Instructor/Student Relationship - a failure to communicate?
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Going back to Pinksters post on bits of sticking plaster etc. At my club there is definately a PA28 where the sun visor is held on with some used chewing gum!!! Hmmmm nice - well impressed the misses when I took her for a tool around the local area in it.
I just think on it as an opportunity to take the mick out of the instructors on the state of "their" fleet.
I just think on it as an opportunity to take the mick out of the instructors on the state of "their" fleet.
The Original Whirly
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Final 3 Greens,
It's quite true that the doors on R22s rarely fit properly; when it rains they usually leak.
However, they are designed for easy removal - in hot weather, for taking photos, and I think some agricultural work thougb not sure of that. So it's not really a problem.
However, getting back to the orignal theme of this thread, most helicopter schools have aircraft in good shape, and give students good service, with instructors who arrive on time, time for briefings etc. Why the difference? I think it's partly that helicopters require a lot more maintenance. Plus instructors are paid a living wage. But mainly I think it's a difference in the students. Because of the cost, quite a large proportion of rotary students are quite well off, with a lot of them being professional people, running their own businesses, and similar. They don't have time to waste, and neither will they put up with being messed around. The schools know that and treat them well. We could ALL learn from that.
It's quite true that the doors on R22s rarely fit properly; when it rains they usually leak.
However, they are designed for easy removal - in hot weather, for taking photos, and I think some agricultural work thougb not sure of that. So it's not really a problem.However, getting back to the orignal theme of this thread, most helicopter schools have aircraft in good shape, and give students good service, with instructors who arrive on time, time for briefings etc. Why the difference? I think it's partly that helicopters require a lot more maintenance. Plus instructors are paid a living wage. But mainly I think it's a difference in the students. Because of the cost, quite a large proportion of rotary students are quite well off, with a lot of them being professional people, running their own businesses, and similar. They don't have time to waste, and neither will they put up with being messed around. The schools know that and treat them well. We could ALL learn from that.
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Someone, in my opinion, has hit the nail on the head by saying that only people with a childhood fixation with becoming a pilot will put up with the often sadly lacking conditions than many flying schools/clubs offer.
I passed my PPL about nine months ago, but my school, like many others, used to p*** me off something chronic. It wasn't instructors being late. it wasn't that parts of the trim on the door of my C-152 used to come off if pulled it too hard. It was having one of my lessons double booked.
Maybe it's a standard thing? But at my school, it was normal practise to give a PPL student a 2-hour slot. However, if someone rang up asking about a trial flight and there happened to be no spare slots, then a 'slot' would be squeezed in to an existing lesson.
I can see the reasoning behind this practise. 50% of trial flight lessons are cancelled by the prospective flyer, so in all probability, the PPL student will be none the wiser. And also, trial flighters have no sense of loyalty to any club, so if there isn't a slot available to them there and there, then they will simply ring up somewhere else. Wheras the PPL student will have already been reeled in, hook line and sinker, and so if they only have to miss the odd lesson now and again, then they, in all likelehood, will still remain with the flying school/club. This is what the schools/clubs bank on.
And so on quite a few occasions, I turned up for a lesson, only to find that my instructor was up with a trial flight. I would sit and wait, and eventually the instructor would return telling me that the once beautiful weather had turned for the worse...It was so annoying.
If I hadn't yearned so much for my licence, then I wouldn't have put up with such unscrupulous behaviour.
And though I am by no means a rich man (I'm a teacher) I think that the state of general aviation training could be massively improved. And like many have already said, I think the most fundamenal change has to be in customer care. And I say this, becasue on occasions, I felt as if I was a hinderence to my flying school, and that I was always hassling them to fit me in for a lesson.
A friend of mine later told me about his experiences. He had entered a flying school with the possibility of booking a few lessons. He waited patiently by the desk, whilst the ops guy was on the phone. The ops man didn't acknowledge him once, not even with a nod or a 'be with you in a minute'. My friend waited a few minutes and walked out. He learned to fly somehwere else. Sheer rudeness I reckon.
Customer Care! It needs improving.
I passed my PPL about nine months ago, but my school, like many others, used to p*** me off something chronic. It wasn't instructors being late. it wasn't that parts of the trim on the door of my C-152 used to come off if pulled it too hard. It was having one of my lessons double booked.
Maybe it's a standard thing? But at my school, it was normal practise to give a PPL student a 2-hour slot. However, if someone rang up asking about a trial flight and there happened to be no spare slots, then a 'slot' would be squeezed in to an existing lesson.
I can see the reasoning behind this practise. 50% of trial flight lessons are cancelled by the prospective flyer, so in all probability, the PPL student will be none the wiser. And also, trial flighters have no sense of loyalty to any club, so if there isn't a slot available to them there and there, then they will simply ring up somewhere else. Wheras the PPL student will have already been reeled in, hook line and sinker, and so if they only have to miss the odd lesson now and again, then they, in all likelehood, will still remain with the flying school/club. This is what the schools/clubs bank on.
And so on quite a few occasions, I turned up for a lesson, only to find that my instructor was up with a trial flight. I would sit and wait, and eventually the instructor would return telling me that the once beautiful weather had turned for the worse...It was so annoying.
If I hadn't yearned so much for my licence, then I wouldn't have put up with such unscrupulous behaviour.
And though I am by no means a rich man (I'm a teacher) I think that the state of general aviation training could be massively improved. And like many have already said, I think the most fundamenal change has to be in customer care. And I say this, becasue on occasions, I felt as if I was a hinderence to my flying school, and that I was always hassling them to fit me in for a lesson.
A friend of mine later told me about his experiences. He had entered a flying school with the possibility of booking a few lessons. He waited patiently by the desk, whilst the ops guy was on the phone. The ops man didn't acknowledge him once, not even with a nod or a 'be with you in a minute'. My friend waited a few minutes and walked out. He learned to fly somehwere else. Sheer rudeness I reckon.
Customer Care! It needs improving.
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requires no training and no ability to pass exams, understand technical things, etc.
Ok, so in theory, anyone could go out and buy a yacht, and sail off into the sunset, but in practice, to get a yachtmasters ticket, the exams are far tougher than anything I encountered in the PPL. The Nav for example is at a far higher level, no multi-guess, and the physics is actually comparable to flying, when you take into account forces generated by the sails, by the keel, by the tides, curents, etc....I agree that sailing and flying are different, but the thing they have in common is the high costs involved. If it has the word Marine or Aviation in a products title, you can bet the price has been inflated by 100%
CheerS
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My experience of a trial lesson was about 6 years ago in a Tomahawk and what put me off training in it was the handbrake lever used for the flaps.
It didn't fill me with a lot of confidence about the machines ability to get me into the air safely.
The C152 with electric flaps (or in Cessna speak ElectraFlaps) impressed me much more and I ended up doing the PPL on this.
Being an instructor now I much prefer the PA38 over the C152 for one reason it's the "wide body" of the mass market 2 seat trainer world
so much more comfortable for spending several hours in it.
Also, the view, especially straight ahead is as good as anything but the trim mechanism is pretty sh$t.
As regards to the age of the GA training fleet. I always tell my customers that the aircraft was flying before I was born, so it can't be that bad
FIS.
It didn't fill me with a lot of confidence about the machines ability to get me into the air safely.
The C152 with electric flaps (or in Cessna speak ElectraFlaps) impressed me much more and I ended up doing the PPL on this.
Being an instructor now I much prefer the PA38 over the C152 for one reason it's the "wide body" of the mass market 2 seat trainer world
so much more comfortable for spending several hours in it.Also, the view, especially straight ahead is as good as anything but the trim mechanism is pretty sh$t.
As regards to the age of the GA training fleet. I always tell my customers that the aircraft was flying before I was born, so it can't be that bad
FIS.
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Flock1
Giving priority to "trial lessons" (pleasure flights really in most cases) is pretty standard. I have spent many hours waiting myself...
Whirly
Indeed - heli training is different. It does attract people with some money; I see that at my local airfield and there is an awful lot more million-quid helis than there are planes of even 1/10 of that value. But I don't think you get the army of traditionalists in the heli world which you get in the spamcan world. In the latter, whenever anyone suggests attracting some new money, 50 people jump up and very vocally express their concern that they will be priced out of their hobby. It is these attitudes which ultimately hold back fixed wing GA firmly in WW2 land and, as I keep on ranting on about, will result in its collapse leaving just the antique / microlight operators on farm strips.
FIS
It is possible to make the near-useless PA38 trim sort of usable but the operators won't pay for it. The problem is that it isn't a trim as such; I gather it is basically a spring pushing onto the yoke.
Giving priority to "trial lessons" (pleasure flights really in most cases) is pretty standard. I have spent many hours waiting myself...
Whirly
Indeed - heli training is different. It does attract people with some money; I see that at my local airfield and there is an awful lot more million-quid helis than there are planes of even 1/10 of that value. But I don't think you get the army of traditionalists in the heli world which you get in the spamcan world. In the latter, whenever anyone suggests attracting some new money, 50 people jump up and very vocally express their concern that they will be priced out of their hobby. It is these attitudes which ultimately hold back fixed wing GA firmly in WW2 land and, as I keep on ranting on about, will result in its collapse leaving just the antique / microlight operators on farm strips.
FIS
It is possible to make the near-useless PA38 trim sort of usable but the operators won't pay for it. The problem is that it isn't a trim as such; I gather it is basically a spring pushing onto the yoke.
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There may not be many places operating the PA38 for those who wish to fly them post-PPL but they do have several advantages over the C152 and even the PA28 Warrior. Advantages are the great all round visibility which encourages good lookout, the extra 5 inches in the cockpit which is helpful if one's student is over 11 stone or wider than 40 inch hips, the extreme simplicity of the controls. Benefit over the PA28 is the fact that I have always felt it was wasteful to carry empty seats around when you are learning to fly so you save fuel and the PA28 has worse visibility. But as someone else points out it does stall properly power off (However, you can get the same effect demonstrating the fully developed stall with flaps and power in a C152) and the spin characteristics are very exciting.
I once heard that the PA38 was designed by a committee trying to ensure that the aircraft exhibited all of the characteristics desirable in a training aeroplane. But isn't something designed by a committee likely to be a camel? However the trimwheel really is unpleasant and the door catches are horrendous...
I once heard that the PA38 was designed by a committee trying to ensure that the aircraft exhibited all of the characteristics desirable in a training aeroplane. But isn't something designed by a committee likely to be a camel? However the trimwheel really is unpleasant and the door catches are horrendous...
Northern Monkey
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In reference to how much training you need for a boat, About 3 years ago, two friends and I splashed out a bit of cash on a 240hp speedboat, with a vne (or whatever boats have) of about 45kts. The sum total of our experience before we were set loose on the river tyne. We had once driven a putput boat on lake Windermere. So I would dispute strongly that you need any experience at all to drive a power boat. 
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Sailing and flying?
At the end of the day you could buy a sailing boat and just go off in it....... foolish?
There are qualifications relating to size and complicity of the boat, be they you just want to mess around on a small inland lake, or if you want race. Different levels, different qualifications and different costs. Also, instructors have to re-new there qualifications periodically at a cost each time.
Its roughly the same for power boats too, you could just buy one and go - but most people do cources, from just how to drive one to how to do "resuce boat" or race. Again, different levels, different qualifiactions, different costs.
FW
At the end of the day you could buy a sailing boat and just go off in it....... foolish?
There are qualifications relating to size and complicity of the boat, be they you just want to mess around on a small inland lake, or if you want race. Different levels, different qualifications and different costs. Also, instructors have to re-new there qualifications periodically at a cost each time.
Its roughly the same for power boats too, you could just buy one and go - but most people do cources, from just how to drive one to how to do "resuce boat" or race. Again, different levels, different qualifiactions, different costs.
FW
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The PA38 is, IMHO, the most unpleasant, nasty, aeroplane that I have flown to date.
The stall is a disgrace, since the break left or right and the sharpness is unpredictable and when some hangar rash has been added even more so ....... just the kind of thing to catch a low hours pilot who slightly mishandles.
For someone to say that this is a 'proper stall' is amazing - what on earth is the definition of a proper stall? The French took a different view with the Rallye which had leading edge slats and was virtually impossible to 'break' and the ailerons were effective when mushing down at 600fpm.
There is a school of thought that says aeroplanes that are difficult to stall/spin are safer, if you want to fly a type that stalls sharply, then fine to choose a lively trainer .... thats why the Harvard leads appropriately into Spits and Mustangs, but for most people does this make sense???
Look at the profusion of stall strips on the leading edge of a PA38 and ask why they are needed on an ab initio trainer.
It also had a range of ADs on the original verson - why?
I am a big fan of the PA28, but would suuport all remaining PA38s being turned into beer tins.
If you want to fly a good little trainer of similar size to a PA38, try a Beagle Pup, now there's an aeroplane that responds to good piloting.
The stall is a disgrace, since the break left or right and the sharpness is unpredictable and when some hangar rash has been added even more so ....... just the kind of thing to catch a low hours pilot who slightly mishandles.
For someone to say that this is a 'proper stall' is amazing - what on earth is the definition of a proper stall? The French took a different view with the Rallye which had leading edge slats and was virtually impossible to 'break' and the ailerons were effective when mushing down at 600fpm.
There is a school of thought that says aeroplanes that are difficult to stall/spin are safer, if you want to fly a type that stalls sharply, then fine to choose a lively trainer .... thats why the Harvard leads appropriately into Spits and Mustangs, but for most people does this make sense???
Look at the profusion of stall strips on the leading edge of a PA38 and ask why they are needed on an ab initio trainer.
It also had a range of ADs on the original verson - why?
I am a big fan of the PA28, but would suuport all remaining PA38s being turned into beer tins.
If you want to fly a good little trainer of similar size to a PA38, try a Beagle Pup, now there's an aeroplane that responds to good piloting.
