One instructor I know is not particularly user friendly, but his students are self evidently trained to higher standards in both handling and airmanship. I know this because I get to fly with them for their multi instruction. Getting good training at the PPL stage pays off in further training. The differences in PPL instructors are large despite efforts at standardisation, and what arguably should be better paid, as these lessons are the most critical, has always been least paid.
My impression of CPL instructors is that many times they are having to ‘un learn’ students’ bad habits, or teach them skills which they should already have.
I have had instructors who are excellent pilots, but perhaps less effective teachers, and vice versa. You need a bit of both.
I have flown with ex service pilots, ex airline pilots, display pilots, Reno racers, but generally career instructors (which may be ex service types) tend to be good teachers based on the quality of their product. One of the best instructors I flew with was a telephone utility engineer by day and his only commercial flying experience was banner towing!
Richard Bach has some good points on Flight Instruction in some of the stories in a Gift of Wings.
Stick and Rudder remains one of my favourite instructional books and perhaps the PPL principle of flight exams should use this as the official textbook.
As a teacher/critic you do not have to be better than your student.
Which gourmet critic cooks better than the chefs he damns? Which literature critic writes better than the top authors whose book he savages?
I cant agree.
As an instructor you should be doing it better than the vast majority of private pilots.
Thats not to say that a private pilot with loads of experience flying lots of hours will not give an instructor a very good run for his money, but after all a good instructor is likely to have many more hours, far better currency, and good frequency demonstrating some the skills that are being taught.
Fuji_Abound wrote:
As an instructor you should be doing it better than the vast majority of private pilots.
Agree. There is a difference between an instructor and an examiner. I must have been lucky with all my instructors. Nothing particular to complain about.
LeSving wrote:
There is a difference between an instructor and an examiner.
To me, the best instructors:
Take time to brief – properly.
Empower the student from the beginning.
Demonstrate and then let go.
Don’t ride the controls.
Talk little, especially when the student is practising a new technique.
Make it enjoyable.
Encourage self-analysis and personal standards.
Debrief thoroughly.
Ultranomad wrote:
I’d say an examiner is the next stage of instructor’s evolution. In the course of every flying proficiency exam I flew, I learned something important from the examiner.
Yes, I guess, but they are two different functions. An examiner is there only there to verify a performance and airmanship, while an instructor is there to guide/teach the student obtaining the needed performance and airmanship.
LeSving wrote:
An examiner is there only there to verify a performance and airmanship, while an instructor is there to guide/teach the student obtaining the needed performance and airmanship.
In theory, maybe, but in practice, at least in switzerland, the annual IFR revalidation flights are more handled like an instruction flight rather than an exam flight. And it is good that way, because that way you as the examinee can actually get something out of it.
Whatever. The point was that an instructor cannot simply be a critic with no skills or experience of his own doing the actual thing.
Nobody said “no skills or experience” but the actual skills and experience are not very important. Average skills are enough. It’s important that the instructor is good at instructing.
achimha wrote:
It’s important that the instructor is good at instructing.
Exactly, that is the main thing.
