So how would you fix it?

[beckwith]

I'm new to helicopters so I'm speaking generally from my experiences in outdoor education and snow-sports instruction which I have been involved in for the last nine years.

 

I think it may be help full to this discussion to differentiate between experienced instructors and experienced Pilots as they are not in anyway the same thing. I would argue that you are better off getting your training from your average 500 hr CFI then from an average 2000 hr Pilot or average 10000 hr pilot.

 

The 500 hr CFI has high density of experience in the learning environment. they can more easily draw on their experiences as a student pilot.

 

The average 2000 hr or 10000 hr pilot isn't an instructor they have much more dispersed experience many actions and reactions are ingrained motor programs and have receded from conscious mind. that makes them good pilots but can make it hard to teach the skills.

 

If you don't believe me take a moment to try and explain how you stand up from the computer in order to go get a snack. don't forget to give specifics about the positions and movements of all your limbs and joints.

 

now if you have an instructor who has lot of experience as an instructor that person is probably going to give a superior lesson all other things being equal. That being said all other things are seldom equal, go for an instructor who you are comfortable with, who can work with your pace, and adjust their teaching to your learning. I wont ever fly with an instructor who doesn't ask me if what their doing is working for me or try to offer alternative ways of approaching a learning objective.

Edited October 21, 2008 by beckwith

[mechanic]

The second "fresh" ins. would always "jump" on the controls, which would make me very nervous all the time, it always had me questioning what i was doing wrong.

 

1badz32,

 

My last CFI was like this. Claimed he had a gyro built into his butt. He would always just do little quick "reach and move the controls" without saying a word and then fuss about what ever. I really hated flying with this guy.

 

My first CFI was real good. I could get the heli way whacked out of shape in a hover and she would talk me thru trying to recover up till she needed to take control. I progressed real fast with her. She would just make short comments here and there. "Trim", "Speed", "Watch your Altitude", "Level Aircraft". All these short comments helped and I could make quick corrections in the pattern. I miss flying with her and TCHone.... TCHone is calm also.

[ShitHot]

couldnt agree more that more mature CFI's and infinitely better then hour building young guns'. I flew with three instructors getting my private rotorcraft mainly a 15 year vet of the trade with 4000 hours instruction, fairly seasoned and it showed i made lots of progress with him , however when i was told to fly with his juniors, guys in their mid 20's i learned almost nothing and lost all my confidence in my flying because of the miscommunacation i had with them.

Theyve got to learn sometime though, so its inevitable, noone would want to be a cfi and not move on to greener pastures eventually. Its like an internship to the more legit fields.

[jehh]

Good discussion...

 

Of course, the whole point is being missed... You don't need a high time pilot, you need someone with teaching experience. 500 hours of teaching is worth more than 5,000 hours of flying.

 

However, even that misses the real point, which is that there simply are not enough high time CFIs to go around. Even at a decent pay level, it is hard work to be a CFI, much easier to make that money 2 weeks a month rather than 6 days a week.

 

I'd love to hire a higher time CFI, let me know when you guys find one who doesn't own the school.

 

Fly Safe!

[500E]

jehh.

I tend to follow your reasoning, if you cant teach there is no way forward, but surely the higher hour pilot has been there done that and lived, I would trust GP to get me out of trouble sooner than a low time instructor, I have run\build\driven race cars, track & off road, used to sail off shore racing boats to a high level, but would be the first to say please don't ask me to explain\teach you how to do it, I still think the hardest thing I have done is fly a helicopter.

PS

Still not that good with the helio

[heli.pilot]

I think a lot of students just don't know what they don't know. I know I was that way through the earlier part of my training. I know some instructors are just too quick to grab the controls, I had a few of them during my training. However, I can also think back to several training situations where I was irritated that the instructor was grabbing the controls and yet I look back on several of those situations now and I can see dangers that I simply couldn't see back then. Clearly my instructor was more aware of the ACTUAL danger of the situation than I was with my 40 flight hours! Before a student gets upset about the instructor grabbing the controls, they need to ask themselves who is more qualified to assess the risk in a given situation - them or their instructor? Maybe ask your instructor why they grabbed the controls, ask them to explain the risk that they perceived that led them to their reaction. Maybe there is something the student doesn't know? Maybe the instructor just had too much coffee before the flight?! A good instructor will take the controls in a way that doesn't leave the student feeling like an idiot for apparently doing a terrible job of flying. A good instructor will also admit when their wrong. I had instructor jump on the controls while I was doing an auto one time (which WAS going fine) and they completely screwed it up, but he promptly admitted that he should have left it alone and that he made it much worse - he won my respect right there! There is SO much more to an instructor than how many hours they have...

[Marc D]

Good topic Rogue,

 

In my perfect world, Instructors would be 10K-20K hour pilots with a wealth of experience under their belts and like Bossman said, doing it for the love of teaching. It would be a profession where some of the "battle weary" pilots could settle down to a particular area in order to have a steady job and a family. They could pass on all their knowledge that they picked up throughout the years and teach people to fly while relating the basic maneuvers to "real world" scenarios. Ooh, and they would get paid a real wage that would make it worthwhile for them.

 

In that perfect world, the FAA(or whatever authority you operate under) would have changed the rules to ensure you couldn't get an instructors certificate in under 5000 hours or something like that. And all those freshly minted 150 hour pilots would be able to apply for some sort of apprenticeship jobs or SIC positions that would bring them to the next level. Ooh, and there would be some sort of aptitude tests needed to get a student pilot certificate or at least a private.

 

To achieve this we would probably have to see changes from the insurance companies, the FAA and commercial operators simultaneously. We would need the FAA involved because as long as you can still get an instructors certificate in under 200 hours schools will continue to hire low timers and pay them peanuts in order to maximize profits, and who would blame them. I can't ever see the FAA changing the rules this drastically, but it's nice to dream! You would need the commercial operators on board in order to ensure "apprenticeship" positions for all the new guys coming along or else flight training would come to a standstill in the civilian world. I think this system might work for some large commercial operators as it would give them a chance to weed out the "no hopers" and sign up their good guys for 4 year contracts or something like that, this could help reduce costs for them also. And for the insurance companies to lower rates they would have to see that the new system would drastically reduce training accidents across the board, which it probably would. They would have to see that accidents during commercial operations wouldn't rise with this system also as just 1 accident in a big turbine would be more costly to an insurance company than 5 or more training accidents in a R22 or 300Cbi.

 

So that's my little dream, crazy and all as it is, I think it could be a better system than what's in place right now.

 

 

 

Hi Darren,

 

Sign me up! Do you think you can push it through in the next few years? I know of a place that does have a system similar to that, eh.

 

Marc D.

[Darkhorse]

My instructor would let me screw the pooch to a much farther extent then I new I could handle. He has over 12k hours and told me #1- His point of comfort and danger risk is much higher than mine (obviously) and #2- there are allot of things you just have to work through and figure out on your own that cant easily be shown or explained, if you work through it enough one day you'll "just get it". As it turned out he was just as interested in not crashing as I was but forcing me to push through much longer than I was comfortable with worked wonders. Sure enough he was right and I think I picked it up quicker working through it instead of a much newer pilot taking the controls from me.

I had allot of aviation "theory" and back seat time before this so I think he gave me more credit for being able to figure things out than I deserved. I think back and chuckle to myself sometimes thinking about when I asked him how he did something (like MAKING the aircraft stop when you came in to hot without letting the tail drop down and strike the ground) and he would say...I went like this...and just made the motion of moving the collective up and down and moving the cyclic around.

 

Ahhhh life is good

Edited October 23, 2008 by Darkhorse

[Justin DBC]

I like the point that you brought up, but I feel that having a few hundred hours of experience can be enough to qualify you to be a good instructor. As has been brought up, not everyone is up to being a teacher. If you don't grasp the concepts, aren't a patient person, have bad interpersonal communication skills, or you just can't relay information, you're not going to be a good instructor whether you have 200 or 5000 hours under your belt.

 

I have a lot of experience as an instructor in other trades. With a little over 30 hours rotory wing on my book, I would be very comfortable teaching most of the concepts I have been taught so far because I have made sure that whenever something comes up that I don't understand, I research and study until I get it. I'm very confident that by the time I reach 200 hours, I'll be a good instructor.

 

This is where the difference comes in... Even though by the time I get my CFII as a full time student I will be very technically proficient, tactical proficiency is something that can only come with time. Right now, I can fully discribe what to do if your tail rotor goes out, a bird decides it wants to join you mid-flight, or your engine decides it's going on strike and get most people to understand it with a fair amount of ease. Obviously, most CFIs don't have the experience to back up their lessons, especially when it comes to emergency procedures and it can be argued that is a definate deficiency.

 

The way this is usually suplimented (from what I've seen) is that schools have an experienced chief instructor on staff who constantly evaluates their subordinate instructors and ensures the quality of their instruction. I haven't heard too many stories whenre this system hasn't worked out.

 

I think the bottom line is that if you don't feel comfortable with your instructor, get another one. My instructor told me the first day that if at any point I want to start flying with someone else that works out better for me, there would be no hard feelings. If an instructor doesn't make you feel comfortable, you aren't going to learn effectively. Luckily this hasn't been an issue and my instructor has been great.

 

J-