I'm at a club where the instructors' experience is immense. The instructors all have other part time jobs involving flying of some sort. They've been there, done that and are still doing and loving it! They are aircraft designers, airline captains, a previous job of one was a "test pilot trainer" in the RAF... most of all they love flying - and it shows.

They are instructing because they love passing on their knowledge. And they aren't even that intimidating! Despite their huge experience, they are still happy to admit they are sometimes wrong (even if that pretty much never happens). They are open to chat away to me and treat me as a person and fellow club member, even if I can't pretend to compete with their chat.

Of course, its not perfect - its run as a club, not a business - the number of available aircraft is small and organisation can be a bit chaotic sometimes, but I know I'm pretty lucky as far as a flying school goes.

My experience is that supervision is with a "light touch". My instructor lets me evaluate my own flight and the de-brief is a detailed discussion (not a lecture). I know myself whether I need to go over that particular lesson again or not (either I'll know before or after the de-brief!), and this will be confirmed by the instructor.

What I wonder about, is that students there are not generally "school leavers" but are either people who have retired or "young adults" working in other jobs (either to pay for the flying or learning as a hobby). I guess that means that my fellow students have a level of maturity that isn't going to be seen everywhere. Perhaps if the students were mainly "School leavers" the style of instruction would need to be quite different?.

I wrote that before reading GtE's post - honest!

Thanks to both Genghis and Riverrock.

Riverrock, it seems that you are as lucky as I in your choice of club and instructors! i wonder, is this because we are in Club environments? My "supervision" could also be described as a (very) "Light touch"... All of your experiences sound very much like mine.

Genghis - I suppose in a way, yes, my FI does sometimes say, have a read on such and such and maybe occasionally gently points me in the right direction. I'm not saying GENTLE persuasion into the students own work is wrong, I suppose what I was really talking about was the strict "Homework" which Pull What seemed to be describing.

We do discuss what trip we are going to do, but I guess what i'm saying is that I am not dictated to in the choice of what is done and how i'm going to learn. Yes, reading between the lines of course, my QFI at the end of the day knows what he wants me to do and I will do it. In the early flights, I read up on each trip. I guess it comes down to personal drive and commitment and learning preference.If the students need that guidance, then its great that its available, but personally I like the - certainly on teh ground - learning side to be my own person in the learning and asking for help when I want it...and believe me, I DO ask...frequently...!!

I guess it depends on the individual student and the instructor and what works best for them.

Sadly, clubs are dying. The day of the private members' club running their own aeroplanes, or more particularly aeroplanes supplied by individuals or groups of individuals within the clubs, is going - rapidly. Private individuals simply don't have the wherewithal anymore to run gas-guzzling light aeroplanes - unless they're utterly crap, decrepit, run-on-a-shoestring 50 year old heaps burning stupendous amounts of fuel.

So you either go to a school, which does have the resources to run a decent fleet (eg Tayside up here in the People's Free Socialist Republic of Jockistan with those very very nice Grobs) or in my opinion the future which is micro lights or flexwings. How many aircraft designers, airline captains or ex-ETPS tutors are going to be working in that environment then?

The club is dead-and with it the characters and individuals that made it just that-a club.

I think you are confusing two different things here. A group of private owners is not the same thing as a club. I fly at a club. We, the members, own two DR 400 aircraft, two microlights, a tug and three gliders. All instruction is done by members part time unpaid. We are registered as a not for profit association. We have the resources to maintain our fleet, people pay to fly just like they do at a commercial operation, only rather less :O
My personal sixty year old gas guzzler lives in the club hangar and pays rent. It is certainly not run on a shoestring, crap, or decrepit. (and it is not available to be flown by other members, although we use it as a standby tug, flown by the owner) I choose to put my money into my choice of aircraft because that is what I want to fly.
The club is far from moribund, we have an active flying and social programme, and none of our instructors use their fellow members as a cheap way to build hours.
Of course you can go to a forprofit school if that is your choice, but please be clear as to the difference between a school, a club, and a syndicate of owners. Please also try not to be rude about other people's preferences and choices.

I do think however it is useful to differentiate between a club and a school. I know that many schools are declared as "clubs" for various legal purposes, but they aren't really.

I'd mark a club as a place which is run by and for the members. I belong to one such - we manage the airfield, have several syndicates running within the club membership, have a couple of part time instructors available to help on people's own aeroplanes, and basically all support each other. We don't have significant formal instruction going on, nor seek it - there are good schools nearby where people can go for anything more complex than a conversion or biennial. It is perfectly possible however for such a club to own aeroplanes and have either paid or unpaid instructors - the important factor is member ownership.

A school is somebody's business, run for profit. It can be well resourced and run, but there are plenty of stories about those which aren't.

An instructor of course is as good as him or herself, and both good or bad may exist in either environment.


There are definitely more clubs in the microlight and gliding world than the "group A" world, but they exist throughout and I don't agree with I-M that they're dead, although I do agree that the mainstream of recreational flying lies away from the increasingly expensive certified GA branch. Microlights and homebuilt light aeroplanes offer flying that's at-least as much fun, increasingly at-least as capable, for a lot less money and are the majority of the future, particularly in the club (as opposed to school) environment.

The future of certified GA is almost certainly in commercial schools and IMC touring and not a lot else. It's just getting too expensive to operate these aeroplanes if you don't have to.

G

Decline of flying club scene
 

Hi Guys,

I think India Mike was perhaps referring to the flying scene in the UK, but perhaps did not think to limit his written comments accordingly.

As a description of the UK scene, I think his comments are pretty accurate. The UK has, I believe, the second most expensive flying certainly in Europe (After Denmark) and in the world we must surely feature at least within the top ten percentile.

Add to this the gradual loss of aerodromes reducing the number of places you can fly to. These are gradually being barred to us either by commercialisation, which involves landing fees and swingeing compulsory 'handling charges' for handling we don't need, or by building development. Let's look at a small few examples.

The delightful aerodrome that used to be Halfpenny Green is now 'Wolverhampton International Airport' (or some such). Barton Aerodrome is now 'Manchester City Airport'. The long established clubs that used to operate there were just shuffled off the premises. The aerodrome at Lee on Solent fell into the grasp of Hampshire Police, who operated just one aeroplane there but wanted to use part of it as a police dog training establishment. The private flyers were given two weeks to vacate. After a prolonged battle, the aerodrome was saved, but not before the kerfuffle had killed off Carill Aviation, a very long established and well regarded flying establishment. Booker has come under pressure recently because a rugby club wanted it to build a stadium on. Redhill too was recently a target because someone wanted it for a riding establishment. And this sort of thing has been going on for years and years; anybody remember Wolverhampton Fordhouses Aerodrome?

Add to this the new hazard - windfarms! AOPA is currently fighting an epic battle againse more and more of these.

There is probably not a single aerodrome in the Uk that has not recently been, or is currently being, the target for developers of one sort or another. These people have big money and political influence, and by comparison flying clubs are very small hitters and have few friends because we annoy the noise nimbys and flying is regarded as a sport for the rich, privilaged few.

Flying always has been a minority activity, mainly because of cost, but since we have been part of Europe, things have got steadily worse. Apart from France and Germany, most states of the EU have little or no private flying and their representatives sent to Brussels have very little understanding of it. The result is we are now having to fight off massive, massive, massive over-regulation from a largely ignorant, incompetent and uncaring European government structure.

These are not the only reasons why our flying clubs still operate aircraft built in the seventies and eighties, but they certainly have made things a whole lot worse. I won't even go into why there are no British 'Group A' light aircraft in current manufacture. That could take a lot more writing and I haven't the time.

Regards,

BP.

I haven't been in the GA world for long. I always try to visit a new airfield everytime I fly (Leicester yesterday) and I usually find a fairly thriving scene; which suggests to me from what has been said that it used to be a lot more thriving than it is now, or I've just been lucky with my choice of airfields.

Flying has always been expensive, in real terms it's cheaper (for me) now than it would have been 40 years ago so I can't see the argument that it's being priced out of existence. I can't comment on over regulation as the regulations now are the same more or less as when I started so have nothing to compare it to.

Coming from the gliding world I'm happy to report that AFAIK the gliding scene continues to thrive.

Totally agree, and that is how we promote our Club. We are a happy and thriving club with two club aircraft and a member owned one which club members use, we have a syndicate and other privately owned aircraft of various types. Only yesterday, i was at the Club after work for secretarial rather than flying reasons. Three of the guys were there; we were chatting away; one was going for a bimble to Shackwell Farm strip and offered me the RHS. Of course I leapt at the chance and had an excellent couple of hours with more experience of flying another type, of being pax whilst landing on a small grass strip and chatting to the farmer (the owner ) about his aircraft and land. Could this sort of camaraderie of flying be found at a school? We have our annual Fly In and club fly-outs....are these arranged by schools?

I hope that as long as there are pilots out there who want the club atmosphere and are enthusiastic and happy to take a full part in membership of their own club then whatever external pressures there are from outside, there will always be enough spirit on the GA club scene to keep it thriving in the UK. Am I being naieve? Hmm, I hope not....:)