Another Satisfied Student

[Colonel]

[DeflectionShot]

Thanks for that. This should be mandatory viewing for student pilots. Pretty sure I was milked by my flight school but I was naïve and didn't know any  better.

[Colonel]

Milking is extraordinarily common.  People try to
excuse it by claiming that the flight instructors
involved are merely massively incompetent instead
of simple thieves, but I'm not sure that's really an
improvement.  I've seen a lot of schools milk a
lot of students over the decades.

Flight schools have a real conflict of interest:
the worse they train students, and the slower
they progress, the more revenue the school
gets.  This results in people taking 50 hours
to solo and 100 and even 200 hours to PPL.

Transport, of course, couldn't care less about
either intentional milking or inefficient, incompetent
instruction, because both of these groups of people
have wonderful paper which is all that matters
to them.

This state of affairs causes old guys like me and
Chuck to grit our teeth.

So many times I have heard students say that they
learned more from their examiner than they did in
their last 20 hours of instruction, which is just so
wrong on so many levels.

[Rookie Pilot]

Milking. 


The proximate cause of that Pennsylvania PA 28 accident, taking pre PPL students on an "experience trip" purely to create revenue for the school and hours for the instructor. Perfectly fine with the CFI before, during and after the event, purely from the post accident press release. Obviously insurance covered the plane -- so life goes on.


Business as usual. 




THIS makes me mad. I went off on it and challenged the instructor apologists on the other blog, to either


A) stand up and defend the practice


B) report it to TC.


Got crickets back. Gutless, spineless.


People freak out when the puppy mill schools and instructor profession  are "attacked", but I offer again a chance to the profession: 


Defend this practice that has repeatedly cost young lives. Defend the integrity of this industry. 

Don't tell me this is a one off event, either, I know it is common. 

I'm sure now I will get attacked for my negativity over the pure flight training industry.  Save it.

And I would say this in person to anyone's face, too about this practice.

Can't believe TC doesn't stop it.

Rant over.


Back to the army / navy game.

[Colonel]

[quote]Can't believe TC doesn't stop it[/quote]

Why on earth would TC care?  As long as you
have paper, TC thinks you're great.

Where does it say in the Aeronautics Act or
the CARs that instructors have to be efficient
and/or ethical?

[DeflectionShot]

[quote]This state of affairs causes old guys like me and
Chuck to grit our teeth.[/quote]

Here's a milking tale. When I was training at for my PPL years ago, the flight school I was at started receiving the C172R models. In order to be checked out the school insisted that you fly with plane with all four seats occupied. I had to go through the ritual of having three instructors pile on board for a quick trip around the patch on my dime so I would get the "feel" of a heavily loaded airplane. Keep in mind I was already current on the old 172M. I've never had to do a similar exercise for a check out and I've been to a lot of different FTUs as a renter in my time. Had I known better I would have told them to get stuffed but you figure it's an SOP and that's just the way it is....oh well. Probably cost double the usual check out time - think about 4.0 hours vs the usual 2 hours.

Incidentally one of school's wanna-be four bars stalled one of their brand new 172Rs about 15 feet above ground and dropped the machine to the ground like a sack of cement. It was off line for weeks. Guy didn't fess up and they never found out who did it.

[Colonel]

[quote]I didn't think it was rocket science to spot bad instructors[/quote]

Most people only figure it out afterwards, when
it's too late.

People have the same problem with doctors,
lawyers, carpenters and plumbers.  If you're
not an industry expert, it can be hard to figure
out what's going on.

If you know nothing about aviation, you will
probably suspect that whatever weirdness you
encounter is the norm.

Trying to find a tradesperson that is both
competent and ethical can be very difficult
indeed.  I think I've mentioned before that
I only know of two AME's that are both competent
and ethical.  The rest are either incompetent
or unethical or both.  This is how Mike Busch
can so easily make a living, doing remote
diagnosis and maintenance management.

[Colonel]

[quote]I've never met a Russian who learned under communism who couldn't fly the fuck out of a plane[/quote]

Really?  I've met more than my share of brutal, hamfisted
Russian pilots that were good at using up machinery.