Mark James Boyd wrote:
Michel Talon wrote:

I have known many
instructors who are only able to disgust their student of soaring,
precisely because they never have experimented these sensations and only
invest themselves in trivial technical details.

Wow! I've met instructors who want to get someone to license
quickly, but I've never met one who "disgusted a student to soaring."


Well, i have met a lot, and i can say it is not personal bad experience,
since personnally i had luck in this domain. I began with an old
instructor who was very nice, but had extremely strange ideas about
piloting skills (such as flying extremely uncoordinated, etc.), i avoided
carefully a good collection of retired military pilots, and finished
with very skilled and young soaring pilots, but i have certainly
observed that a good proportion of instructors here are completely
inadequate to the job (*), and make people run away. To add to the
point, i have never tried myself to become instructor, since i
don't consider i have the talent and patience to be a good
instructor. Unfortunately a lot of guys become instructor only because
it gives them a sense of being superior, or more simply to fly gratis.


(*) since the job is "gratis" one cannot ask too much, obviously.


--

Michel TALON