is it an instructors place to tell someone that they are wasting their money? These are big boys and girls. For those aged over 20, our magnificent ministry of education says that, where loans etc are available, everyone is entitled to an oportunity to fail. Selection procedures are not allowed it seems so a lot of money is wasted in aviation training in this country.
To a certain extent that's true Jack, but there's more than one way to 'fail' in this business ... and the potential consequences of failure on a B.A. or diploma-of-basket-weaving or some such are not quite as life threatening as aviation.
It may not be our job to tell these sub standard wannabe's that they are having the p!ss taken out of them and they will never make the grade as pilots ... but I'd rather be telling it to them now than telling it to their next of kin a couple of months down the track!
I really really hope and pray that it doesn't come to that, but the trouble is that you actually have to let them go solo at some stage if you want to keep them hanging round. Some of these schools are walking a very very fine line between 'bleeding the wannabe for every penny they've got before we kick them out' and 'letting the sub standard student get into situations they should never have been allowed into in the first place'.
There's far too much of this going on now in more than a few loan approved training organisations and it makes me sick to be honest, I reckon a bloody good 'corporate manslaughter' charge levelled at one of these CFI's might be what it takes to wake up the rest of the industry.