I've been flying this same airplane since 1989, have over 700 hours in it. There is nothing that I have not seen in it.
When is the last time that you intentionally spun a multi engine airplane? Unusual attitudes, not an issue in a 337.
Tell me, why would it take any longer to do a flight review, every flight regieme can be covered? Single engine, short, soft field, full stall series to include accellerated stalls. Anything longer simply pads the instructors wallet. Plain and simple.
This is a forum for regulation, and generally I try to confine my replies to the topic of legality. However, the above quoted statement is one of the most foolish and arrogant statements I've read on this site in some time.
Some years ago I flew for a company that owned three ag airplanes. The owners son had nearly fifteen thousand hours in them. One might suppose he knew them intimately enough to have an attitude like yours. The three airplanes were identical; he normally flew the blue one. One particular day, that airplane needed some maintenance, and he took the yellow airplane. I watched him take extra time in the runup area, extra time with the airplane, and then do a careful takeoff and conservative departure to the field to go spray. He'd flown each of the three airplanes for many thousands of hours.
I asked his father, an older and VERY experienced pilot, why he took so long in an airplane with which he was so obviouly familiar.
"Because he usually flies the blue airlplane." Came the reply. He went on to explain that each airplane has it's personality. The airplanes always operated close to the edge of their performance envelope with steep turns right to the stall buffet at 75', every sixty seconds throughout the day. Standard turns at each end of the field. This pilot recognized the value of reminding himself that even with his level of experience, he couldn't afford to think he knew it all, and he conservatively, carefully took the time to respect the subtle differences in seemingly identical aircraft.
You might take a lesson from him. His father surived a war, a number of combat missions, and over half a century of low level flying, to die peacefully in his sleep one night. The pilot in question suffered a heart attack years later...with an accident free history behind him. You may think you've got it all pegged...but your experience level doesn't now, and never will hold a candle to his. Or mine...and I take the same approach he did, in everything I fly.
Personally, I look forward to recurrent training. A year ago I went back to school for an airplane in which I already had a thousand hours. Certainly I could have taken the attitude that the facility had nothing to teach me, but I didn't. I decided I was going to wring every last bit of training out of them that I could. I spent time after class with instructors, took my meals and my evenings reviewing procedures, and then took my classmates through the procedures trainer for hours and hours so that we could each get everything possible from our time in school.
I received the same volumes for the same aircraft I have before...but I took copious quantities of notes, and filled my books with high-lighting, and packed the margin with notes and comments. I learned, and learned, and learned. We made it to the simulator, and every single session I found myself humbled as I learned more about the airplane, more about myself, more about my tendencies, bad habits, and limitations. I became discouraged, became elated, and no matter what the mood or the requirements at any given moment, I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of that training...as I always do.
You may feel you've got it pegged, you're dialed into your airplane after a whole seven hundred hours in it. I've had airplanes that I knew so intimately I wore them, and flew them into places you can't imagine, to do things that might give you nightmares. I never took them for granted, not then, not now...and an hour is hardly enough for a flight review in any airplane.
If you're not getting enough out of your flight review, look to yourself. Don't blame the instructor.
A few years ago, a company sent me to a recurrent training for their aircraft. When I showed up on the final evening to take the checkride, I was told all I need was a line flight; a takeoff, a landing, and something enroute. I pointed out that the employer was paying a lot of money for that training, and asked what we could do about it. We ended up spending a four hour session running through every procedure for the airplane, plus situational scenarios...wake turbulence, windshear, etc. The instructor was more than willing to provide the training, I was more than willing to take it. If you're not getting the training you want, then you need to look to yourself. The training relationship is a two way street.
Earlier this year I had a checkride for an operator, given in a small piston twin. I hadn't been in one for some time. I found the facility that the operator would be using, and arranged to spend a couple of hours with an instructor in the same type airplane, getting a review and some training. It cost me several hundred dollars. The young man who sat in the right seat had a fraction of the flight experience I do, much less certification than I do, and had been flying for a small percentage of the years I have. The money I spent on that flight, and on that instructor, was well worth the cost, well worth the time...and yes, I did learn something. I couldn't have compressed our session into an hour, and would have gone longer but for the schedule of the airplane and the instructor. The money I paid was some of the cheapest I've spent in a long time...how can I call it cost when I got so much in return?
I strongly suggest you take a long hard look at your own attitude and humble up, before it kills you one day. I say that in all sincerity upon a lifetime of experience...perishible experience which needs constant attention and recurrent training. None of us is above it...not even you.
