We have discussed this before, peripherally…
This is a big thing in GA. Most people who get a PPL throw it away very quickly, and many of those that do, do so because they have not been taught much of the “operational” knowledge / trivia like
)and much else.
UK AOPA produced a laboriously detailed mentoring scheme a few years ago, including an insurance cover to protect AOPA, but the takeup appears to have been very low. I don’t know whether it is due to low supply or low demand, or some other factors (some high profile mentors are “big personalities” on some poorly moderated UK flying chat sites and make two enemies for every friend) but for sure the flying schools do not encourage anything remotely resembling “training” outside of their business, which kills the most obvious means of finding people who would benefit the most from a contact with experienced pilots. The AOPA scheme is structured to avoid the most obvious complaint from the flying schools – pre-PPL mentoring is excluded.
So this leaves just “freelance” and informal mentoring.
I have done a bit myself in recent years, in a very simple and clear way, with ground school, and during flying with the other chap sitting RHS and me being the PIC so there is no possible issue of the sort that seems to have worried other people (e.g. the mentor taking control if the LHS is about to screw up – and then who is liable?). I am Shoreham based and happy to do this again, but this is really a general question on what others think.
I agree that having someone with experience to simply talk to and get some ‘fuel for the fire’ from is great. While I don’t have a mentor as such, over the last year since I got my license I made contact with three very nice chaps in my area, two of which have taken me along on a flight and with the third one it’s planned but just has not worked out yet, timing wise.
I could probably point to our flight school director as a kind of ‘passive mentor’ – he’s helped me with anything I came to him with, but obviously I have to approach him with whatever issue I need help with.
One thing that our school/club offers is very good in that respect: about twice a year they organize and conduct longer trips into neighboring countries, where we put a couple of charter pilots and/or students into each of our airplane together with an FI, and fly down to Venice or whatever. Didn’t get around to participating in one of those trips yet, but will do as soon as it works out and I imagine that’s a good way of getting some after-school training going.
All of this is also informal of course – and in aviation (more so than almost anywhere else, is my impression) you’ll meet nice people and get good input once you extend your feelers… being the plane-head that I am I have to do a lot more of that going forward, to even get through a fraction of the airplanes on my to-fly list ;-)
The first thing I would say is hats off to anyone who volunteers for it, and does it, because they are unlikely to be doing it for financial reward (it may even be a loss to them financially), and for most the motivation would be to give back to the community and encourage others.
At my home airfield, I have taken a few PPL students for flights, a few of which have been struggling to see light at the end of the tunnel and the value of getting the PPL. I have been careful not to ‘teach’ anyone anything, as at the end of the day its not me giving them their PPL and they must fly to the CFI’s standards, not mine. I have tried to show that actually post-PPL, most flights arent that hard to plan, you can throw away your whizz wheel and stop drawing fan lines all over your map if you want to, you can use technology GPS/Flight planning systems, you can get traffic services, it is possible to relax and enjoy the flight and not breaking your back arching over the instrument panel trying to spot small towns in the distance, and it is possible for it to be fun experience.
I am lucky where I fly from in that there are some instructors who have experience beyond a 100NM radius, and have used their IR’s with someone’s GNS430 and done some real world flying. And there are a small number of PPL’swho have done trips to Ibiza and Iceland and other relatively far away places who will share their knowledge. But I do receive a huge amount of insight and knowledge from this forum, that I wouldnt get easily from local instructors.
I really enjoyed having some board (hopefully not bored!) members come on a flight to Spain. Nice to meet people and perhaps give them a flight in a plane or to a place they might otherwise have not done.
Even if it did take us 12 hours more than planned….
>it may even be a loss to them financially
If done in your (the mentor’s) plane, there will always be a net financial loss because (under UK rules, anyway) you cannot go beyond the PPL cost sharing limits which, with one passenger, means a max 50% cost recovery (with the usual debate about what the “direct cost of the flight” actually means…).
The upside of doing it in your plane is a much simpler situation in case there was any debate as to who was PIC.
However, especially in the winter weather, one probably does a stream of short local flights, and carrying somebody along is no extra cost because the flight would have been done anyway.
I never charged for ground school, but one could. Anybody can do ground school and optionally charge for it.
To me as a relatively fresh PPL, if I could find a scheme like that “around here”, that would be invaluable.
For several reasons, I’m not going to join a club, which would be the most natural way of getting in touch with other pilots. For now, this leaves me with the forums, which I see as my “club substitute” but that doesn’t involve so much practical flying, obviously.
I rent airplanes from a flight school and there is little socializing with other pilots.
In our group, a new pilot can get someone to come with him if they want. Most new pilots either rent, when the owner will give advice, or join a group.
After a 2h 50m flight, I recently became P1 (in RHS) of a taildragger at full power and below flying speed on rough grass, after an apparently good cross-wind landing, but off centre. After finding it impossible to lift off, there was fortunately no damage in stopping – it tipped forward when the elevator became ineffective, but the prop didn’t touch the grass. We were far enough off the runway to allow Easyjet to take off before we pushed back.
I think it’s a great thing to do and applaud Peter and others like him who actually go out of their way to share their passion.
The key thing for me is to find people that I actually like and then find that they want to mentor me.
At 300 hours and 10 years in one might not expect that I’d be interested in a mentor but I’m always keen to learn from more experienced people no matter what the subject.
I suspect that many others are in the same position as me in that they are too busy making the money to go flying to have time to spend looking for other interested (or interesting…..) flyers to share the experience with.
> This is a big thing in GA. Most people who get a PPL throw it away very quickly, and many of those that do, do so because they have not been taught much of the “operational” knowledge / trivia like
It is not just GA, the same applies commercially and in the military, teaching students to fly an aeroplane and then to operate it, are two quite separate tasks. The RAF use Operational Conversion Units to fulfill this role whilst the airlines have type rating courses followed by supervised sectors (on the job training)
The basic licence only measures fundamental skills and if one wishes to exercise the privileges fully, a great deal more training is required. I suspect the fallout is more connected with finance than anything else. The PPL is a pinnacle of achievement, taking it further is a costly exercise that has to be justified.
Great post Tumbleweed.
Though a PPL is a personal pinnacle, and certainly distinct in society, it can be a little ego bursting to remind the new holder that they have just demonstrated their ability to meet a minimum skill requirement – the learning is just beginning.
I learn new things regularly, and as often as not, from lesser experienced pilots. Mentoring is a vital part of aviation, It is probably the most effective safety tool and to ward off complacency. As I spend most of my life on the other side of the ocean, it is difficult for me to participate in personal mentoring with the EuroGA group, though some aspects of mentoring can be accomplished is writing, and you can read it here…..
