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Death by Time Builder

Commentary: A fatal flight in Kentucky last week—involving a CFI using Snapchat to demean a young student pilot—was entirely preventable.

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Key Takeaways:

  • The article criticizes "time builder" flight instructors who prioritize accruing flight hours over effective teaching, leading to rote learning, high student failure rates, and potentially compromising safety.
  • It details a fatal crash involving an inexperienced "time builder" instructor who publicly shamed his student on Snapchat, flew into severe weather despite warnings, and ultimately demonstrated extreme unprofessionalism and poor judgment.
  • This tragic incident is presented as a critical case study underscoring the vital importance of instructor professionalism, responsible communication, sound risk assessment, and the overall maturity required for pilot-in-command responsibilities in flight training.
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What do time builders, experience builders, and flight instructors have in common? They all work at flight schools, but only two of them can teach you how to fly. Flight instructors have chosen to make teaching people to fly their career. Experience builders are teaching people to fly and building their own hours for other aviation jobs. Flight instructors and experience builders are more likely to use a syllabus and airman certification standards from day one.

Time builders are the flight instructors who, although they hold an instructor certificate, are focused on building their hours, not teaching. They may not know how to teach beyond the test because that’s how they were trained. This is particularly common if they went through an accelerated program where the focus is get ’em, get ’em out.

Meg Godlewski

Meg Godlewski has been an aviation journalist for more than 24 years and a CFI for more than 20 years. If she is not flying or teaching aviation, she is writing about it. Meg is a founding member of the Pilot Proficiency Center at EAA AirVenture and excels at the application of simulation technology to flatten the learning curve. Follow Meg on Twitter @2Lewski.

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