Hi,
I've been reading this thread with interest and would like to make a few points.
I dont think that having separate instructor qualifications for NPPL and PPL will work at all. It will be divisive and completely fail to achieve the desired result.
Also, instructing generally should not be separated from those wishing to progress to the airlines... I do wish to fly for airlines, but that doesnt mean I dont instruct properly, nor do i "use" students just to build my hours. Instructing is a stepping stone in my career, but I hope to continue it when I get to the airlines. The vast majority of my friends and colleagues in the industry are "airline hours builders" and I'd say that for the most part we are good instructors, there are always bad egss in every basket and its frustrating to be tarnished with the same brush purely because my career aims are different to flying C150's around for the next 20 years.
If you want someone to do a good job, you have to motivate them... low pay, crap working conditions do very little to help.
I enjoy instructing, I'd consider doing it as a career if I thought I could make than £25,000+ a year doing it and not the current £6,000 if I'm lucky. If you want people to become career instructors.. you have to pay them enough money to live on.That would add £40 an hour to the current rates tho.... however I do think instructors should be paid more than the current £12 or so per flying hour. However.. if heli instructors make enough money.. why cant FI(A)'s??.
I do also accept that while the airlines want 1000hrs.. and there is no possible way in the UK to go from 200 to 1000 hours without instructing (sicne we basically have no GA industry other than air taxi work.. which is harder to break into than the airlines) then there will always be a large number of people instructing for the hours.. this in itself drives down FI(A) salaries... for every person that will work for £15.. theres one that will do it for £10.. one that will do it for £5.. and so on.
There needs to be a much improved structure for getting people from 0 to an airline... at the moment FTO's pump out 500 new CPL's a year.. there simply arent jobs available,, and with the market being flooded by experienced pilots from all over the place its tough hetting that first break.. always has been.. always will.. until there is a better structure in place.
Hour's building instructors.. career instructors... who cares.. so long as the instructor is good at it, and has sufficent degree of motivation to do the job well. There are good and bad instructors out there regardless of background or long term career aim, the same way there are good and bad students. I've flown with some students that have become good friends.. and some that are so competitive/confrontational that they are close to being impossible to teach. Most cases where a student says their instructor is crap is purely a case of personality clash.. simple solution is to change your instructor!
The current FIC course I think provides well for teaching someone to teach.... you want pilots with a good level of knowledge and experience (and 200 hours with a CPL and FIC course is sufficent to teach someone to a decent PPL standard) to pass on their knowledge and skills to someone else. The difference in ability and experience between CPL/IR/FI and 250hours to PPL with 55 hours is enormous.
This all comes down to money and self interest... you want to fly as cheaply as possible while getting the best instruction possible....unpaid instructors.. non-profit making flying clubs and so on. What you're really asking is for other people to subsidise your flying with their enthusiasm! there is actually a flying school in the UK that offers dual instruction for £85 an hour .... the school is non profit making and run by aviation enthusiasts to try and get people into flying......
The NPPL itself in my opinion is a slightly false economy.. I cant see many people being safe pilots at 32 hours... very few people pass the PPL within the miniumum 45 hours as it is.. the NPPL is only skimping on the important parts of the course.. less stall training, less Nav training and so on. What is taught is exactly the same as in the PPL... only slightly less of it......
Having NPPL instructors with a "lesser" instructional qualification.. teaching pilots to a "lesser" standard... I'm not comfortable with that. Flight safety will not be improved.
Sorry if I've repeated my self or waffled a bit!!
LP