Flight Instructor Attitudes

[Bill Greenwood]

One would think that a CFI whose job it is to train students would have an encouraging attitude toward students, but unfortunately that is not always the case.

I found two examples recently that show the range a student might encounter.

First, there is the CFI to whom many students don't measure up to his lofty image. From the May/June issue of FLYING ADVENTURES, an article by Gary Wiblin who is billed as "10,000 hour" instructor, and from the article, "Some people,,, should honestly not be allowed out in public unsupervised", and "someone who is quite literally a crash waiting to happen", and "advised him or her to find another hobby or profession", and "some people should not fly aircraft" and finally " It is my belief that we are not all equal." He goes on to write about airline pilots who "barely scraped through" until they "finally crash an aircraft filled with passengers". And I don't think it is just a matter of attitude, he seems to be working with different facts, since the major U S airlines have an excellent safety record over the recent years.
Now I personally had never heard of CFI Wiblin when I read the article 4 years ago, and I still haven't heard of him. So about all I can be reasonably sure of from the article is that he is probably very impressed when he looks in the mirror each morning. The article does not give more details of his background or flying career.
Anyway, I was struck by the negative tone of most of this article, and to me it shows the bottom end of what a student might encounter from a CFI.

There is another side. A recent article on Paul Poberezny said that when he was a military instructor he tried to take some of the students that other instructors wanted to flunk and do a little extra to teach these guys, and that ALL of his students made it successfully through flight training.
We need more people like Paul.
It may take some looking, but students should be able to find a CFI who has a positive attitude toward teaching flying.

[lnuss]

I fully agree that a CFI needs to have a positive and encouraging attitude, and I've run into a couple such as you describe. but, a cautionary note: There are, indeed, a very few people who have no business in an airplane. Thankfully they are few. One was a friend of mine (many years ago) who, though he owned an Aztec, had control and judgement problems. I was pleased when he figured that out for himself (after plowing through a few parked airplanes on landing ). Another was a foreign student who, though holding a Private when I first flew with him, couldn't seem to even remember to call tower before entering an airport traffic area, among other problems. These (and others) were nice people, just unable to either keep their mind on their flying or unable to make even simple judgements that were consistently correct. And I'm not talking about folks with 10 or twenty hours -- Private tickets, some for years, or 60 plus hours of dual by multiple instructors, etc.

Fortunately, though, most of the students I encountered over the years were a delight to fly with, and even some with whom I didn't like to fly were safe enough in an airplane (personality conflict), and did well with other instructors.

[Frank Giger]

Your topic is a bit more nuanced than you put out, and since we're in the Learning to Fly part of the site, I thought I'd butt in and add my two cents.

I actually had two flight instructors, mostly due to attitude and demeanor of both of them.

Both are competent instructors - let me be clear on that - with many successful students making it to check ride.

My first instructor was a bit dour, saying very little and showing even less emotion. Some may like that sort of unflappable professionalism, but I really need feedback, particularly if I'm screwing something up and occasionally if I do something right. He was a lot younger than me, which isn't a slam - I hold nothing against youth - but one got the notion that he was building instructor time in order to move up the aviation food chain.

Now that was my impression, which many would disagree with! I know a fellow that had him as an instructor and sang nothing but praises.

I fired the guy after lesson two. At around 200 USD an hour (plane and instruction) I just didn't have time to build rapport and find a smooth working system of communications with him.

My second instructor is a retired engineer that took up flight instruction as a way to add to retirement and pay for flying. He can be verbose, sarcastic, and blunt - including his attitude to Sport Pilots in general (though he trained me to my SP ticket!). We instantly hit it off; he is professional to a T, thorough and thoughtful in the syllabus and how to deviate from it to individual needs, but not afraid to be plain spoken about abilities (both ways - he told me I was being too narrow in my personal limits to wind based on demonstrated abilities and was right).

Some folks think he's a bit too much - but he's never turned down a student or strung them along for more hours!

The point is that the attitude of an instructor is bad for one person and great for another, so long as they have a passion to teach folks to pilot aircraft.

As to the example provided in the initial post points to burnout. Or a really bad day. I remember one day where we had a guy come into the pattern the wrong way, another sat on the active and did a runup (which means I went around the pattern again - and yes, I had announced the whole way), and then muffed a landing to a near ground loop only to find someone parked a truck in front of the hangar when I called it quits. Had I written an article on my fellow pilots that day it wouldn't have been full of brotherly love.

[lnuss]

The point is that the attitude of an instructor is bad for one person and great for another, so long as they have a passion to teach folks to pilot aircraft.

Very true. Personality conflicts are a way of life in the instructing business, and rarely reflects on the actual ability of either the student or the instructor -- they just have different ways of communicating and of doing things. Even many of the instructors who primarily are teaching to build time are still competent and professional, though a few bad apples may give bad impressions of the industry to some people.

[Bill Greenwood]

Being a good instructor is more than just a personality matter. For instance I am from Texas, I talk slowly and listen the same way. If I get someone from N Y who is rattling off gibberish as fast as they can,it might not work as well. I've found that when someone talks at max speed, they really aren't trying to communicate, and more likely are trying to do a sales job on you. We have 2 parachute jump ops near the airport and the pilots are required to make certain calls. They don't really care if anyone understands them, just to spew out the calls as fast as they can. They are bored and sound like it.
Talking about basic flying is not that complex, not that many complicated phrases needed. No CFI needs to confuse or denigrate a student.
It is not a matter of just being a competent pilot or having high standards. Some of the best instructors I have seem are the guys in Florida who do warbird checkouts. Imagine letting a complete stranger who you may have only flown with for an hour or so, land a T-6 or P-51 with you in the back seat. None of this taking 30 hours for a student to solo, these gusy are good pilots and good teachers and their attitude is that they can teach one to fly these planes and have a good time doing it, (just bring lot's of money).

[lnuss]

Being a good instructor is more than just a personality matter. For instance I am from Texas, I talk slowly and listen the same way.

Certainly that's true, Bill, but the fact is that there are occasional personality conflicts in flight training, even with good instructors. Granted that most instructors can work fine with most people, but sometimes they just don't mesh. And it rarely has to do with the speed of speech. I've known of a couple of occasions when just a relatively heavy voice was enough to intimidate someone (more sensitive than most), just for example, even though the CFI's manner was mild -- just the sound of the voice. There are other situations, also.