No Idea!!

[bush mechanics]

Is it me or are more pilot coming out of flying schools with no idea?
Im an engineer and cpl holder with nearly 1000 hours and have been working in GA for the last 12 years,only this year Ive renewed my cpl and thanks too a certain NT operater Im back in the sadle.
The amont of bad pilotship that I see can only be blamed to the flying schools whos intrest is the old dollar factor,Simple things like parking aircraft into wind where possible,taxing with doors open,leaving doors open on parked aircraft,taxing with too much power on and riding brakes(throtle back)Starting engines cold and reving the **** out of them,Had a 210 on jacks in the hangar and had a baron taxie up and point its arse into the hangar,the pilot was talked too and then handed a broome,taxing twins with one engine at idle and the other at 1000rpm,just ride the oppisite brake that will keep it straight,Not cleaning you A/C after your flight,Had a pilot ask me what that white round thing with champion on it was hanging off the back of a 210 engine,Asked pilot what he/SHE thought it was,"is that the magneto"Um no try oil filter,just like on your car. Basicly dont be embarrased to ask questions the day you stop learning is the day you drop dead.
Please dont take this as engineer versus pilot but something has too change,this is all basic stuff i learnt from my instructor back in the early 90s,
Choose a flying school that has instructors that have true charter and remote flying experience soo you come up here with out your head shoved up your bum and be prepared for a hard but satisfying experience

[FDI]

It comes down to a few things.

1. A 200hr Instructor or one with no world experience or one that’s so far up himself he knows it all (guess who paid for his flying) teaching theses new CPL holders everything they know.

2. An Instructor that gets paid shight to Instruct therefore does not give rats.

And there is the common sense thing and I do believe young people these days do not have any.

So what chance have we got except for the highly trained and highly professional Instructors out there.

[Aussiebert]

I'd love to know what the average student pilot is meant to do about this...

like, something realistic, not pie in the sky wishfull thinking

[cficare]

If you want to make a difference you can make a point of sharing some of your knowledge with the relaively inexperinced pilots you come in contact with.
If ther e is a decowled aircraft in the hanger invite them over and point out some of the "good" bits, trace the magneto leads and discover which mag fires which plugs, look at the vac pump and explain how they usually fail, identify the leads coming off the alternator.......I could go on and on

The responsibility for improving the working knowledge of new pilots lies with US! Sure instructors/flying schools may be letting the side down but then again in this dollar driven world they dont get paid for doing guided tours of an aircrafts guts.

If we all made a point of increasing a less experinced pilots understanding, I think that we would rapidly see a change overall.

[bush mechanics]

Cfi care I totaly agree but how many pilots i see at work who envent something too do than come an help out in the hangar.!0years ago all our pilots would work in the hangar when theres was no flying ,better than having no job i guess,At least these guys and gals could tell you over the phone what the airraft was doing,makes it easy to no what parts too take out on a recovery.

[High Altitude]

Its a very good point that rings true all too often.

How many newbies know what a HF is? Let alone how to use one? How many newbies get sent North on the trek for a job without a DG certificate? Granted these are very basic points but shouldn't flying schools prepare CPL candidates for GA charter work if its not a cadetship?

I look back at my training and I was very happy with the standard I recieved, most of it with GRII and GRI instructors. I worked in the hanger (or should I say I got in the way in the hanger) which taught me a thing or 2.

How many 250 pilots would be confident say doing a Darwin - Hodgson Downs charter without their handheld GPS? My sadistic side but I love taken em of em....

No one is perfect (well then again theres me...) you are not expected to know everything just to have a basic knowledge and brains. Blowing a hanger out is a common sense thing nothing to do with flying.

[compressor stall]

There is no clear cut answer to this issue.

Flying schools are not entirely to blame. It's business and what sells, so they cannot be blamed for pursuing what is necessary for the company's survivial.

Sure they may not have many instructors who have a lot of 'real world' GA charter, but there are not too many people who are interested in instructing once they have accrued hours 'up north' and are ready for turbine jobs...

If one flying school then decided to pay wages appropriate to attract a bush pilot instructor type back to the big smoke, then it would be out of business pretty smart, as little johnny (or parents therof) want little johnny to be an airline pilot, and those glossy brochures of 767s are sadly what is sold.

As has been lamented in other threads most is the fact that pilots are not taught to fly these days - they are taught to be an airline pilot in a GA light aircraft, and they are two totally different things. Procedures are different, and they should be taught as such.

A good example of this (which is a can of worms in itself) is the use of checklists in light aircraft 'cos that's the way airlines do it.

A non pilot colleague who travels with my company and has travelled with another company remarked on the fact that a pilot for company XYZ shut the doors in the C4XX, and proceeded to carefully go through his prestart checks methodically and s l o w l y from a checklist. This had a double effect on the passengers - some it unnerved ("is this pilot new?") and they all started melting in the 50+C temps brewing in the cabin. Eventually, the engine was started and the aircon switched on.

I believe that in the 'real' world, one starts that engine ASAP and gets that aircon on. The second engine, txpr codes, taxi calls, ATIS listening, can wait if it needs, get the pax comfortable first.

Much airmanship also boils down to common sense, and sadly that is very difficult to teach. You can lead a horse to water.... Ever driven in a car with a pilot whose airmanship skills you believe are a little lacking? Well funnily enough road skills are often lacking too....

Lack of HF radio skills is a popular thing browned northern pilots lament about in their green southern colleagues. In reality, there are very few aircraft fitted with serviceable HFs. I had 800 odd hours before I headed north and had never flown an HF equipped aircraft. What it boils down to are: Senior pilots/CPs taking a new green pilot under his/her wings and imparting this knowledge (and removing said GPS!) AND the willingness for a pilot who may have been top of his/her heap in the flying school down south and knew lots to be humble and know that there its a lot to learn.

Another airmanship thing - runups when stationary on gravel. :rolleyes: Also the revving of engines when cold AND on gravel - the pinging of the props on sucked up gravel. Regularly I would clear an area under my prop(s) of lose gravel with foot or hand. Some pilots though that was stupid, but I never damaged a prop from gravel (and I was usually the only pilot to fly the aircraft for the whole 100 hours).

It is up to us more senior/expereinced outback operators to encourage and foster the new pilots to these less obvious tricks, and it will work as long as they (and anyone else for that matter realises that A CPL is a licence to learn.

[/RANT]

:p

[I Fly]

I think it must be a general society thing. A bit like phone box wrecking. "I don't own it, I don't have to pay for it or for fixing it - I don't give a rats a***. I try to teach my students all the good bits that gottom 2 dollars talks about, and then some more. A lot of my students are not interested. The general attitude is "put the minimum in - get the maximum out". I get my students to study via the Trevor Thom books. They ask me to tell them what the important bits are they should read. I tell them the unimportant bits have been left out already. They are happy to pass the exam with 70.5%. I tell them that you can't pass a flight with 99%. The 1% might kill you. Needless to say some go elsewhere where it is easier to get the 'ticket'. It always amuses me on how many people know exactly what it is they "don't need to know", but few know what they "need to know". Flying schools get a lot of flack and I'm sure some deserve every bit of it, but, "you can only lead a horse to water, you can't make it drink". I have 2 teenagers at home. They come home from high school and know exactly what rights they have. They don't seem to have a clue what responsibilities they have. One of our fellows ppruners signs off with something like "experience is a hard task master, you get the test first and the lesson later". Too many people want that ticket without the experience and lessons. The customer is king and if the customer shops around a bit, the customer gets what the customer wants.

[cficare]

You can bitch about it all day, unless the people in the industry are prepared to mentor newly licensed pilots then nothing is going to change.
I have always believed that a CPL/PPl is a licence to learn but I have failed quite a few due to lack of general and specific knowledge, this has often been after they were specifically told bt me that I expected them to put in the hard yards.
As a general observation the vast majority of successful flight tests are ones where the preflight theory evaluation has been completed to a high standard and the flying is almost a formality...these are the people I have no problem reccommending for flying positions.

[OpsNormal]

CFIcare wrote:
You can bitch about it all day, unless the people in the industry are prepared to mentor newly licensed pilots then nothing is going to change.

But first these PPL/CPL's to be must WANT to learn about the engines and systems that they would soon be operating. It all comes down to the candidate's attitude. Luckily enough being originally a motor mechanic by trade helped me greatly to understand just what I was playing at when I wandered into the hangar to help the ame/lame's conduct maintainence.

I was originally exposed to HF in a marine environment (from a very young age), and in all honesty it is just another radio that requires just a couple more tweaks to get them clean and clear.

Perhaps we might start a thread describing (to those who might actually wish to learn something), the intracacies (spl?) of the common garden variety HF radio? ;)

[bush mechanics]

Hey HA ,we bin go down to ribber and drink some lady in a boat!
And i bin let you screw my girlpriend

[the wizard of auz]

Yup. that'll get ya a mate at work.

[Aussiebert]

Most of us new CPL holders want to learn, there's just a lack of opertunities to do so. I'm more than happy to spend my free time learning the ropes somewhere, any good samaritins who don't mind my terrible spelling, i am open to any offers

was that not subtle enough?

[Dogimed]

I say all CPL and ATPL holders should resit exams every 2 years so that they stay fresh.....

Should make the place safer... coz they dont make em like the used too....

Dog

[grrowler]

I've been thinking about the low standard of CPL's for a while, my own included when it was shiny and new. I found I learnt a huge amount in my first job just by talking to my more experienced work colleagues and the engineers. The thing is, even with an experienced career instructor, there are things that have to be learnt in the bush.

Therefore, I present "Grrowlers Advanced Flight Training with REAL Industry Experience"!


A combined charter/ flying school operation based in remote area which takes PPL's from selected schools in the cities and turns them into hardened GA pilots over 6 - 10 months.

They would be getting exposure to and logging hours in charter aircraft (210, 310, BE-58, etc), they would be "working" in the hangar doing 50 hrlys and seeing the systems first hand.

There would be no "There's a cloud in the sky, I'll call in sick", or "That's not a runway, its dirt and has trees around it."

They would understand the need for aircraft to make money.

Throw in the incentive of a possible job at the end of their training!

Accomodation and meals.

As much fun as boot camp! :D

For the special price of $60,000 (give or take a bit)

All while I (or whoever takes the idea) get fat and rich...

Seriously though, I think it would make some bloody good pilots.

[Hugh Jarse]

I say all CPL and ATPL holders should resit exams every 2 years so that they stay fresh.....

Yes, we all need to be able to flight plan a B727 or Echo Mk 4....NOT! :D:D

I do enough checks a year, thank you very much. 4 Cyclics, 1 Route Check, EP's and CRM. Then DG's every other.

Let's retest all motor vehicle licence holders every 2 years. It'll probably save more lives.

One of the reasons standards are atrocious is because you have a majority of sub-200 hour pilots attempting to teach. Until such time as minimum experience levels are raised, nothing will change.

An addage to this is that flight instruction offers a very limited career path, unless you are fortunate enough to land a job at one of the large colleges. Even then, the temptation of an airline with remuneration (in many instances) several times the maximum you could ever earn teaching at colleges is present. And quite often the workload is less.

Until such time as the role of the Flying instructor is given the value it deserves, the standards will continue to decline.......

Going to the hangar and watching maintenance is nice for one's knowledge, but what is the practical significance? So what if we know "that is a magneto" and "that is an oil filter" As pilots, we are quite limited (rightly so) in what maintenance tasks we can perform. Those teaching future professional pilots need to concentrate more on the basic skills of flying and less on the sundries.

[Icarus2001]

Hugh Jarse

One of the reasons standards are atrocious is because you have a majority of sub-200 hour pilots attempting to teach.

This is demonstrably untrue. Minimum for a CPL issue is 150 hours. An instructor course comprises a minimum of 50 hours training. A NVFR rating is required prior to undertaking the Instructor course, however this may(sometimes) be completed as part of the CPL training.

Whilst I agree that many new Grade 3 instructors are little more than safety pilot's, they soon improve. Or those that apply themselves do. I have trained dozens of instructors and agree that the CPL standard of handling and theory knowledge is falling. I often spend briefing time dragging theory knowledge up to an acceptable (to me) standard, when I should be teaching "how to teach".

One idea is a more centralised Instructor School. As in maybe one or two only in Australia, a full time live in course, say 2-3 months.

I occasionally come across some very senior instructors and CFi's with strange ideas too. For example, whilst discussing the techniques to use for hand swinging a prop to start an aircraft with insufficient battery power to crank, I was told that I must have the master on otherwise the engine would not fire. You should have seen his face when I started it sans master on. ;)
This from a CFI.

I know to be a Hang Gliding instructor or diving instructor one has to sit ALL the exams already passed along the way again and get very high marks (100% for Hang Gliding) and HGFA instructors must attend a training seminar/conference every year.

Some interesting ideas but once again where is CASA helping here, how much time and effort do they put in to training and safety education?

[OzExpat]

CASA is trying to help? :eek:
Bwahahahahaha! That's a good one... ya got any more like that? :D

[Hugh Jarse]

This is demonstrably untrue. Minimum for a CPL issue is 150 hours. An instructor course comprises a minimum of 50 hours training.
Pure semantics Icarus2001. Yes, I made a mistake. And you know that I meant pilots with a bare CPL going straight into Instructor Ratings.

I have trained my fair share of instructors also. I have also flown (as a student way back when) with pimply faced instructors that wouldn't know their ar$e from their elbow. 20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Whilst I agree that many new Grade 3 instructors are little more than safety pilot's, they soon improve. Or those that apply themselves do.

Sure, but who pays for it in the meantime while they are learning? The students...

I occasionally come across some very senior instructors and CFi's with strange ideas too.

Indeed. Probably because they were taught by inexperienced pilots when they were up-and-coming Grade 3's.

That's because there is very little standardisation in the flying training industry. I worked at a large establishment that was big on standardisation. You taught it their way 'or the highway'. Regular surveillance by Management Pilots, and strict application of training standards at renewal time ensured consistent quality of workmanship. The client airlines demanded it.

Now, if an organisation with over 50 Instructors can manage it, why can't one with 5? Surely it would be easier?

Casa supposedly sets the minimum standard to which Instructor candidates must reach. Who applies the standard? The flying school. Now if that ain't a conflict of interest I don't know what is.....

The responsibility for testing of candidates has been passed onto the industry. The industry has to take responsibility for the generally $hitty standard that prevails......................

I agree with you. Some form of centralised training organisation would probably go a long way to rectifying the current problems. However, the authority taking a more proactive approach like insisting (and surveilling to ensure) certain standards are achieved with regard to quality of training would be even better.

[Rich-Fine-Green]

Exams every two years - bugga that!! :confused:

There are a few pilots who know the square root of the pickle but can't open the jar! Try again.

How about CPLs gaining a little more experiance before starting an Instructor rating - say a few hundred hours.

(Howls of protest from production Instructor schools and fresh CPLs with 50NM apron strings)

I only know 2/10's of SFA about the rotary world but I do seem to recall that a level of experiance is needed before a Helo Instructor rating can be attempted.

Have I got the right country/system in mind (I do get confused - bars, aircraft, wives, airports & stories are becoming a blur the older I get)?.

Any of our Helo brethren care to confirm/deny please.

[triadic]

I remember back in the mid '80's at a major flying training conference it was suggested that around 750 hours should be aquired prior to starting an instructor rating. It was howled down by some of the senior CFIs claiming the supply of instructors would dry up. Cr@p. It was pure commercial interest that they did not want such a change. Sure the number of 200 hr instructors would dry up, but what would then pop out of the system at a later date would be much better as a result. How you can expect someone to teach something they have only just learnt is beyond me (except perhaps with very strict supervision). It does not seem to occur in any other field? Yes the chopper world have a higher hours requirement for instructiong and there are still instructors.

Yes, a three month course at a Uni style school would be good. The standard should improve and they might be able to teach!

Whats more important? The viability of training schools or the standards of the pilots that are trained.

I happen to believe that the number of CPL schools should be significantly reduced - say around 25 nationally. All the others should just do PPLs/NVFRs etc

[Icarus2001]

Triadic

How you can expect someone to teach something they have only just learnt is beyond me (except perhaps with very strict supervision). It does not seem to occur in any other field?

I agree about the strict supervision and so does CASA that is what the 100 hours direct supervision of Grade 3 Instructors is for. However it is often diluted and of little real use, again it comes down to the quality of the CFI.

As far as not occuring elsewhere, hello? How about leaving school at 17, go to Uni for 3 years to get teaching degree, get job as teacher? Even funnier is do a 3 year Arts degree or anything for that matter and all that is required is a one year dip ed. You then get paid more to teach than a 3 year trained teacher even though you only spent 1 year learning how to teach.

Teaching someone how to do something that you have only just learnt yourself is quite easy really. I don't see a problem. Sure an Instructors responses to student problems will be limited until they have seen more students with various problems or bad habits, but the learning curve is quite steep.

How about parents or siblings teaching relatives to drive?


R-F-G

Helicopters Instructors appear to be only of the Grade 1 & 2 variety and must have 400 hours flight time in helicopters.

I also think raising the minimum may help but there are issues with that as well. Where to gain the hours? Is 500 hours of bush charter for someone who does not set themselves high standards going to give them a solid background for instructing? Sure they may be a good aircraft manipulator. Don't make the mistake of thinking a good pilot makes a good instructor or vice versa. In my experience the best instructors I have seen were only average at manipulating the controls but they knew their stuff and could teach.

[puff]

God knows what the situation is to the problem but certainly raising the hours for instructers is certainly not a bad idea....BUT you have to make it worth their while to stick around....guys that instruct from 200 hours want out by the time they have 500 because they are sick of living on a terrible casual wage...if you can't keep a guy with 500 hours in the job how do we intend to attract guys with 1000s of hours to instruct when there isn't the rewards in it.

Few other points ...Raise the hours required to become a Grade 3 instructor, no problems but where does your average CPL graduate get that first job, when with the huge increase in insurance costs these days means that there are very few operators with insurance that allows them to give sub 300 hour or even 200 hour guys a go, even several parachute operators have insurance mins of 300/500 ...then of the operators that do give low hour guys a job you have heaps of guys going for the one job, and why would you take someone with low hours when there is always someone around that has more.

It's amazing how much bashing of low hour guys that goes on, but when you look around at all the ATSB reports of most recent accidents all have been flown by pilots with about 1000 odd hours, or even more. Accidents that are flown by 200 hour pilots aren't THAT common.

Just remember guys you were all 200 hour pilots yourself, and most of us out here are more than willing to sit and listen to any words of wisdom that you are willing to impart, i've been lucky enough to have been involved in the industry from an early age and have grown up around it, and the amount of stuff i've learnt from guys with more experience than I could dream of is amazing.

I think we all admit that being low hour or low experience at ANYTHING in life means you do have a LOT to learn, but it's hard to learn if no one is willing to help teach you, because it's always easier to sit back and make fun of them and give them crap from a distance with your mates....if someone does something wrong, tell them what they did wrong, how to do it right, and not to do it again.......if they do it again, sack them.....you soon learn that way! If they are that unwilling to listen and learn from the advise of someone with far more experience than them, by sacking them you just might save their life or even worse their passengers one day......

[triadic]

The answer of course to the comments above regarding hours for instructors is to leave the requirement low, maybe a bit more than now and enforce very strict supervision requirements. Trouble is that many present CFIs have not been trained to that level (because they grew up in the existing system, which I think we agree is below par) nor perhaps have the resources to do it. Now what did I say about limiting the number of CPL schools... then maybe it could be done?
Standards and standardization is what we want. With few exceptions it does not exist right now!

[PLovett]

The problem, I suggest, is not the instructors but a lack of common sense. :( Too many people put the brain in neutral whilst on the ground.

I know that answer appears trite but I have seen pilots trained by some very experienced instructors do many of thing things that gottom 2 dollar complained about at the beginning of this thread. :rolleyes:

To blame instructors for all of the ills is the same as blaming the education system for all of the problems with children. Somewhere along the line there needs to be some advice from those more experienced or do we just want to sit back and complain about the current generation of newbie pilots and slap ourselves on the back saying it wasn't like that in our day.:o

Rant over, packs up soapbox and creeps away.:D

[stormywx]

I am a +200 hour instructor and I just wanted to make a few points..

1. Students will in most cases get what they pay for. The standard of instructors whether it be a 200 hour of 3000 hour one will dpeend a lot on the company which they work at. The larger, dare I say it "commercial" schools who may charge more have a much more standardised training approach, along with regular checks for the instructors themselves.

2. Instructor Ratings are not just handed to us on a silver platter, nor are our CPL's, ATPL subjects, IREX, MECIR's etc. We do actually have to perform to obtain them, to the same standard (if not higher) then has always been required. Again the larger schools now tend to use outside ATO's to ensure that the standard is there.

3. We are well aware that we don't have the experience of someone with 3000hrs. We have not faced the same amount of weather senarios, mech problems, emergencies, nor have we probably flown to the same amount of airports and so on. It is quite amazing how often you learn something new and learn something from your students. However having said that, we are constantly tested to ensure we can teach what we are required to by CASA and if we couldn't we simply wouldn't have a job. We may still be learning too but we aren't just "saftey pilots" as quoted above. We are quite capable of teaching someone how to fly S&L, Nav and so on.

4. If CASA were to put a mimimum 750 for a G3 rating then I pose the question, where on earth would we all get 750 hours from exactly?? Even now a charter company, up north won't take you with at least 500, a skydiving one requires at least 350 and there aren't enough station jobs now, imagine if there were 1000's more new CPL holders a year. The G3 IR is, I feel a fantastic learning curve for new pilots, that provides them with skills they will carry through their entire career, it also clears away the excess pilots..

Simply, we try to do the best we can everyday. We won't hide the fact that we don't want to be an Instructor as a career. I imagine 90% of the pilots on this board aim to be up the pointy end of a jet by the end of their career. It doesn't mean we don't care about our students though, it doesn't mean we don't care about saftey, it doesn't mean we go to work every day and make no effort and it doesn't mean that we lack common sense. It just means we are using this as a stepping stone to bigger and better things one day down the track.

To the more experienced pilots out there - we know what our experience levels are and we know what we can etach our students. We aren't as useless and stupid as you may like to think we are.

stormy

[The PM]

I happen to believe that the number of CPL schools should be significantly reduced - say around 25 nationally. All the others should

Now what did I say about limiting the number of CPL schools... then maybe it could be done?

Not a bad idea Triadic ( and one i think has merit from a standards point of view), but good luck trying to get it past Professor Fels and the ACCC, what you are talking about is a restriction of trade and anti competitive and would never see the light of day, and if it somehow did would be overturned by the courts pretty damn quick.

[Rich-Fine-Green]

25 Commercial Schools?? :D :D

What a ****fight to make that one work!.

The only realistic way something to achieve something along those lines would be to close the gate now - and not issue any new AOCs.

Even that would be hard to get past the hip Prof. Fellzy.

By not issuing any new AOCs, there would be a fixed number of operators that may actually be able to plan for the long term future.

A few AOCs would fall by the wayside as part of the natural attrition we see in this industry.

What would be left after a few years would be an industry that could be sustainable.

AOC's and therefore businesses may actually gain some value - just the same as Taxi-cab licences are fixed in number.

If a new comer wanted to start a flying school or charter company, he/she/they could simply purchase an existing AOC - just as one might purchase a Taxi-cab licence or indeed a Newsagent or Milk Run.........

A sustainable industry that has a future and a value will allow for better conditions and banks may then feel more comfortable lending for new equipment against an AOC that has value just as they do for the above industries.

Yes, I know.......not so easy. AOCs currently are not transferable and CASA would still have the final say on prospective owners being 'fit and proper persons'.

[OZBUSDRIVER]

Bring back government testing officers specifically for ANY instructor rating.


The responsibility for testing of candidates has been passed onto the industry. The industry has to take responsibility for the generally $hitty standard that prevails......................


Takes off rose coloured glasses and promptly gets bitten by reality

[triadic]

No.. you don't stop issuing AOCs etc. CASA just have to have the case and the guts to raise the bar to an appropriate standard without buckling to the commercial pressure of those that may not be able to comply. Many existing CPL schools would not be able to do that without a big ongoing donation from their owner/s. This would not discriminate in my view.

It is not the instructors, but the system that permits such junior instructors to operate without appropriate supervision. The instructors are just the victims and until they have been around for a while, they just don't know what they don't know.

Stormywx.. a good post, you sound switched on and appreciate your limitations. Good luck.

[Icarus2001]

StormyWX an interesting post and I agree with most of your sentiments. However you have left yourself open on a couple of points...

We do actually have to perform to obtain them, to the same standard (if not higher) then has always been required.

How would you be in a position to judge that? Have you had flight tests under old and new systems? CPL and Instructor tests used to be conducted by " the department" in it's various forms not by in house testing officers who have a vested interest in passing company trained pilots.

"The standard" is certainly not "if not higher" as an example, a night rating used to be compulsory for issue of a CPL, no longer. So the standard of nav aid work has definately decreased even though it is required under the CPL syllabus. I know because I have seen the product.

However having said that, we are constantly tested to ensure we can teach what we are required to by CASA and if we couldn't we simply wouldn't have a job.

Constantly? You mean after 12 months as a Grade 3 then every two years. Hmmmmmm

Seriously the test I use as CFI is the quality of student produced. I can see how much effort an instructor is making by the quality of student.

As I said I agree mostly with your sentiments. Give me a keen, enthusiatic 350 hour instructor over a jaded, lard arse, frustrated airline pilot with 4000 hours instructing anyday.

Best wishes with the flying.

[bush mechanics]

Well Ive stirred up some very intresting issues(excuse my spelling its the engineer in me)
Its a hard one but when I did my cpl in brissy a pimple faced boy approached me aand said lets go flying,Firstly Im paying the dollars here soo I asked some question,What grade instructor,ans,grade 3.how many hours do you have ans 250,any remote area experience,ans go out too Oakey a bit,
Whell sorry but if one is paying top dollar and by the way ive got a bank loan to pay for my flying,No silver spoon here!(parents did help out when they could)eg head vset.
I want a grade one instructor ,You dont get a grade 3 any cheaper do you.Im sure he was good at his job but hey,If you hire a car for 200 dollars and you have choice of a mini moke or a ss comodoren at the same price what would you pick?
Alot of my mates who are all flying for airlines here and O/s and were all dam good bush pilots all had trades behind them before they started flying eg Plumbers,electricians,carpenters,mechanics.
Its funny when you can get a cpl and more in 1 year and then be responsible for peoples lives where in any other proffesion its 4 too 8 years(doctors)Engineers have to have at least 4 years exp before they can obtain a licence then you sighn a/c out for 100 hours or 1 year,think how many people fly in that airplane over that M/r period

Whell thats it for now ,Instructor rateings are being used as an aid purley too get hours up for that first job,thats where the problem lies,the toes you step on today coulbd be connected too the arse you may have too kiss tomorow

[Aussiebert]

How would you be in a position to judge that? Have you had flight tests under old and new systems? CPL and Instructor tests used to be conducted by " the department" in it's various forms not by in house testing officers who have a vested interest in passing company trained pilots.

Except that if they fail themthey can squeeze more money out of them by requiring additional training

Just because you can do in house testing doesn't mean you have to, if you want an honest, unbias opinion go fly with someone who has nothing to gain by passing or failing you. Can help you get past flying school bs

[headwind]

Thanks gottom 2 dollar for starting this thread. Aussiebert you wanted to hear an average student pilot out - I think I represent one with 160hrs and PPL, planning to pursue my CPL. I don't think restricting the instruction business or changing the current minimum hrs requirements will help the fact that there will always be a wide spectrum of students for which as wide a spectrum of instructors are suitable.

On every CPL course you will have a) very eager and motivated guys who know the CPL syllabus & requirements inside out before lesson 1, the guys that glue on to more seasoned pilots for a learning experience and hang out at the hangars, spend their free time reading accident investigation reports, etc. and b) guys who have illusions of getting through it the easy way, cutting corners, just thinking it'll be cool to be a pilot. Guys in a) will be sensible enough to sack an instructor who does not seem to be fulfilling the syllabus and guys in b) will be the ones sacked by the instructor. The student makes the choice of an instructor. I'd prefer to have someone like stormywx sitting on my right hand side thru a CPL course.

-headwind

[Skyway]

Just a few comments to all of the above.

1. Do not feel sorry for flying schools, clubs or any of the like. If they cannot stay in business it is because of bad management, particularly in the management accounting side.

2. There is a difference between learning to fly at a club and a professional organisation. Before you spend, ask an independant consultant on the resources you will gain for your money.

3. There is a real concern about the level of professionalism within the industry. Do not think you are 'SMITHY' even he had his fair share of trouble. Do not learn to fly with an organisation with a high turn over rate of instructors, they are really not concerned about you or your career, only your money.

4. Take the time to read books such as 'Redefining airmanship' by Kern, there's more to airmanship than the absolute scribble put at the bottom of the white board that non-informed instructors write because their course instructor said 'this is airmanship'.

5. During your commercial training, ask to remove all seats except the pilot and co-pilot seats, load up real freight,( boxes loaded with tinned food or water containers will do), then do your weight and balance using 40 degree temp and shorten your runways to 900 metres. Believe me, you will better understand what the hell all the fuss is about, when you greet 5 pax at the terminal in your 210 and they have 150 kg of baggage and you have to take them 350nm and have enough fuel to return to base. Some diplomatic people skills will be well worth the effort. But I suppose in the airlines this may not be necessary, so some instuctors will not mention these skills which they do not have.

6. If you ever feel that you are a glorified bus driver, take 2 days off and read the safety digests. You are not you are pilot, there is always something to do. Try starting a trend monitoring process, write down all the engine parameters during the flight at intervals, archive these and review them from time to time. You never no what you might discover.

7. Remember GA is not a playground to have fun in while you are waiting for the airlines. The books are full of unfortunate low flyers, aerobatic and basically show off pilots who are not around to tell you how silly their actions were. I am.



Safety.......Responsibilty.........Safety..........Responsib ility.....Safety

[Woomera]

Skyway

Very well said indeed.:)


Every one an excellent point.

The most execellent of all IMHO;

Remember GA is not a playground to have fun in while you are waiting for the airlines. The books are full of unfortunate low flyers, aerobatic and basically show off pilots who are not around to tell you how silly their actions were.

And more than just lip service to;
Safety.......Responsibilty.........Safety..........Responsib ility.....Safety

[PLovett]

Skyway

Have to agree with Woomera in that what you say is excellent, especially point 5.

However, would you please expand on point 2 - that there is a difference between learning to fly at a club and a professional organisation.

I think I know what you are getting at but would like a bit more substance to the point.

[Skyway]

Plovett,

Point two suggests their is a kind of personal tone to it. If you thought this you were right. I am not ashamed to say it.

I learnt to fly with a well known small but very professional school that attracted well known and very senior pilots on the airfield. The school sold out and I thought that after achieving my PPL there it was time to move to a bigger and better establishment. Well what can I say , wrong move.
The small school sold out to professional operators and to this day continue to provide good service.
My move took me through not to say the least, harasment from senior instructors for not meeting their standards, I mean harasment in every sense of the word.Oh yeah standards that varied from one instructor to another. Even the DCFI and CFI disagreed on topics. I also witnessed many a hungover instructor who I had seen drinking excessively the night before, sit in the circuit with a student all morning.

I have compared instructional content within a number of organisations and beleive that for my money I could of received more than some crap scribbled out the night before from Trevor Thom CIR theory book. Actually the theory instructor had not been current for years and new nothing about GPS NPS.

I believe clubs do not spend enough time on research and development and as such produce poor instructors. My wife is a teacher and the content of some of her books on learning would leave the old Principle and methods scribble that gets written up for dead.

Clubs are great for when you have a licence and want to meet people and go for a fly. I believe that just because a club is a club standards should not lower and testing should be done out of house.

[PLovett]

Thanks for the quick reply Skyway.

I am currently involved with a club that offers flight training. However, rather than providing it ourselves, we have contracted that side of it to a professional organisation. They use the club's aircraft but they provide the instructors and the AOC for the operation.

I believe that this offers some advantages for a small club and the professional organisation. The club does the promotion work so we get new members, we also get the utilisation on the aircraft and the professional organisation gets greater employment opportunities for its staff.

The students get the benefit of instruction from pilots who do more than just instruct as well as a club atmosphere in which to learn to fly.

The financial side is straight forward. The cost of the instructor goes straight to the professional organisation, the hire cost of the aircraft goes to the club.

I think that the students who learn to fly with the club do get a good grounding in aircraft handling, both on and off the ground, but being fully aware at all times is something that only comes with time and experience.

I like to think that I have never stopped learning as there is always something new. I know that in the short time I spent in the Northern Territory, I learnt heaps and that I am a better pilot for it. I suspect the trick is in not forgetting it!

[Elk McPherson]

IN two parts:

I think we all admit that being low hour or low experience at ANYTHING in life means you do have a LOT to learn, but it's hard to learn if no one is willing to help teach you, because it's always easier to sit back and make fun of them and give them crap from a distance with your mates....if someone does something wrong, tell them what they did wrong, how to do it right, and not to do it again

There is too much bagging and not enough helping along in GA;


.......if they do it again, sack them.....you soon learn that way! If they are that unwilling to listen and learn from the advise of someone with far more experience than them, by sacking them you just might save their life

...seen that one work wonders too.

[Steep Pressure Gradient]

Have to disagree with the point that 'clubs' can not produce a CPL standard equivalent to the larger training organisations. I was fortunate enough to have done my training with a 'club' (YRED). After spending time working in and out of most of the larger GA airports and seeing the quality of CPL's turned out by some of the 'sasuage factory' organisations I am quite happy that my training was as good, if not better than what is being turned out from YMMB, YBSK, YPJT etc.

The advantage of my training was that the CFI took a substantial interest in the end product. He was conscious of the fact that what was turned out was a direct reflection of him and his training standard (thanks Rob!). In contrast to some of the other posters I would advise 'gonnabes' to seek out the smaller organisations - particularly if they have a small charter/joyflight setup (it's all exposure for your first job).

WRT the point of attracting 'experienced' pilots back to instructing - as a 1500TT, 1200ME, Twin training approved, GR3 instructor who has spent most of his time as a charter pilot - I would love to move back to a capital city to do some instructing. But, after making enquires to just about every training organisation in the land I have been unable to find one who is even slightly interested! It would seem that the 200h CPL/Gr3 is flavour of the month.

[Aussiebert]

Aussiebert you wanted to hear an average student pilot out

actually i've heard at least a dozen, i'm an average student pilot myself, and spend a lot of time with other student pilots

While i agree with a lot of whats been said in this thread, i know i started out as a very nieve 17yr old, as did most of my fellow students. Beofre 'discovering' things like pprune, there really was no way for us to know what we should be doing. We've all made mistakes along the way, but at the end of it all we've leart a lot. Still heaps to learn of course.

If someone is determined enough they will make it though training, i've noticed that from when i started to where i am now, theres probobly only half of us still going. The simple fact of the matter is we have no basis for comparison in regards to the quality of our training

As part of the course i do, we fly with a minimum of grade 2's, which is good and well but the grade 2's we fly with were still training when we all started our course.

Do you really need a guy with charter experience to teach you ops of controls, circuits, etc? Not in my opinion.

I beleive if your being trained as a commercial pilot, you should be trained by someone with experience in that feild. Same goes for Twin and IFR flying.

I don't mind giving a 200hr guy the chance to train me, as long as its something simple. After all in the not too distant future i'll be out there trying to get a job, and i think what goes around comes around.

Back to the topic, sure a lot of guys come out with no idea, but is that entirly the fault of the guy with no idea? If he has no idea, how would he know that stuff like having a DG cert, knowing how to change spark plugs, fuelling aircraft, pumping tyres etc is needed?

If there is a bunch of stuff you want people to know, give people the chance to learn. Do you really think an engineer wants a dozen students in his way? not likely

[Wagit]

Well said triadic!!!!!!! You have hit the nail on the head. It is the system that allows grade 3 instructors to work without supervision.

I have been in this industry for 24 years and I have heard how Grade 3 instructors are substandard for the past 24 years. The people who continually say they are substandard are the experience pilots who train them. Remember you are only as good as the training you have received.

Forget about CASA helping !!!!! there just a government sycophant that does what they are told and at present they are not interested in training standards of grade 3 instructors.

Stormywx..... well said and good luck with your career.

[Ski Guru]

SPG,
1500TT
1200ME.

Nice work.

[stormywx]

How would you be in a position to judge that? Have you had flight tests under old and new systems? CPL and Instructor tests used to be conducted by " the department" in it's various forms not by in house testing officers who have a vested interest in passing company trained pilots.

The ATO I have had for my Licenses/ratings has been doing them for many, many years and is not an "in hosue" ATO. As I said it would be adviseable for students to seek a school that uses outside ATO's, you'll find that generally higher standards are required.


Constantly? You mean after 12 months as a Grade 3 then every two years. Hmmmmmm

I don't need a CASA test to fail me, I only need to be producing students who can't achieve and I'll be found out.... its pretty clear in most companies who the instructors who care are and who the ones that aren't are.


Whell thats it for now ,Instructor rateings are being used as an aid purley too get hours up for that first job,thats where the problem lies,

Sorry but that is our "first job". I know I'm honest about where I want to be in 10 years, but does that mean we aren't making effort as an instructor? That label is very, very frustrating and disappointing for me and other instructors, especially coming from a student. As I said in my original post, we have been incorrectly labeled by, in most cases those above us, I think I'd be happy to say that you will get better training off some G3's then some G1's... it's not just about how many hours we have....

Thanks for the comments too, its good to get feedback.

stormy

[Skyway]

You all miss the point about Grade 3 Instructors. OK there is no doubt that a commercial pilot should know their stuff with regards to there own flying and a Grade 3 instructor should know the content to be passed on, BUT experience is everything, and unfortunatly here in Australia the Instructor rating is seen by many a club/school as a money making exercise and the standard of instructor course varies greatly between them.

Just as in any other Profession Instructing/Teaching/Tutoring and training skills takes time to develop. Unfortunately Instructors are not around long enough to become Professional Instructors and so the poor old Grade 3 who wants to be a Professional Instructor misses out, why you ask, well why would an organisation want Instructors to stay on when the hint of a job attracts so many Instructor hour building wannabes? MONEY MONEY MONEY!


I myself am a Grade 3 Instructor who got lured away to the bush to fly charter because my aspirations align with becoming a full-time Professional Instructor. Oh no you don't want Airlines, I here you say, thats right meet someone who just loves passing on experience and knowledge. I believe that Grade 3 Instructors do set the right example, do pass on the right knowledge and demonstrate correct flight techniques, however polishing the stone takes time.