Balliol wrote:
The real issue is Instructor terms and conditions which don’t make it viable as a career
To be honest, 6-8 weeks of sporadic instructions and 2-3 days in a classroom is hardly an education worth a full time job. Ordinary students take summer courses doing 3-4 times that amount of work, just to be able to start their education that takes years to finish. When finished, there are no guaranties whatsoever that they will find a relevant job.
Peter wrote:
There, a CPL is a license to do commercial work
It used to be the same here, until EASA/JAR. Even today, when thinking about it, I don’t think I know a single Norwegian FI without “full” CPL/ATPL. There were some talk a couple of years ago that NLF would sponsor CPL TK and instructions so that PPL pilots could become FI easily. They would “pay back” by doing instructions in the clubs for free. This is the same arrangement the glider pilots have, also under NLF. That has fizzled out, no more talk about it. I don’t know what has happened.
In any case it’s hard to find a real reason for the CPL TK route. Today, commercial pilots instructs in clubs in their spare time. The CPL TK route will change this to plumbers and dentists instructing in the spare time, for the same pay. Nothing wrong with plumbers and dentists, but who would you pay €30-40 to get flight instructions from? Would you pay a plumber or would you rather pay a seasoned Widerøe/SAS/Norwegian pilot with tons of experience ? The main problem, no matter how you look at it, it’s a spare time occupation. At best it is a hobby that pays for itself, and a dentist don’t have more spendable spare time in his career and life than a commercial pilot. There are lots of commercial pilots around, and doing instructions in a club will for sure be a positive addition in their careers, while it counts for zero for a dentist. I mean, it’s easier to get hold of a FI with CPL/ATPL even though they come and go very fast these days.
CRI is different. In a club they are very useful for all sorts of stuff; short field, tail wheel, acro, retract, CS prop and so on including all sorts of check rides.
Even microlight it’s somewhat similar. Three of the instructors in my club are current Widerøe pilots. At the moment though, and coincidentally, all three of them are at the point in their lives where house and family, small kids take all their spare time, (+ career) and this leaves room for plumbers and dentists 
Instruction is time consuming. Including time to/from the airport, time to check the aircraft, briefings, and the whole evening is gone. Being a recreational activity, the time slotted is the recreational time.
Peter wrote:
I have not yet been able to find out how you get this additional authority.
I have been told (by Andrewsfield, who teach instructor courses) that this is by default done for all FI / CRIs these days.
There is a box on the instructor application form for 945 privileges. I’ll check tomorrow with the CAA if it was an error somewhere in the paperwork (either on our end – filling it up – on on theirs – processing)
In any case it’s hard to find a real reason for the CPL TK route. Today, commercial pilots instructs in clubs in their spare time. The CPL TK route will change this to plumbers and dentists instructing in the spare time, for the same pay. Nothing wrong with plumbers and dentists, but who would you pay €30-40 to get flight instructions from? Would you pay a plumber or would you rather pay a seasoned Widerøe/SAS/Norwegian pilot with tons of experience ?
As always, it depends. The “airline pilot” instructor trump card is sometimes whacked in front of unwitting students as a major selling point. Whilst these pilots can undoubtedly bring valuable skills to a club environment I think students are at least equally well served by someone who has experience of a wide variety of GA aircraft combined with glider and ultralight skills.
One highly skilled (in his field) airline pilot I came across recently bought himself a high-performance experimental aircraft and pranged it on the first flight after flying it home without proper training. Best not to generalise.
There is an endless supply of stories about airline pilots pranging a GA plane. Not really surprising, if you look at the typical training route, in modern times.
I’ve just had a lunch with a young lad who spoke to a Spanish ATPL sausage machine which “guaranteed” him an airline job when he finishes their 100k course. Exposure to GA flying and weather: ~ zero.
I did have some great if weird instructors… wrote about some of them previously e.g. in this mad instructor thread. Actually one of the best ones was an ex airline pilot, whose airline career ended when he nearly landed a 747 full of illicit cargo (armaments from the British Govt to some mercenaries doing a job in some bongo bongo destination, most likely) in a large lake in Africa, at night We both got lost on a night navex; could not work out if the lights below were Buggers Hill or Haywards Heath. That was before the CAA started their no-prisoners CAS bust policy. Now in his 80s and still flying, I always say to him I want to be like him when I get to his age.
Jojo wrote:
As always, it depends. The “airline pilot” instructor trump card is sometimes whacked in front of unwitting students as a major selling point. Whilst these pilots can undoubtedly bring valuable skills to a club environment I think students are at least equally well served by someone who has experience of a wide variety of GA aircraft combined with glider and ultralight skills.
That is probably true. I don’t think there exists a general rule about these things, but I think any environment that increases the knowledge and experience of the instructors is better than the opposite.
A brief intro I have meet a few of you really enjoy your site especially the IFR info, Im a current FI in UK , returning from a break of 5 years, best rating I ever did to be honest as with Family never really had the funds to fly for fun, although have been in a couple of groups. I teach PPL LAPL IR/r Night and am a ground examiner. And am shortly going on to teach intergrated students the SEP bit and CPL content. I never got a full IR as when the IR/r rating future was confirmed didn’t really need it. Although with the shortage of instructors Im looking at maybe doing an IR and probably would need some input from you more experienced IFR pilots. Everything so complicated since Ive been away.
The trip reports are great and Peters comment once that instructors don’t venture from airfield much further than 20 miles or so is true ! Although I did do the complex checkouts to France in a PA32.
I sat in a PBN briefing this week with another instructor, need a little work on that tbh.
Looks like as I have a CPL I need 5 of the CBIR exams, I have about 100hrs IFR flying logged on the IR/r so the 40hr course becomes 30. Of which 10 has be done at an ATO as I understand it. If I want a multi IR then I need to add another 5 hours.
BIR maybe a possibilty but again nobody knows when it will be implemented.
I also agree with most of your comments as to the crazy system we operate in UK for FIs, when CPL was 9 exams not so bad but now 13 really hard work and time consuming as a lot of candidates will not do an IR. We have FI s at our school who can only teach LAPL but are fairly experienced.
I had my first ground school (and aborted flight) of the FI course yesterday covering exercise 4, effects of controls.
I think the biggest challenge of instructing is empathy with the student. It’s easy to know things so well that you think they are obvious – for example pulling back on the stick/yoke makes the aircraft rise. Obvious right? Perhaps not! My instructor recounted a story of a student who after 15 hours STILL moved the throttle in the wrong direction and just couldn’t get through it.
I HATE any instructor that rides the controls. In my experience one in 3 or 4 of instructors I’ve been with ride the controls in one way or another. As a 650 hour pilot doing a night rating I had one instructor who’s feet were so firmly on the pedals it was a constant irritation, and every time a small correction was needed he did it before I had the chance!
I was clearly told yesterday that I must take my hands and fee completely off the controls in a clear handover procedure. If the student sees me touching the controls they won’t believe they did it by themselves and this will mean they don’t build the confidence required leading up to their inevitable solo. Likewise if I nervously hover over the controls, or fidget, or flinch – they will think I’ve got no confidence in them, which will lead to no confidence themselves. This was said to me so clearly that I wonder why some instructors completely fail in this regard!
He also VERY clearly made other points which I’ve seen broken again and again by other instructors:
- Be PATIENT. For example ask the student to raise the nose. Then wait. Don’t wait 2 seconds and then say “well do it then!” or “pull back on the yoke!” – let them digest the instruction, and give them plenty of time too do it.
- Don’t talk to them when they have control. Take control back first, then discuss. Otherwise their brain may not be able to cope, and audio is the first bit to go missing.
- Be very fussy with vocabulary, as the wrong words can cause fear or lack of confidence. For example, we don’t DROP the nose, we lower it.
At this early stage I’ve already decided that my instructor is fantastic, and the instructors he produces are consistent and professional. It’s given me a huge amount to digest and think about already, and my mission is become like the good instructors I’ve flown with and not the bad ones! (obviously!)
Indeed Carl, it is so counter-productive for the instructor to touch the controls while the student flies. As we all know, steering a GA aircraft is a ‘force-feedback’ exercise, and to take that away is actually negative training, so it’s dangerous. There should be a real reason for the instructor to take control, and then it should be him only. For instance if things go wrong or if he needs to show certain attitudes of the aircraft to get the sight picture right. I cringe when instructors use terms like ‘follow-me through’ while being on the controls at the same time as the student. A student needs to get the feel for the controls from the very beginning. No better confidence booster than being able to say to the student that you’ve had another boring flight, not having touched anything. Looking at what he is doing and talking him through it.. I admit i won’t have the student take the controls at the very first take-off, but during the first flight i will do a climbing exercise to resemble it close enough so that on his second flight he will.
I think “follow me through” does have a use in the very first lesson just to establish how much the controls move. Although they will feel no force feedback they will at least feel how quickly, and how far, the control moves. Once that’s out of the way, never again hopefully!!
