Unsafe and Irresponisble
This is an exeprt from an e-mail I got from a friend of mine that left me with a distinctly dubious feeling. I think that what their instructor is trying to do is wrong.
Exerpt Starts:
Just got a text from my flying instructor - I have to take my flight test (and therefore all written exams too) before he leaves at the end of the month.
Oh god.
Also, I have been flying in XXXX for the last god knows how many months as the other plane was sick, and XX has no radio nav at all. So, I have never done radio nav. now the other plane, YYYY which has VOR ADF whatever, is fixed and back in the hangar he says my solo will be in trusty old XX, but my test, (including questions on aeroplane type, incl questions therefore on radio nav 'cos it's fitted) is going to be in YY.
Aaaaaagh. Is it humanly possible to cram handling stuff like glide approaches, stalls, steep turns, shortfield approaches, etc etc (all of which are either v rusty or I have never done) plus written stuff for Nav, Flight Performance and Aeroplane Technical all in two weeks... at the same time as working full time (in fact with the amount I have on at the mo, I should be working overtime, but don't have time to do that!!)?
Have already had the odd cross word about your "race" point [I said it's not a race but a jounrey to be savoured] with CFI Biggles - he is concerned about his figures with the CAA for average flying hours before passing test. minimum is 45, i have a few hours more, before doing the approx three hour cross-country nav and some revision on handling. He has been told, however, that I fly for fun, and that he would be a crap examiner if he pushed me through the test on minimum hours and then I crashed his plane 'cos I wasn't a confident pilot. He has now given up on the hours point, but is concerned that I should be tested by him, and to be honest I would rather be tested by him.
Exerpt Ends.
I think that it's totally wrong for my friend to be pressured into flying to meet arbitray targets (QFI leaving to do IR, CFI getting precious over how he looks). I think that the school in question are being irresponsible, because my friend clearly feels that they are being put into a difficult situation and pressured into doing something that they are not ready to do.
What do you think?
BluntM8
[edited to remove an obvious identifier of who my friend is, just in case]