Question on choosing a flight instructor

[Lead Sled]

Go with experience - ya can't teach what ya don't know. When it comes to experience, there's a HUGE difference between 1 hour of experience repeated 3000 times and 3000 hours of experience. Chose your instructor accordingly.

'Sled

 

[FN FAL]

Go with experience - ya can't teach what ya don't know. When it comes to experience, there's a HUGE difference between 1 hour of experience repeated 3000 times and 3000 hours of experience. Chose your instructor accordingly.

'Sled

Yes, but you do have to give the guys right of school credit. They will be eager to work with you and they will have recent book knowledge...they just won't have much experience.

It could be a crap shoot either way with the time/experience thing. You could find an older and more experienced instructor that has both a love and a knack for instructing as well.

It's a tough call. I only had about 500TT and I really had a blast teaching 10 day instrument. I don't know if I would have the same enthusiasm now...maybe I could.

 

[Lead Sled]

Yes, but you do have to give the guys right of school credit. They will be eager to work with you and they will have recent book knowledge...they just won't have much experience.

It could be a crap shoot either way with the time/experience thing. You could find an older and more experienced instructor that has both a love and a knack for instructing as well.

It's a tough call. I only had about 500TT and I really had a blast teaching 10 day instrument. I don't know if I would have the same enthusiasm now...maybe I could.

You're exactly right. However, the bottom line is still this - When it comes to the quality of your flight training, YOUR FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR IS THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR IN DETERMINING THE QUALITY OF YOUR FLIGHT TRAINING. PERIOD. It doesn't matter whether you select an Part 141 "Approved" or Part 61 "Non-Approved" flight school or use a "freelance" flight instructor, the quality of your training will be largely determined by individual flight instructor's skills, abilities, experience and knowledge. The best flight school facilities, training curriculum or the newest, best equipped training aircraft can not compensate for a mediocre flight instructor. Aeronautical colleges and universities certainly have not cornered the market on good instructors - they are where you find them. In fact, because of the nature of the beast, it is often very difficult to find flight instructors with any significant amount of meaningful "real world" experience in those aeronautical colleges and universities. Think about it. One of the "advantages" of doing your flight training in one of these schools is that once you receive your CFI you too can be an instructor at the school to build time quickly and (eventually) move on to bigger and better things. It actually smacks of "the blind leading the blind". You can't teach what you don't know.

As far as experience goes, like I said, there is a big difference between 3,000 hours of experience and 1 hour of experience repeated 3,000 times. CFI's tend to fall into the latter category. It's not that 500 hour commercial, instrument, CFIs don't have a lot to contribute. They certainly do. Many of them, who are active CFIs, can fly circles around us when it comes to specific maneuvers that they might be teaching and performing on a daily basis and we might not have done for months or years.

The issue is one of depth, not breath of knowledge. Remember, like I said earlier, you can't teach what you don't know. This is where you reap the rewards of diligently looking for that "golden CFI", the person who is that special combination of effective teacher and has the background and experience to go with it. Instructors like that aren't under every rock, they aren't at every university or FBO, but they are out there - you have to look for them.

'Sled

 

[cfi on the fly]

I thought about the question of who makes the best instructor quite a bit as I was instructing. When I first began instructing I was learning just as much as my students were...no amount of flight training for the cfi rating can really prepare you for what your going to face with students. Was I the best thing for my students during the first two hundred hours of dual given? Probably not. But I was very enthusiastic, eager to prove myself, very prepared and willing to do anything for my students...which may have made up for the lack of wisdom and un-book related knowledge that only comes with experience. For the next three hundred hours of dual given, I felt like I really had something to offer and was probably as good an instructor as any. After 7-8 hundred hours of dual given I found that I wasn't as motivated as I once was and found myself asking what was next. At this point I knew it was time to move on and gain more experience doing something else.

So what Im saying is that in my experience, the midtime instructor is probably the best thing going. He has some valuable experience to give and knows how to best share that experience. I know that there are people out there that have been instructing for thousands of hours and have a real passion for it even after all that time. Those would also be great guys to get as instructors, but they are pretty hard to find. Good luck