Had a student change flying schools recently and while reviewing their understanding of the stuff they needed to understand, they revealed a few odd practices from their old school.
A selection:
1/. Students were not taught to lean the mixture until after they passed their PPL;
2/. No diversions were ever "sprung" on the student but notified and planned in advance (including diversions on flight tests)
3/. no allowance made for climb fuel in the fuel plan
4/. no flight plans or SARTIMES were ever lodged "because there was always someone at the school to hold company SAR".
These gems have all been verified to me by a Grade 1 instructor from that school.
The schools instructor body is strongly populated by the schools graduates and each of these items, in my view, represent a major failing on the CFI's part to adequately train their charges for the big bad world beyond.
Are these practices justifiable? Is it really so hard to teach someone to fly a C172 that leaning at PPL level is just a bit too much of a stretch?
If I had a PPL candidate who failed to lean the mixture (at all, let alone correctly) on their flight test it would be a pretty short test.
