Evening all,
It is interesting to see the postings above, as I suspected the mentoring concept becomes merged with flight instruction very quickly.
GrahamB wrote:
The golden rules of mentoring are 1) mentoring is not instruction 2) the mentee remains P1 at all times 3) a mentor should never encourage a mentee to go beyond their current abilities - that's the job of an instructor.
GrahamB wrote:I'm an AOPA mentor, and although I've not done a lot, I've done more over email, by phone, and sitting down with someone in the briefing room than I have by actually accompanying someone on a trip. Very often it's just a matter of getting the inexperienced pilot to ask questions and consider aspects that they may not have done otherwise.
From my point of view @GrahamB has it , mentoring is not instruction and interestingly, much of it happens by e-mail, phone or in the cafe.
I personally would like to see more wide spread mentoring where pilots are
inspired to seek new flying avenues which may or may not require receiving additional training.
To give some examples:
Perhaps a mentor suggests that a pilot could choose to specfically visit airports that have local points of interest and stay overnight?That could be a big first for an early PPL.
Perhaps a mentor suggests that farm strip flying is a rewarding and pleasant past time. Now that most likley needs extra training, the mentor could recommend a school, club or airfield to deliver that training?
Perhaps a mentor could help/guide/assist a pilot through the early years of aircraft ownership or group membership?
The thing is that there is quite a lot to this flying lark beyond the time spent airborne and to my mind that is where the role of a mentor comes in.
Pipster