OK, let's play with a scenario.

Instructor 1 is a very capable instructor, who's being flying since Noah decided that water wasn't a good thing to be living on.

He has trained a new instructor, Instructor 2. With the best will in the world, Instructor 2 will only learn a percentage of the things that Instructor No 1 knows. He now starts flying with students. The first issue is that he may not know all the methods that Instructor 1 knows and uses, so to make sure that he's comfortable when close to the ground, and maybe even more so when flying with a student that he does not know well, he will revert to what he's comfortable with, even if that causes the student some problems.

Now it gets interesting.

Instructor 2 relatively soon has to train instructor 3. With the best will in the world.................

Instructor 3 starts flying with students. His total overall knowledge is probably at best 75% of what instructor 1 knew, maybe less, so the chances are that a student flying with Instructor 3 is going to have to do everything exactly the way Instructor 3 does things, to avoid Instructor 3 getting severe pukker factor every time they get close to the ground.

Repeat this scenario more than a few times, because most of the instructors move on just as soon as they can get their Frozen ATPL/IR, and if Instructor 1 is no longer on the scene, what do you have. You have a lot of relatively inexperienced instructors who are scared to let their students do certain things close to the ground because they are not comfortable in their ability to recover the situation if the student does get it wrong, because they've not had enough flying experience themselves to develop the skills they need.

That's happening, probably more often than some people care to admit it is, it's happened to me, a few years ago, I went to a training organisation to do a specific rating and at the time, I had over 300 Hrs ME experience and a UK ME IMC, and I suceeded in scaring the first instructor I went with s**tless on our first flight, as he had the grand total of 20 Hrs total ME time, yet he was instructing, but wasn't in the least bit comfortable or confident in the aircraft, and with close on 300 hrs in a similar type, I knew exactly what the aircraft was capable of and got on with making it do it, but the instructor's experience levels were such, he couldn't cope with my different style of flying the aircraft, even though it was safe. I didn't need training how to fly a ME aircraft, I was there to do an ME IR, but we had to start somewhere.

Suffice to say that after that trip, and a discussion with the CFI, who had not looked too closely at my experience before allocating the instructor to me, there was a rapid change of instructor to someone who had sufficient ME and instructing experience to not get in my way, and from that point on, it worked fine, but they were lucky in that they had experienced instructors on call. Some training organisations don't have that level of resource available, and that's when things get difficult

In the same vein, a LONG time ago, as a very low hours student, I nearly got killed by an instructor that wasn't prepared to admit that he was way out of his depth, and we ended up in all sorts of strife as a result. I never flew with him again, and a few months later he was "advised" to find alternative employment outside of the aviation industry!!!


Part of the problem is that for years, instructing was a means to an end for too many people, so it didn't attract the money or the people that were genuinely interested in instructing, and we're now seeing the outcome of that, in a lot of cases, there are no longer instructors available with long experience, and that's making for the sort of issues that people have been complaining about.

There's more than one way to do certain tasks, and as long as what's being done is safe, the instructor should have the skills to allow the student to operate in the manner they are used to.

OK, if it's not safe, then by all means correct it, either by correcting the incorrect technique, or by teaching a more appropriate one, but only for the reason that it's necessary. If it's because the instructor is not comfortable with his (or her) ability to recover, then the instructor is the one that needs more training.

Controversial? Maybe. Accurate? I fear so.

Irish Steve,

Interesting post. :ok:

As a low instructional hours helicopter FI and PPL(A), some of what you say makes sense....but not all of it.
As a point of information, all instructors are trained by extremely senior people on FI courses, so this shouldn't apply. Of course, a newly qualified FI has a lot to learn, but that's more about relating to people than teaching flying techniques. It shouldn't make that much difference to a lot of what's being discussed here.....but read on.
Yes, true. In the rotary world, we are the ones who don't teach auto-rotations to the ground; we teach them to the hover. We teach hovering a ittle higher than the Instructor No 1s of the rotary world. And I tell students this! What on earth is wrong with that? I tell them they may occasionally fly with the CFI so that he can check all is well, and he tells them they're better off flying with me as I'm new and enthusiastic and been recently trained, and he's lost that initial enthusiasm etc etc. It seems to work. There would be a problem if I insisted that things were done "my way", but I don't.
That is obviously crazy, and had I been your instructor, I would have told the CFI that myself. But I don't think it's typical of the kind of things that we have been discussiong so far...not that this makes it any less relevant of course!
Absolutely. But that doesn't apply to circuit procedures, to where to pull or not pull carb heat, not even to landing techniques in a f/w aircraft...come on, even I can manage either wing down or crab approaches, and I'm a pretty average PPL(A).

The real problem, with what you're discussiong and practically everything that's been said so far in this thread, is LACK OF PEOPLE SKILLS AMONG INSTRUCTORS. Egotism, trying to prove they're right, being scared to admit to inexperience, inability to relate to different types of people - these are the reasons for most of these problems. There are good and bad instructors, whether they have zillions of instructional hours or are straight out of their FI course. But what a number of them haven't learnt is that they are teaching people to fly, not teaching flying.

Whirls i think your being a bit harsh on Irish Steve. I can see where he is coming from.

As we both know and i am presuming the heli FIC is similar to the fixed FIC. THe course only gives you the tools of the trade in there most simplistic form.

After that you are restricted this is ment to be a period of mentored on the job training. With the unrestricted instructors passing on their words of wisdom when questions are asked.

Now in the current method of qualifying the through put of FI's is relativly high in the Fixed wing world with most FI's moving on before they hit 1000hrs instructing and alot of cases below 500hrs. The people with the people skills, ability to adapt etc are the ones the airlines want they go quicker.

So from the Unrestricted instructor training the restricted instructor is getting a lower level of mentoring than before.

All the methods and standards are currently enforced by word of mouth and preffered methods by individuals. And the people who are suffering for this are the PPL's. Who are avoiding flights with instructors because they really can't be bothered with the ear ache and work thats involved.

MJ

Most instructors, IME, know next to nothing about how to TEACH somebody something.

Some people are naturally better at it than others, and I guess the old-timers have picked stuff up as they went along.

Interesting post. As a person who has spent many a year developing my health care career, I've always found the
"try it this way, if it doesn't work, question it, and try it another way," method, the best way of learning. I'm sure there is some complex psychological theory behingd this, but it escapes me.

On commencing my PPL training, I was a little surprised and bemused to find out actually, that there was only one way of performing a certain task, and most things were learnt "rote" fashion. (BUMPH and FREDA checks for example.)

Initially, I found this a little frustrating, as I've always been used to questioning traditional methods of performing a task.

With hindsight, its pretty obvious now, why this type of "drill" learning was so important. If all hells going on in the cockpit, then I want to be able to almost automatically snap into survival mode.

I soon realised, however, that flying involves more than learning the "drills" required to fly and land the bloody thing, and in fact the PPL learning can be divided up into 3 distinct divisions:

Skills- usually learnt by repeatedly thinking about and performing a task.

Knowledge- gleamed from the usual sources (The Confuser being one of them!)

Attitude- I guess that this is the instructors main role- when is this pilot ready to take command of this aircraft. (usually tested by Mr Instructor giving me further grief, just as I thought that the pressure had really built -RT/Nav?Controlling the thing))

It did seem to work.

I may be wrong, I'm neither an instructor nor educationalist- but my view fom the sharp end of the stick

Never question traditional methods!

If you start questioning traditional methods, the whole of aviation as we know it will fall apart. Instructors will resign en-masse, flying schools will go out of business, the CAA will have to make its entire GA department redundant (they do have awfully generous final salary pensions though), aeroplanes will fall out of the sky. Navigation will be impossible, too.

You will be very lonely.

Just make sure nobody sees the GPS that you carry in your bag :O Even though I know it is only a backup :O :O

<<Most instructors, IME, know next to nothing about how to TEACH somebody something.>>

That is a shame that you have had that experience. In practice how do you learn to teach? Sure enough I could pick up multiple faults easily enough but how do you get across to the student how to avoid those faults? I try my best to aid the process…I take control while I debrief them, I won’t talk while they are flying at early stages…I try to brief the student thoroughly and question whether they truly understand. If you ask a student whether they understand they will say yes. You have to ask them a question to test their knowledge etc. but I think the ability to teach well comes with experience. I find it hard to judge when a student is making a mistake or just needs more practice, for example.

The FIC course doesn’t cover everything needed to instruct. Secondly the FIC course is full of things that are ‘ Well you have to teach it this way for the test, but in real life you everyone teaches this differently.’ For example, how were you taught to climb? Was it ‘now I’ll teach you to enter the climb’…’now I’ll teach you to maintain the climb.’ That is the method for the test anyway…..

Finally how can you get career instructors that are talented? The answer is pay. It is easy to criticise people that are instructing as a path to the airlines; however for me it would be partly to try and gain back some of the huge amounts of cash spent on my flight training. Then think we have medicals/ IR renewals / SEP/MEP renewals etc to pay for. I thankfully work at a commercial school teaching PPLs for a relatively good wage, and I enjoy my job...however I still have my fingers crossed for my BACX interview.

IO you really have a chip on your shoulder about FI's. Where did you learn initially that was so awful?

The reality is though that "traditional" methods have been refined through the teaching of tens of thousands of students over the last 90 odd years. They may not work for everyone, but look at the average school or University and see how much allowance they make for personal learning styles... Not much.

I hear alot of slagging, but no constructive points. If FI's are so bad, then go and get a rating and start teaching. Initially, you'll go straight to the mnemonics and basic patterns when you realise how hard it is to teach someone with no ounce of mechanical skill or sometimes intelligence how to actually fly an a/c and do eveything else. It's only after time that you'll learn how to teach in different ways or to adjust what you are doing for a certain person.

It is not an easy job, but none of us ever complain about it, infact the only bitching you'll hear from FI's is about pay, conditions or how stupid some of the students/PPL's have been. Yes, bouncing around the circuit for the hundreth time that week can get a bit wearing but that's a minor gripe really.

There are certain things in flying that can be of a personal nature, crosswind landing techniques for example, BUT there are certain things that are laid down in stone and there is no room for "interpretation" in them at all.