What are the attributes of a good instructor?

[ayavner]

I feel like I'd make a good instructor in terms of passion and enthusiasm, and I do have an ability to assess my audience and tailor the right amount of technical information to their level. I would want to do it as a way to not only fly more often, but to share the passion and help someone else reach their goals. I care nothing about a stepping stone to so-called "bigger and better things".

 

By the time I get enough hours to consider training to be an instructor, I might BE one of Motz's old blokes falling asleep in the plane...

 

 

[cscotthendry]

I feel like I'd make a good instructor in terms of passion and enthusiasm, and I do have an ability to assess my audience and tailor the right amount of technical information to their level. I would want to do it as a way to not only fly more often, but to share the passion and help someone else reach their goals. I care nothing about a stepping stone to so-called "bigger and better things".By the time I get enough hours to consider training to be an instructor, I might BE one of Motz's old blokes falling asleep in the plane...

Ayavner: Spot on for what I was talking about better pay = better instructors. When I go for a lesson, I want to go with the guy who loves flying...not money.

 

 

[Chird65]

As a counter to those that do not like the talking; I must be different, the best lessons were the one where they were talking, every now and then I would be instructed to do something or advised to fix something. it was relaxing and I did not get startled when they spoke. I have to say it was easier when I was young and skills were learnt and absorbed quicker, but i still like the relaxed style of instruction.

 

 

[68volksy]

Maybe the good ones dont want to go to Golbourn mate:)

You've probably hit the nail on the head there!

 

I certainly wasn't trying to infer that we should be tending away from younger instructors. Simply that if any instructor is lacking in hours they should be making up for it in other ways (reputable instructor rating, good attitude and enthusiasm, not being a cowboy etc.).

 

As for more money equaling better instructors refer my first sentence above. It's bleeding obvious that to attract a decent instructor (RA or GA) to Goulburn you've got to be offering $50-70 an hour. That makes sense in the GA spectrum as the GA students expect to and are happy to pay for quality. They will not pay for quality on the RA side though and whinge about costs going up $5. It's bloody hard to make a quid out of charging $170/hour for the Gazelle when $50-70 of it is going straight to an instructor. The school's been running a Gazelle for over 10 years and know exactly what they cost to run.

 

The major difference between an RA only instructor and a GA instructor is the CPL the GA instructor holds and the 300 hours minimum time. But RA exists purely to make flying affordable so there's no option other than to accept lesser training standards and aircraft maintenance. Not a bad thing - just that there is an obvious trade-off.

 

 

[motzartmerv]

300 hour minimum? Where do you get that from?. A CPL is great, but nowhere in my CPL did I answer a single question instructing. Its the instructor course that differs by 30 hours, of "mutual" training where two candidates go flying and pretend to teach each other..

 

Theres no question that the GA instructor rating is more thorough, but it certainly doesn't garuntee a good instructor. Lotys of RAA instructors come from GA back grounds PPL, glider etc and have many more hours than your average grade 3 GA instructor.

 

For RAA you need 75 comman, which normally equates to about 120 hours total time, plus the 20 dual for the rating, makes about 140 hours. A GA instructor could be there at around 200. So the hour difference isnt massive. The theory tests are more extensive though, and the need for NVFR or instrument rating aswel.

 

 

[facthunter]

The NVFR etc don't count for much.in RAA.. One problem is the lack of unusual attitude (of the plane) familiarisation and recovery. This caused problems in the GA field too. It's a confidence builder for the instructor, and confidence (not OVER confidence) shows. Flying right at the stall shouldn't scare the hell out of pilots. A three axis aircraft should be considered controllable in any attitude.

 

The commercial wasn't that easy when I did it and I don't think there is much different today. It's a fairly high standard and you can fail it easily enough.

 

In theory you should be able to simplify a lot of the "numbers". and formula's. I really question a lot of that ( especially Bernoulli's) but that's another story. However it shouldn't be "dumbed down" to the joke level, and you need to know what the result of things you do or neglect to do will be. Davis's book tries this approach.

 

200 hours of U/L flying can have a lot of "flying" in it, or it may not, depending on whether you just do the same things over and over without expanding your skills base. Your original "certificate" is something to build on , not the end of the matter.

 

As a base level RAA instructor you are under the CFI and how good he/she is will play a big part in how you turn out. Your authority is fairly limited till you upgrade your rating. Nev

 

 

[68volksy]

GA instructors generally have 200 hours at least for the CPL and then the instructor rating of 50 hours on top. You could theoretically do it all in 200 hours (with integrated CPL and straight into instructing) but most come out with at least 300 hours.

 

They may not be better instructors but they're committed to a career in flying after parting with so much hard-earned. Trade-off is they should be more professional in their approach although that's not always the case nowadays as every kid that leaves school heads off to Uni and the ones doing flying at Uni are no different. I don't think a lot of them truly comprehend what they've committed to until their mid 20's when the path they've chosen starts to dawn on them...

 

 

[Head in the clouds]

Interesting stuff this - loosely summarizing, Motz and FH above spoke about 120 hrs min for RAA instructor qualification and 250 for GA. I'd agree totally that RAA flying would tend to give twice the 'knowledge' per hour as GA. The frightening aspect is that those RAA or GA hours are (or at least used to be) statistically the most dangerous in terms of crash likelihood. Not to mention the blind leading the blind in terms of 'finish school and become an instant chalky' without ever having spent time in the industry you're supposedly teaching about.

 

Fitting bullet proof vest now...

 

Slightly off topic - more to do with Schools than Instructors, but I'd be interested in student's thoughts - my school was as guilty as any... In general I reckon flying schools are the only entity that are less responsible than doctors' surgeries as far as timeliness is concerned.

 

When I was doing my Comm training the schools seemed to think I had nothing else to do and could hang around all day for my 9am lesson if it suited them. Eventually I didn't book start times I told them what time I needed to be finished by and then got their take on when to arrive. After not paying for one half completed lesson they got the message. Having had my own schools I knew weather was a major factor sometimes but there was no excuse except lack of consideration and business management knowledge at other times.

 

 

[nong]

You may not have realised why you were doing Cert 4; it's not a psychology course it's more in line with ISO 9000 series which a lot of people here would be familiar with. It ensures a step by step is processed, audited and logged; it does save your butt when this is done, and more importantly the incident is much less likely to occur, nut it's similar to Human Factors training - we know that causes most deaths, but if you don't take it seriously or don't apply it methodically there's no benefit and you go down that long chute.

I am familiar with the ISO 9000 scam. It was a fad twenty years ago. It goes like this. You pay heaps to some scam artist who has slipped money to someone higher up the pyramid to become an "approved provider". Then, said scam artist turns up at your office and wastes everyone's time by trying to get busy staff to write a manual about how they do their job, so that they can then read how to do their job, which of course they won't. The scam artist, of course, wouldn't know the faintest about how to do their job and so has nothing constructive to offer.

I was on the AUF board at the time. I told them it was a scam but the rest were for it. Fourty thousand dollars later, they gave up.

 

As for Cert IV, this is a popular "trojan horse" used by self serving educationalists. Indeed, it is now a somewhat successful religion, EG. a great money spinner. Those bottom feeding "educators" who feed off fraudulent schemes such as this, are working desperately to establish the myth that "if you don't have a Cert IV, you are dodgy". I am advised that successful completion of Cert IV is a true test of one's tolerance for bullshit.

 

 

[cscotthendry]

As for Cert IV, this is a popular "trojan horse" used by self serving educationalists. Indeed, it is now a somewhat successful religion, EG. a great money spinner. Those bottom feeding "educators" who feed off fraudulent schemes such as this, are working desperately to establish the myth that "if you don't have a Cert IV, you are dodgy". I am advised that successful completion of Cert IV is a true test of one's tolerance for ********.

I was a TAFE teacher for 15 years, When I started there, they put me through a university teaching diploma course. When I finished that I had a graduate diploma of adult vocational education. 7 years down the track and the bureaucracy got busy and told everyone that if they didn't have a Cert IV they weren't qualified to teach. Nevermind if you had an educational diploma or anything higher. All they were interested in was the Cert IV. So we all went and did their silly little course and then were told to assess ourselves. This happened over 3 days and it was supposed to supercede a two year full-time diploma and 7 years experience. When it came time to do the stupid assessment, I just never got around to that. It worked out the best for me some years later when the bureaucrazy REALLY got cranked up and were handing out Voluntary Early Retirements, I put my hand up for one on the basis that I was underqualified. They agreed and gave me the golden handshake. I really loved teaching in the early years until it became all about bureaucracy and budget cutbacks.

 

But it wasn't the educationalists driving Cert IV, it was the "educational" bureaucracy, a different animal altogether.