Speaking as a Grade 1 instructor with 5000 hrs dual given (at least I used to be until a forced career change). I have supervised hundreds of instructors over the last 20 years. Some of the very best I have worked with were actually very junior Grade3's. Some of the worst I have worked with were Grade 1's who thought they knew everything. Key word is attitude. I'll take a bunch of grade 3's with the right attitude over a know it all any day of the week.

Dam! Most G1's get there with ~200 dual 🤣🤣

My least favourite are the G3's who think they know everything, most had chilled out a little by the time they're G1's. Will agree it's the attitude that counts.

I did use the words skilled grade 1, which means ability, experience and attitude. While many grade 3 have ability they lack teaching experience and it is hit and miss when hiring them as to who is good and who is bad, unfortunately with someone new in this field there is no real way of knowing if someone is good or bad until you have given them some time to adjust to the job. However if you have worked alongside and know that an experienced grade 1 is worth their salt then you should push for higher rewards for that experience and skill. The issue is that companies do not care for it. So you end up with a general brain drain in the industry and minimal transfer of skill to the new guys.

The issue with 'right way ' of teaching also depends on what you are achieving. The correct method is what determines the product (student skill set) at the end and varies from whether you are teaching cadets for an airline (skill sets aimed at correlation with the parent companies procedures) or club PPLs (technique to suit the individuals needs at the completion of training) or the multitude of other variables. In the cadet training environment you must conform to what the company wants you to teach or you will affect the whole training outcome for that student, most to the detriment, as they are passing building blocks as they progress to the final outcome. So in the cadet scenario the senior grade 1 will insist you do it their way or you become obstructive to the process, if you want change you will need to make a written statement to the mother company as to why it's wrong, good luck with that.

WRT grade 3, a good grade 1 starts somewhere, so mentoring and nurturing promising grade 3 is essential to the process of creating a strong standards team at the top rungs of a school.

A few places I worked at would only reward you for getting high enough hours with a Salary paid position, but it wasn't a reward it was because paying you casual rates was more than the salary paid. Grade 1s took it, as it gave them security for loans and houses etc, even though it was a pay cut. That's the real face of the industry.

When I started, I didn’t even know enough to work out that my initial training was substandard. That took me a while (2+ years) to understand and to try and start compensating. I’m still trying.

For example, the school never used written checklists, there were simple memorized mantras. I recently proved to myself that their policy was a mistake and a written checklist is much, much better.

‘There we’re a few GR1 instructors who were great to learn from, however they never stayed for long; I never quite found out why.

I hear that IAA will start up again soon at Mildura with a fresh intake of international cadets.