I have wanted to fly since I was about 18, and two years ago at the age of 36 I finally found that I could afford to start learning. However the lessons with my first instructor were not enjoyable and after three months I changed instructors.
My second instructor made the lessons fun because of his enthusiasm for flying, and I completed most of my training with him. However he has now left. Before he left, though, he said I was ready to do my skills test. (I've also passed all but one of the exams).
Today I had some ground school with my third instructor in preparation for the skills test. Due to this instructor's style this lesson felt to me like an exercise in ritual humiliation and has completely destroyed what confidence I had in my limited flying abilities. I called the lesson short because of how it was going and left the airfield feeling sick and completely gutted. He thought I was not being 'receptive'.
To be objective for a moment, I could see what he was trying to achieve, and I should have known more of the answers to the questions he was asking, given that I've already done most of the exams. However I don't see why I should have to be objective. As a paying customer, why the
do I have to be objective? Okay, maybe I'm a bit thick, but I don't need to pay thousands of pounds to be made to feel a complete idiot. Learning to fly should be something you enjoy, not endure. If I want humiliation I can get if for free elsewhere.
Yes, I could change instructors. Yes, I could change schools. But this would involve more time, money and inconvenience, which I'm simply not prepared to spend or put up with. I guess I just don't want it badly enough any more. I've been here before, where I've persevered with something I should have given up on earlier, in order to prove something to myself. I don't need to do that any more.
Having just read back through what I've typed so far, if this all sounds rather pathetic then I don't think I've truly conveyed how I was made to feel today. But maybe I'm just the (over) sensitive type. I'm also fed up with instructors being late for lessons, and finding the plane is u/s when I get to the airfield but nobody calls and says not to bother coming in, and not being recognised by the other instructors, even though I've been going there every other week for two years (and yet when my girlfriend has come with me, they all say hello to her - funny that!), etc, etc. But hey, if you want to learn to fly, that's the kind of crap you have to put up with, right? Er, no, actually.
Anyway, my apologies for a long post, and for it probably not making any sense at all - it's very late and I couldn't go to sleep without getting it off my chest. Thanks for listening, but I've had enough. Rant over.
Safe flying,
Dave.