So you've decided to learn how to fly. No problem! Just open the yellow pages, choose a local flight school, call for an appointment and you will soon be linked with a professional flight instructor who loves teaching almost as much as he or she loves flying.
When I asked for feedback from Flying readers about the instruction they had received, most of the people who responded said this scenario was a recipe for disaster. I read over and over about students who had been transferred from one instructor to another as their previous instructors were hired by the airlines, and most people reported that at least half of their instructors were marginal at best. We really shouldn't expect much better in an industry in which the least experienced are often the teachers, and where most pilots have to jump through the instructing hoop to build time so they can be hired by an airline. Add in dismal pay that hasn't increased much over the last 30 years, little or no benefits, long hours and difficult working conditions and you have a recipe for a bad attitude. It is unrealistic to expect much from instructors who don't have much experience or depth of knowledge, don't want to be doing what they are doing, aren't being compensated very well and are focused on getting out of instruction as soon as possible.
PART I:WHAT MAKES AN INSTRUCTOR GOOD?
I was fascinated to find that while people had many different stories about their bad experiences with instructors, they used the same terminology to describe the good instructors they had been fortunate to fly with.
KNOWLEDGE, CALM, COMFORTABLE
Almost without exception, good instructors were described as knowledgeable and comfortable in the cockpit. Andy Shapiro said his instructor was "always calm, never yelled, never maliciously criticized and showed a real interest in me getting my license and flying safely." Andy "considered him my friend." His instructor's favorite phrase was "Don't stress!"
Chris Stockhholm felt that his comfort level with his instructor made a difference in all areas of his flight training experience and that the rapport between the student and instructor is critical for safety.
Greg Burnard "began flying with an instructor who should have the title 'gentleman' attached to him. You could tell he really loved what he was doing-teaching. His skills were exceptional. He was always ahead of what the student was doing and his character was such that a mistake was never met with a 'Why can't you do this?' type of comment. He was an absolute pleasure to fly with."
After his first instructor was killed doing turns about a point with a student at 300 feet, Steve Kohn said his replacement instructor "was a women in her fifties who had been a ferry pilot to Europe during World War II. She approached teaching like a great fourth grade teacher. She was organized, calm, exacting, personable and took flying very seriously. Her greatest gift to me was spin training. 'It isn't required,' she said, 'but, you can't learn it after your first spin starts.' With delicacy at first, and with persistence later, she forced me to have the courage to learn to get into and out of spins."
HONEST, SETS GOOD EXAMPLE
Craig Smith had "a young instructor in the cockpit who made it clear from the beginning that although he enjoyed instructing, he was on his way to the airlines. He assured me that he still had plenty of time to go, however, and that he would be my instructor throughout my training, which he was. The honesty was satisfying. He taught me repeatedly never to trust another pilot and always fly like everyone else was an idiot. Although extreme, I got the message, and it paid off at least twice later on. He set the example by constantly looking out for traffic, teaching me to identify out loud whenever I saw something, and always being on the lookout for a landing site in case of an emergency. I was very, very impressed with the emphasis on safety, emergency preparedness and good judgment that he drilled into me over and over again. Every time before we flew, he asked me if I checked the weather, including days that were totally cloudless. His manner of instructing was not to induce fear of the elements but respect for them and good judgment on the part of the pilot."
