Finding a good flight instructor

It *IS* hunt and peck. Stay away from the young guys who are time-building
for the big show; go for the gray hairs.





"Janis Hidiki" wrote in message
oups.com...
Recently decided to go for my private's license after all these years
of waiting for time and money.
But it seems like one has to just "hunt & peck" for a good instructor.
True?

How can you tell if an instructor has a good (or any) track record?
Does the FAA keep track of instructors' success rate?
Or is there somewhere online where one can find recommendations from
past students?

Is it really "buyer beware" ?
TIA
Janis

H.P. wrote:
It *IS* hunt and peck. Stay away from the young guys who are time-building
for the big show; go for the gray hairs.

there are young guys who are *not* time-building for the
big show; hint: you can also pick one who could obviously
not get the job with the airline ;-) that said, one of
the best flight instructor I had the pleasure to fly
with is a retired airline pilot who couldn't care less
about logging hours and saved me a bundle -- in time, money
and frustration -- by spending as much time as was needed
in the sim (where a CFII cannot log time);

--Sylvain

No doubt there are exceptions to that rule of thumb, but I think it's a
pretty
good starting point.

I've tried a number of instructors. Some I've fired after one flight,
some I've
gotten ratings and flight reviews with. There are two that I'd
enthusiastically
go back to. One was a retired engineer/businessman who was running a
little flight school for fun. He, unfortuately, was grounded a few
years
ago due to deteriorating vision.

The other is a professor of psychology and the rodeo coach at a local
community college and a rancher who also finds time to do some flight
instruction at a rural airstrip. I consider myself fortunate indeed to
have
found him.

The questions that seem important to me a

Can I stand to spend a whole lot of hours in close proximity to this
instructor?

Does this instructor actually know something about practical
aviation?

Can this instructor convey his knowledge in a manner that I can
understand?

Your instructor is an important employee. Take some time to get
recommendations and do interviews to find the right match.

(reply crossposted to rec.aviation.student)

Michael's post is spot on. Personal recommendations are the only way to
go. I asked a similar question a year ago and got mostly similar
answers about interviewing a bunch of instructors etc, but I didn't find
that advice helpful. Has anyone here actually tried it? I'm sure it
can be pulled off by a sufficiently charismatic person, but for me it
felt socially awkward in the extreme. Also, if you're looking for that
elusive retired guy teaching for the love of it, you're not going to
find him/her in the yellow pages.

I went through three instructors in my first three hours (two greenhorn
time-builders and a crotchety guy who couldn't teach), decided at over
$100 a shot I was throwing away my money, and quit. A year and a half
later on a whim I sent an e-mail in the blind to the author of an online
aviation site (a nuclear physicist by trade) asking if he by chance knew
an instructor in my area he could personally recommend. He said no but
passed me on to a local pilot/acro instructor in the area (himself a
nationally prominent professor of computer science by trade) who in turn
recommended a woman who is actually a flight instructor by trade. It
turns out she is excellent, and one of her two greenhorn apprentices is
not bad at all, and I'm doing a much better job of learning with them.
(Elaine Heston, Aeroexecutive Services, inc. at Rostraver Airport south
of Pittsburgh, 724-379-4722)

It turns out if I had asked around the local EAA chapter I would have
found the same woman as half of them are her students, but the couple
local pilots I knew at the time didn't have any personal recommendations
to make.

So, to sum up, the approach that worked for me was to first find a
prominent local pilot (or group) well keyed-in to the local instructor
scene, and ask that person or people for personal recommendations. The
hard problem is not comparing the instructors you find against each
other, but rather finding any instructor at all who stands out as good.
Certainly blowing a couple hundred dollars on bad instructors helped
me to recognize a keeper....

~Adam

Michael wrote:
Is it really "buyer beware" ?


It is to a large extent. Having a flight instructor certificate
assures a certain minimum standard, but it's very minimal.

The best advice I can give you is this - figure out the sort of pilot
you want to be in five or ten years (meet the pilots based at your
airport to get an idea) and then ask THAT pilot to choose your
instructor. He already has a pretty good idea of what to look for -
you don't.

It's a matter of perspective. By the time you've figured out how to
choose a good instructor, it's not so useful.

Michael

Well, hours as a CFI can be an indication of success, but not
necessarily so, and certainly not of good teaching ability and
technique. The best CFI I have ever known had all of 4 hours of dual
given when he first took me up. He took me through Private, Instrument,
Commercial, and CFI. Fantastic pilot and instructor. The worst CFI I
have ever had the misfortune of flying with was the chief CFI of a
school in the area. The guy had over 10,000 hours of dual, and was the
crappiest instructor I've ever seen. Mean, hyper-critical...just an
ass.

Much of it is about teaching style and 'fit'. I'm a CFI, and I work
very well with some students, some absolutely love me. I've had others
quit and go work with other CFIs because we didn't fit well. Nothing
personal...it was just that my teaching style didn't mesh well with
their learning style.

With something so individual as flight instruction (where else will you
and the instructor be the only people in the 'class' for 100 hours?),
fit often becomes more important than time, or even (to some degree)
piloting skills. It is *very* rare to find a CFI who is not a
proficient pilot. Having gone through at least 4 checkrides (including
at least one with a FAA-designated CFI examiner) pretty much guarantees
that they know how to fly.

But knowing how to teach is a different issue, and even beyond that is
being able to teach all different students effectively.

My advice about finding the 'right' CFI is similar to what some others
have posted. Ask around...talk to people who know them. Ask the CFI
about his or her teaching style, expectations. Fly with them a few
times...nothing wrong in changing CFIs. Most of us don't take it as an
insult or anything.

but relying on 'one' metric (whether it is hours of dual, total hours,
number of students passed, etc) is not a very good idea, IMO.

Cheers,

Cap

After 15 hours of instruction I got a new job and moved to the next
State. I had no contacts in the city, but I knew where I could find
knowledgeable local pilots: the local EAA chapter.

I found their website, called the membership contact, and was heartily
welcomed to a meeting. There I met a group of wonderful people who
gave me a wealth of information of the local aviation scene, and I was
ultimately directed to a great instructor.

My advice for those seeking a great CFI is to join your local EAA
chapter and tap into that knowledge base.

GWP

I tried that and the CFI I was given did not want anything to do with sport
pilots at all...NONE ZILCH NADA! HAHAHAHA I was amazed to find an EAA guy
so against the sport pilot rules.

Patrick
student SPL
aircraft structural mech

"greenwavepilot" wrote in message
ups.com...
After 15 hours of instruction I got a new job and moved to the next
State. I had no contacts in the city, but I knew where I could find
knowledgeable local pilots: the local EAA chapter.

I found their website, called the membership contact, and was heartily
welcomed to a meeting. There I met a group of wonderful people who
gave me a wealth of information of the local aviation scene, and I was
ultimately directed to a great instructor.

My advice for those seeking a great CFI is to join your local EAA
chapter and tap into that knowledge base.

GWP

On Mon, 8 Aug 2005 16:38:26 -0400, "W P Dixon"
wrote:

I tried that and the CFI I was given did not want anything to do with sport
pilots at all...NONE ZILCH NADA! HAHAHAHA I was amazed to find an EAA guy
so against the sport pilot rules.

Patrick
student SPL
aircraft structural mech

With the sport pilot license being so new, it would not surprise me at
all to find out that there are a lot of instructors out there that
have very little knowledge of the reqs. And because of their lack of
knowledge, they may resist teaching it because they are unfamiliar
with it. That is just human nature to resist something new. I will
be the first to admit that as an instructor (though not an active on
seeking students) I am not comfortable with it. I am a member of NAFI
and I have read several articles about it but because I have never had
a student or even anyone come to me, I would have to do a lot of
reading about it to make sure that I didn't misinterpret the regs so
not to do the student wrong.


Scott D.

Scott,
I can fully understand your reservations, the rules do get confusing and
criss cross alot. But this guy just had it in his mind that he didn't like
the rule period. It wasn't that he didn't understand , he just blatently
said sport pilot was a waste and he would not get involved. So I drive to
Ohio or wherever. I bet he would be amazed at the worthless sport pilot that
can slip an old Champ in for a landing when so many PPL holders won't
attempt a taildragger. I did find a local flight school that was willing to
train sport pilots but I am still waiting on them to get a sport plane. They
want a taildragger but insurance costs are holding them back. And you are so
right about change especially the aviation mindset.

Patrick
student SPL
aircraft structural mech

"Scott D." Spam Me Not wrote in message
...
On Mon, 8 Aug 2005 16:38:26 -0400, "W P Dixon"

With the sport pilot license being so new, it would not surprise me at
all to find out that there are a lot of instructors out there that
have very little knowledge of the reqs. And because of their lack of
knowledge, they may resist teaching it because they are unfamiliar
with it. That is just human nature to resist something new. I will
be the first to admit that as an instructor (though not an active on
seeking students) I am not comfortable with it. I am a member of NAFI
and I have read several articles about it but because I have never had
a student or even anyone come to me, I would have to do a lot of
reading about it to make sure that I didn't misinterpret the regs so
not to do the student wrong.


Scott D.

Y'All,
As a public school teacher of retarded children, I tried to convince them
that I was the best looking teacher they had ever had. By convincing them
of that, I could teach them anything.

Has worked for me in flight instructon, too.

gene whitt