NTSB recommendation on failed checkrides

[FN FAL]

Mattpilot hit the nail right on the head. You'd better be able to deal with and overcome the nervousness associated with checkrides because if you ever have to deal with an engine failure over hostile terrain at night in a single (or even a twin) you'd better not panic and know what to do.

Actually, these are two different things. Lots of people pass check rides and fail at the moment of truth...the NTSB files are full of this.

Lots of other people are nervous at checkrides and fly the plane very well.

You're talking apples and oranges and yes, I have been on both sides of that fence.

 

[mattpilot]

To tell you the truth, CFI's should have to have a minimum of 2,500 hours and at least an associate degree of any kind. This industry is ass backwards.

But how would one build time to get a job then? ARe you promoting PFT?

 

[FN FAL]

But how would one build time to get a job then? ARe you promoting PFT?

Negative...since when do you have to be a CFI to build time. It's like you are saying, "hey, I got 250 hours...I am a skygod, I think I'll teach people how to fly!"

If you want to build time and in that process of building time you sign people off for checkrides they shouldn't be going to, you should be sued untill your parents have to sell their Beemers to buy a Ford Focus.

Build time however you want...but realize the reason people are failing check ride after check ride, is because some dim wit keeps signing them off.

 

[PCL_128]

To tell you the truth, CFI's should have to have a minimum of 2,500 hours and at least an associate degree of any kind. This industry is ass backwards.

Well, I don't know about the degree since I happen to agree with pilotyip about that, but you're dead on about needing more experience to be an instructor. The idea that the pilots with the LEAST experience are teaching people how to fly is utterly ridiculous. How can we expect pilots that have barely flown actual IMC to teach instrument students? That's how things work now, and it makes no sense. Time building should be done by flying checks in the middle of the night in bad weather in an old Cessna 210. Using instructing to build time is a major fault in our system.

 

[FN FAL]

Well, I don't know about the degree since I happen to agree with pilotyip about that, but you're dead on about needing more experience to be an instructor. The idea that the pilots with the LEAST experience are teaching people how to fly is utterly ridiculous. How can we expect pilots that have barely flown actual IMC to teach instrument students? That's how things work now, and it makes no sense. Time building should be done by flying checks in the middle of the night in bad weather in an old Cessna 210. Using instructing to build time is a major fault in our system.

My posts are not meant to be a stint against instructors...belive me, I was thrown from the frying pan, into the fire myself. With 500 hours and my CFII, I was teaching at a 10 day instrument place and I had to be called into the office by the owner. Guess what he told me..."We are not training 'Brain Surgeons' here!"

I couldn't freaking believe it.

I never had a fail at that place, but my roomate had to duck the toss of the FAR/AIM once, during a "confrence". Seems that my roomie kept telling him things were coming along, but at the end of ten days they weren't. My roomie refused to sign the guy off, that resulted in conference between him, the owner and the student. Next thing you know, the student is throwing an FAR/AIM at him.

That's kind of funny, because I had a 10 day instrument student brandish a pistol on me...I gave him the owner's personal home phone number and told him to take it over there.

Let's take a poll, how many people here on the board who have CFI tickets, ever had a student brandish a pistol on them?

 

[PropsForward]

Yea...I think they should be able to go back and yank the certificates of any instructors that signed those guys off for check rides and then go back one level further and yank the certificates of the instructors that signed them off as well. Should nip the problem right in the bud.

Basically the rule could read something like this...

Student gets a fail on a check ride, he gets additional training and then a re-ride. Student then fails the re-ride and then sits out for 30 days. Student gets retrained then fails the third ride...so then his CFI gets his tickets pulled, along with whoever signed him off for his rides, as well as the examiner that did the questionable rides for both CFI's.

I can live with that type of set up. It would definitely cull the herd down a bit, plus there would be an incentive to give good training.

The South Carolina FSDO has this policy. If your student fails twice, it is an automatic 709 ride for the CFI. The problem is that everybody knows this so if a student fails, the instructor quits. The student finds another CFI and fails, that CFI quits. See the trend. You either got a student jumping around to different CFI's for his rating, or you have a student that makes a bonehead screwup, and is denied his second chance because the CFI does not want to take the risk of a 709 ride.

In the end everybody looses because you have bad CFI's dodging the bullet, and you have good students not getting a return on their invesment over a simple mistake. And a whole lot of grey in between.

 

[FJP3]

Never had a pistol brandished...I was one of those young flight instructors...I had my CFI at 250 and my II at 260.

I have made mistakes, have failed a few checkrides. Everyone does. That was like the owner/chief pilot at the FBO I work, who (had never had a student fail) well that streak ended because he didnt know he had a copy of an airworthiness cert in a plane. But, another examiner passed 3-4 PPL applicants in the same plane.

Simply said, some folks understand characteristics of flying. I have a degree that I can honestly use on a day to day basis...but I also make mistakes too. But the minute I became responsible for someone else, how they learn, and what they take with them...250 hours or 500...that didnt make a difference

Saying a CFI should have more time is a good arguement...but I think if you were gonna make the arguement it should be for the Commercial rating requirements higher

my .02

 

[mattpilot]

I agree with you FN FAL that instructors should be required to have more experience (edit: i myself suffered from it), but my point is, how would all these airline pilot wannabe's build time if they can't instruct? I'll pull a number out of my arse and say 80% of time building is via instructing for the low-time pilot. There are only so much night-freight jobs that will hire you with 250 hours, don't ya think?

 

[PropsForward]

The other problem is that this information is intended to root out severe offenders at the employers discretion. I have heard some employers not hire a person based on the number of traffic tickets he has. Could you imagine what an employer would do with this information. It would turn the industry into a one-strike and you're out. Not cool.

 

[FN FAL]

The other problem is that this information is intended to root out severe offenders at the employers discretion. I have heard some employers not hire a person based on the number of traffic tickets he has. Could you imagine what an employer would do with this information. It would turn the industry into a one-strike and you're out. Not cool.

I think you are close to hitting the nail on the head.