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Re: Why not become a flight instructor?

PostPosted:Thu May 16, 2019 10:23 pm
by Dave W
GAWARE wrote:This post is very out of date FIs are in big demand...

Because there's a shortage of them?

Re: Why not become a flight instructor?

PostPosted:Thu May 16, 2019 10:25 pm
by Longfinal
Balliol wrote: However (trying not to be negative honest!) there could be merit in modularising the FI course and linking it to exercise privileges. The RAF have done this with University Air Squadron FIs - first qualification can teach up to first solo, second level can teach full syllabus

It could go along lines of:

Teaching and Learning module - perhaps more available via groundschool providers
Module 1 - 10 hours of flying training - allows up to first solo FI
Module 2 - 15 hours of flying training - allows full syllabus
Mutual Module 5 hours - practice exercise teaching with a senior nominated FI or FE, doesn’t have to be in FI course, must be signed off prior to module 2 completion

@bookworm happy to discuss idea above more if you want


Agree with most of what you say in the full post except this last bit. The inexperienced should be teaching the post-solo stuff. The real instructing skill is up to solo. That’s where really high quality instruction bears fruit and it is the formative time that sets the tone for the rest of a flying ‘career’. Inexperienced, less qualified folk could then take over. Question is, who’d want to spend their time just doing Ex 1 to 13 then let someone else do the more interesting stuff?!

Re: Why not become a flight instructor?

PostPosted:Thu May 16, 2019 11:09 pm
by nickwilcock
The RAF have done this with University Air Squadron FIs - first qualification can teach up to first solo, second level can teach full syllabus.


Whenever did CFS allow such absurd dumbing down of QFI standards? On what grounds??

The early exercises are the formative ones and require a high quality of instruction and fault analysis.

As bookworm knows, EASA is currently looking at a 'CPL light' with reduced theoretical knowledge requirements. The same theoretical knowledge requirements will also apply to PPL/FIs, but they won't need to hold a CPL.

Re: Why not become a flight instructor?

PostPosted:Fri May 17, 2019 12:00 am
by ThePipster
It has been quite a few years since I received flight instruction in a glider but the BGA seemed to turn out very good and knowledgable instructors who understood how a glider flew and how to get students to fly them without CPL TK.

Perhaps that model could be a starting point for the brave new regulations?

Pipster

Re: Why not become a flight instructor?

PostPosted:Fri May 17, 2019 3:00 am
by Genghis the Engineer
nickwilcock wrote:As bookworm knows, EASA is currently looking at a 'CPL light' with reduced theoretical knowledge requirements. The same theoretical knowledge requirements will also apply to PPL/FIs, but they won't need to hold a CPL.


You could call it a BCPL !

G

Re: Why not become a flight instructor?

PostPosted:Fri May 17, 2019 3:01 am
by Genghis the Engineer
ThePipster wrote:It has been quite a few years since I received flight instruction in a glider but the BGA seemed to turn out very good and knowledgable instructors who understood how a glider flew and how to get students to fly them without CPL TK.

Perhaps that model could be a starting point for the brave new regulations?

Pipster


Or the BMAA, who have been doing it for 30+ years, affordably and competently, for aeroplanes little different to what most SEP pilots are flying and training on nowadays. And that system is already approved by the CAA.

G

Re: Why not become a flight instructor?

PostPosted:Fri May 17, 2019 7:54 am
by David Wood
Kemble Pitts wrote:In response to the OP, I was (am still) a CRI and was enjoying doing biennials, tail-wheel differences, aerobatics ratings and the like. But then I wanted to do the 'trips around the bay' in Stampes and Tiger Moths and that required me to be an FI(A) - 'cos they are, in regulatory terms, Exercise 3 of the PPL/LAPL (air experience), given under an ATO, and so the pilot needs to be an FI(A) - QED.


Of course, you don't now have to be an FI to do the 'twice round the cathedral' flights in a Tiger Moth or a Stampe, or indeed anything else. Introductory Flights (as distinct from Ex 3 - but indistinguishable in all practical senses) can now be flown by a non-FI. A PPL will do. But you can't be paid for it.

Re: Why not become a flight instructor?

PostPosted:Fri May 17, 2019 8:23 am
by TLRippon
I’ve come across a few people recently who did the FI course and are gainfully employee doing CRI and LAPL work along with invigilating exams.
However, the time and cost investment in passing the CPL TK are putting them off taking it any further.

One thing that does concern me is the willing non FI PPL doing the air experience flights. It’s great for the clubs to have unpaid staff and it probably keeps the consumer price down. It probably isn’t an issue when there is plenty of work around and a limited supply of FI’s but this current shortage is part of a cycle, it wasn’t so long ago there was a glut of ATPL FI’s working in every club waiting for the airline job. In the past couple of years they have moved on causing the FI shortage. It must be rather annoying for an FI, having made the CPL TK investment, to see unpaid staff flying customers who have paid a fee to the club.

Re: Why not become a flight instructor?

PostPosted:Fri May 17, 2019 8:30 am
by GrahamB
But if just one of those 30 minute introductory flights for which an FI gets nothing brings someone who goes on to do upwards of 45 hours as a PPL student, isn’t that a good thing for the FI?

Re: Why not become a flight instructor?

PostPosted:Fri May 17, 2019 8:34 am
by David Wood
TLRippon wrote:One thing that does concern me is the willing non FI PPL doing the air experience flights. It’s great for the clubs to have unpaid staff and it probably keeps the consumer price down. It probably isn’t an issue when there is plenty of work around and a limited supply of FI’s but this current shortage is part of a cycle, it wasn’t so long ago there was a glut of ATPL FI’s working in every club waiting for the airline job. In the past couple of years they have moved on causing the FI shortage. It must be rather annoying for an FI, having made the CPL TK investment, to see unpaid staff flying customers who have paid a fee to the club.


It's a balance, as @GrahamB says. There are also other legitimate concerns about using raw PPLs for what are, to all intents and purposes, fare-paying flights. At the ATO where I was until recently the HoT we put some considerable thought into how to manage those risks/concerns and we ended up imposing on ourselves some stringent qualification and currency requirements for any PPL so employed, and also some strict SOPs.

Re: Why not become a flight instructor?

PostPosted:Fri May 17, 2019 8:52 am
by TLRippon
GrahamB wrote:But if just one of those 30 minute introductory flights for which an FI gets nothing brings someone who goes on to do upwards of 45 hours as a PPL student, isn’t that a good thing for the FI?

Wouldn’t that then more likely be a trial lesson?
If I were marketing my services, I would want the customer to get the best possible example of what is in offer?

Re: Why not become a flight instructor?

PostPosted:Fri May 17, 2019 9:14 am
by GrahamB
TLRippon wrote:
GrahamB wrote:But if just one of those 30 minute introductory flights for which an FI gets nothing brings someone who goes on to do upwards of 45 hours as a PPL student, isn’t that a good thing for the FI?

Wouldn’t that then more likely be a trial lesson?
If I were marketing my services, I would want the customer to get the best possible example of what is in offer?

There a lots of scenarios that one could conjecture, but ultimately the only difference between an Intro flight and a trial lesson is that the former can’t be logged as training hours and the latter can. The content could be just the same, there is nothing to stop a competent PPL demonstrating effects of controls; equally we have people coming having been bought a ‘trial lesson’ voucher who want no more than to be flown around to look at their (or their neighbour’s!) farm/house/village.

Re: Why not become a flight instructor?

PostPosted:Fri May 17, 2019 9:25 am
by akg1486
I've toyed with the idea of becoming a CRI. I think that would be a brilliant way to become a better pilot and do something useful for my fellow club members. I would not want to become an FI, but for a reason that I'm surprised haven't been mentioned in this thread.

As an FI, you're pretty much the central person in the life of one or more students. They spend a good deal of time, effort and money to pursue a new hobby or possibly even a new career. We've all been there, so we know what it's like. As an FI, I would feel an obligation to put my students' needs before my own. With the weather situation in northern Europe (pretty much same where I live as in the UK), any day with nice weather would be a day instructing rather than going on a bike ride, going a motorcycle ride, going on a picknic,....

Obviously the committment as a CRI is no less important, but it's not an ongoing thing. PPLs, including myself, are happy enough if they can find someone to do the one-hour-instruction flight in a time window of three or even six months.

The reason I haven't started the CRI route (yet!) is that I feel I need to improve my currency. 25-30 hours per year is fine to stay reasonably safe but not enough to be as good as I feel I'd need to be to become a CRI.

Re: Why not become a flight instructor?

PostPosted:Fri May 17, 2019 9:33 am
by matthew_w100
Is there a secret bit of the CAA website available to instructors only? I've searched and searched but I can't find anything that describes the various FI ratings and their requirements and rights. But then I'm rubbish at searching.

Re: Why not become a flight instructor?

PostPosted:Fri May 17, 2019 9:47 am
by PeteSpencer
It needs to be remembered that just because someone is good at something, he/she may not necessarily be any good at teaching others to do it.
In my former life I can well remember brilliant surgeons with brilliant minds who were sh ite teachers.
The 'see one, do one, teach one' aphorism is a smugly held load of bolleaux.

Peter :wink: