In article ,
Teacher wrote:

The response was heated. "You started it, by speaking to me publicly."
He fully intends to radio any student at any time, due to his superior
experience.

Would any other CFI accept this potential interaction in their
employment relationship? I am the one who signs the student's book.
Anyone else come up against this?


Thank you Dudley and Sameas...

Yes, the student was solo. I was masking all gender implications.
Apologies for the grammatical muddle.

You have both wandered closer to the issue that interests me:
Employer/employee protocol versus who has responsibility for the
'training' or flight environment.

The owner has no category of FAA CFI - yet had been a military airman
and instructed in a different category of hardware (in the '80s).

The solo student is also a part time employee of the flight school. So
there is some significant level of 'response' to the owner's voice
beyond the typical Unicom/CTAF traffic call......

big snip

I've been reading your posts and the responses, and want to comment,
from a slightly different perspective. First solo, 1952, rated from
1954, and flew 100-300 hours/yr for the next 40 years, with much of it
for business travel.

I think you are being a bit up tight here, both about the use of the
Unicom and about gender. He/she should make no difference. Unicom, and
the generally heavy reliance on radio nowadays came long after my
initial training, but it is probably as true today as it was in the 60's
that you can get almost any voice saying almost anything on Unicoms.
And things weren't much better in the early 80's at controlled airports
with trainees in the towers. It would seem to me that if you are
teaching students today, you have to prepare them to evaluate what they
are getting over Unicom/CTAF, and probably as part of the pre-solo
training. In short, there was some good learning for that student
having another voice than yours call a traffic advisory. After all,
what's that student going to do when he/she is doing early
cross-countries if he/she goes to an uncontrolled field, sees aircraft
taking off and landing in different directions, and gets conflicting
comments on the Unicom? Maybe that learning is still ahead for this
student, but it's "real world" flying.

Yes, you signed off the student for solo, which should mean that the
student is ready to make a few circuits and bumps on a calm day; but
also, be prepared for the unusual, at least to some extent. I'll
tell you here that my own first solo landing, I put on a fine
demonstration of a bouncing crow-hopping ragwing Cessna 140 until I
went around for another approach. 50 hours later, I could have salvaged
that first approach, but at least I'd been taught how to go around from a
balked landing before I got turned loose, and it's a good thing I had.

Maybe you evaluated the "traffic" that got the FBO's attention as
immaterial, but that's a judgement call, and the FBO, whom you say is
not a novice, called it differently than you did. Would the FBO have
criticized you if you had made the traffic call and he'd felt the
traffic was not a factor?

Hank