Degradation of will to learn how to fly
Guys, I am exhausted and I have to share my experience from todays training session.
A student with 45 hours into PPL training was handed over to me by a fellow FI. I took him up today to start cross country training and make him exam ready.
This student was unable to fly a traffic pattern without looking at the iPad and following some mystic self-grown waypoints. He even had the configuration for the 172 and an altitude pop up in a window when approaching his custom pattern waypoints.
I always start doing three patterns with a new to me student, but this one I stopped and had the second landing full stop. We taxied back to the office to have some kind but serious talk. It took me quite some discussion to let him leave the iPad on the ground and he insisted that he "wants to be a pilot with his own procedures and the iPad is an essential part of it". I was of the impression he was all ears and understood, so we took off second time without electronic brain extensions.
After this ride I stopped working for the day. He was behaving overconfident even upon taxiing, did not have the basic skills to configure the aircraft correct for pattern flying (trimming was the worst I ever saw), was stubborn upon corrections and the 30 minute cross country ride was a total mess. He did not listen to me, or understood, was unable to read (and hold correctly) a map, snapped into fooling identifications (no, this is not the church, this is a telecommunications tower - in his home town!), had no idea how to read the altitudes of airspaces, had the ability to control altitude to +-500, bank +-10 (discussed in the air that he always uses the autopilot), had no idea how to set the gyro, was trying to approach first VRP 1.000ft above allowed, did fight with the tower controller on clearance and was of a stubborn kind I never had RHD. Hey man, your are 45 hours into piloting.
On the ground he tried to tell me he never had a debriefing before (checked later with the fellow that this was a lie) and told me he would do perfectly fine. No, he does not and upon trying to tell him what the issues to work on are, he closed his ears and did not listen (or understood?) at all.
I now told him I would not continue training with him and made a remark in the students records. Usually I do not look at the records of a student, but I found I was not the first to refuse.
What do you think of such stubborn people trying to become an airplane transporter, instead of a pilot or even airmen?