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  1. #1

    Join Date
    Jul 2011
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    Flight Instructor Attitudes

    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.
    Last edited by Bill Greenwood; 03-04-2014 at 07:14 PM.

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