more.