[Rant Warning] Tailwheel Training

"Rocky" wrote in message
om...
I kind of take it personal
when someone makes a blanket statement that us old gray haired guys
are incompetent and full of crap.
Ol Shy & Bashful 21,000+ and still going - CFI/IRAM Gold Seal

Speaking as a gray haired guy, all I can say is that the accident statistics
speak for themselves. Back when everybody learned in tailwheel aircraft the
accident rate was much higher. The accident rate for even tailwheel aircraft
has gone down considerably with better instruction. In 1946 the GA accident
rate was 77.83 per 100,000 hours of flight. In 1982 the GA accident rate was
10.9 per 100,000 hours. By 2001 it had dropped to 5.96. Fatal accidents show
a similar trend downward.

I don't buy the idea that flight instruction is worse now than it used to
be, plain and simple. The accident rate says that flight instruction now is
better. Anyone who says it isn't is full of it. I also stand by my assertion
that the worst complainers are old guys who were poorly trained in the first
place, have not kept current, and who themselves are a menace to aviation.

Are all old guys like that? Of course not. But neither are all the flight
instructors incompetent simply because they have not flown tailwheel
aircraft, flown loops or rolls, have 22,000 hours, or have shot down five
enemy aircraft. I know one guy on this forum who probably thinks that you
should not be flight instructing, simply because you have more hours
instructing than you do flying other missions. Apparently that idiot thinks
the best instructors are those that don't instruct.

Neither do I buy the idea that flying a bunch of different types makes you a
better instructor. All instructors fly many different types, but if you look
at their logs you will see that the preponderance of hours has always been
in two or three types. That has always been true of flight instructors and
always will be. It is a complete mischaracterization to suggest that flight
instructors working their way into the airlines are 'wannabes' who are not
real pilots. I know many such flight instructors and respect them deeply.
I'll bet they have time in more types than some of the people who say that
those instructors' experience is limited only to 172s. Airlines don't hire
pilots who have flown only Skyhawks.

I will put it plain. EDR's post was way off base. It was offensive. It was
stupid. It contained a bunch of flat-out generalizations and old wives tales
that at best are only slightly dangerous and at worst evidence of serious
hatred. EDR owes an apology to flight instructors.