Good Hands n’ Feet vs. Operational Experience

[B208]

What about the Kobayashi Maru, eh?

Kirk was a God......

[Rockie]

B208

There’s just no nicer way to describe it, but to people in this business who actually know what they’re doing you are a limited resource.

[confusedalot]

Over time, a long time now, I have been judged at one end of the goalpost as really good, and at the other, really bad. So it is widely subjective, and sadly, sometimes good old office politics play a role in the assessment when it should not. Not always and not alot, but it does happen.

I've learned quite a bit as a 300 hour instructor, a 1000 hour piston twin pilot, a 5000 hour offstrip pilot, a 6000 hour commuter turboprop pilot, and a fancy pantsy big jet pilot.

All experience is different, but it is all good. Discouraged to see that so many feel the need to pidgeonhole into black and white, good or bad, operators.

[B208]

B208

There’s just no nicer way to describe it, but to people in this business who actually know what they’re doing you are a limited resource.

Rockie,
It would appear that we have, once again, reached the point in the discussion where your debating skills are no longer up to the task and you resort to name calling. This is most likely why more and more of your posts are getting zapped on here of late.

You are right. I am a limited resource. So far this year I have turned away five requests, (see, precision of speech), for my services in both flight instruction and curriculum design. The truth is that I'm running flat out and I'm having to choose between doing what I like and spending time with my family.

Given that we are trading personal opinions of each other, I will offer you my (admittedly subjective) opinion of you. You seem to have a very brittle sense of self esteem; any implication that you could be wrong on even the most trivial of matters spurs you on to efforts which are simply out of proportion to the importance of the subject at hand. You are a narcissist; you hold forth on matters where you have limited experience and refuse to accept the wisdom of people who are trained experts in the said areas. This makes you the most dangerous kind of fool; You are a fool that thinks you are wise.

With that, I will give you the last word. All the fun has gone out of baiting you and watching you run around. I will leave you with the following bit of advice. Stop obsessing with Trump; it's starting to make people wonder if you are stable.

[C.W.E.]

Great post B208.

[mixturerich]

So most of you are saying a 900 hr ‘ho driver automatically has good hands n feet and thus is better than the 900 instructor? Seems to be a lot of disagreement on this.

[Rockie]

B208

There’s just no nicer way to describe it, but to people in this business who actually know what they’re doing you are a limited resource.

I should clarify, I was referring to the industry beyond the aircraft circuit. Outside of that a crew is faced with innumerable decisions and cirumstances having to do with weather, aircraft component servicability and MEL, high density airports, schedule, personel, passenger, medical, and so on and so on. They also deal with human factors operating 24/7/365 working with people they know, or have never met before in their life. It's complicated and challenging.

Experience is just one of the things that brings you the essential knowledge to safely navigate all the hazards present in this extremely dynamic and evolving industry. As I said earlier, both manual flying skills and experience, and so much more are equally important.

No disrespect intended B208, I'm sure you produce very fine powerpoints on how to do steep turns and you fulfill an essential service doing so. Keep up the good work.

[Squaretail]

Personally the discussions on pilot A vs Pilot B are sort of pointless, since almost never, unless one could rig the circumstances are you going to be able to compare such fictitious people who would also adhere to the stereotypes presented. Its becoming my experience that nothing that a pilot presents him or herself as on paper is going to be representative of how they are actually going to perform. So 900 hour guy doing this vs 900 hour guy doing that is simply a moot point. You can take two guys with identical time experience and find two wildly different pilots, to guys who impress you all around and guys who make you wonder how on earth they survived that many hours in an airplane.

[confusedalot]

B208

There’s just no nicer way to describe it, but to people in this business who actually know what they’re doing you are a limited resource.

I should clarify, I was referring to the industry beyond the aircraft circuit. Outside of that a crew is faced with innumerable decisions and cirumstances having to do with weather, aircraft component servicability and MEL, high density airports, schedule, personel, passenger, medical, and so on and so on. They also deal with human factors operating 24/7/365 working with people they know, or have never met before in their life. It's complicated and challenging.

Experience is just one of the things that brings you the essential knowledge to safely navigate all the hazards present in this extremely dynamic and evolving industry. As I said earlier, both manual flying skills and experience, and so much more are equally important.

No disrespect intended B208, I'm sure you produce very fine powerpoints on how to do steep turns and you fulfill an essential service doing so. Keep up the good work.

I did all of that, yet I am nothing more than one mere number out of billions of homo sapiens on the planet. Started out in a cessna 150 like everyone else.

[C.W.E.]

No disrespect intended B208, I'm sure you produce very fine powerpoints on how to do steep turns and you fulfill an essential service doing so. Keep up the good work.

You should bookmark this B208 and read it when you feel discouraged with your lowly position in aviation.

Not many people here get such support from one of aviation s true sky Gods.

I should clarify, I was referring to the industry beyond the aircraft circuit. Outside of that a crew is faced with innumerable decisions and cirumstances having to do with weather, aircraft component servicability and MEL, high density airports, schedule, personel, passenger, medical, and so on and so on. They also deal with human factors operating 24/7/365 working with people they know, or have never met before in their life. It's complicated and challenging.

Just reading that long list of almost superhuman challenges people like Rockie have overcame makes me stand in utter awe of someone that talented.

And you, you lucky bast.rd got a personal message of support from him.

It is inspirational to say the least.

[gwagen]

I’m not a flight instructor or a sky god.

I’ve no opinion if the ho driver or instructor is better. But here is a snap shot of my local experience.

I am well placed on the sidelines of a local FTU to observe the quality of instructors today.

Within the last year I’ve seen 6 or 7 class IV come and go. Most left due to job opportunities with Georgian, Jazz, Wasaya and similar.

All had somehwhere between 600-800 hours of experience.

Two so far have been skilled and needed very little remedial training before being able to work with new students.

The rest however ranged from basic PPL abilities to completely unable to safely operate an aircraft in the most basic parameters and should be barred from ever flying again.

And these people have instructor ratings!!!!!

I had the misfortune to be in the back seat of a 172 with two of these instructors up front. During the initial climb out both instructors became engaged in trying to operate the GPS equipment , trying to set a course to the home field. A route that could be flown visually by most post solo students. But they were unable to fly, despite having just flown from there.....

Not once but twice was the stall horn thoroughly sounded, I was completely shocked. There is no excuse for two supposedly competent instructors to loose awareness to the point that the stall warning is sounding on a climbout at low altitude over completely inhospitable terrain. Twice!

[confusedalot]

Holy shit, thanks for the heads up on the above post. Hard for a simpleton such as myself who actually had zero issues for a total of 39 years to comprehend this sort of thing. Flying is easy, as long as you use common sense.

Totally confused.

[youhavecontrol]

Two so far have been skilled and needed very little remedial training before being able to work with new students.

Thoughts:
A) Where on earth are they hiring instructors from? Have they learned their lesson yet and hired from somewhere else?
B) Who's the Transport Canada examiner that's dropped the ball on filtering-out these instructor candidates?

[rookiepilot]

Dependence and fixation on electronics is out of hand.
Degrades situational awareness.

I've seen VFR flights with THREE screen devices that had to be programmed first. Or in the air.

Turn it off! Look out the window.

If I was instructing I would not allow GPS devices to be used for most of the PPL.

[valleyboy]

It's simple -- it's too easy to get an instructor's rating, it brings to mind the phrase "babies having babies" - instructing should be a career and paid well not a conduit to build time, which until recently was dismissed as next to useless. In the past looking for a job with instructor time would close more doors than open.

[rookiepilot]

Here's a thought, though unenforceable:

Make it mandatory the 300 NM CC for the CPL, is to be flown at 2000 AGL max, and without the aid of any GPS device. Obviously on the honour system.

Would learn more this way, yes?

Instructors should be obviously fluent in programming a Garmin. But should also have zero issues with DR over a long CC.