Rookie50 wrote: There were definately a few days I wanted to quit, during early PPL. Nothing worked. Write that day off and come back another day. And I think I was a tad slow to solo, too, at 11 or 12 hours. A few hours here or there isn't going to matter.
I honestly just about gave up. I tried to write the bad days off but then next day it would be the same thing. I started getting frustrated and felt like i was just wasting money. Felt like i was the only one that was wasting all this time in the circuit trying to land while everyone else was moving out of the circuit and doing other training. But I'm glad my instructor encouraged me to keep going. But i guess you gotta just know when its time to say this isn't for me and just stop wasting money. I think if i got to 50 hours without solo i would be done with flying. Flying isn't for everyone.
Also before I started training i thought i was gonna be the best pilot and solo with like 3 hours and impress my instructor because I live and breath aviation. Haha its a very humbling moment when you struggle and you get a huge dent in your ego. But I'm glad that i chose to accept that I suck at flying right now and I will improve slowly with more hours. Instead of saying "I am a great pilot my instructor or the A/C just sucks"
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Last edited by danishroy on Thu Oct 15, 2015 10:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Strega wrote:
Soo what your saying is if all the flight schools in Canada "fired" the shitty students, we would then, only have good pilots?
Actually yes. If the gatekeepers in the system performed their functions then people would just not get through. Especially when it comes to the higher ratings. I can accept that a person of mediocre performance might get through the PPL or get a RPP, but may of those shouldn't be getting through CPL training especially when they're horribly ill equipped for it, much less getting instrument ratings and instructor ratings which I feel are actually the two key places where lots of students should have been "fired" as opposed to them brute force getting through the system.
Where and when did I say shitty students should actually become licensed?
What other reason could there be for flying with students and taking their money with no expectation of them progressing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that usually called "milking students" and what everyone's constantly up in arms over?
Perhaps we need to fire the examiners that are passing the cruddy pilots...
That's been a core part of my material for a long time if you've been paying attention.
Examiners aren't in the role (and aren't supposed to be in the role) of making arbitrary decisions about who gets a CPL. There are objective criteria, which if met on the day of testing, get the student a pass. It's not a character assessment or a guarantee of future skill.
If you want it different tell Lisa Rait to change the testing system; don't blame the examiners.
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DId you hear the one about the jurisprudence fetishist? He got off on a technicality.
There are objective criteria, which if met on the day of testing, get the student a pass.
I have extreme doubts that this is happening in many cases, but rather that criteria are not met, yet a pass is still issued.
In some cases a pilot's ability has been so poor, and a flight test so recent (in one case literally the day before) that aside from pure luck one wonders how its possible the criteria could have possibly been met.
photofly wrote:Perhaps flight tests should be recorded on video - gopros are cheap enough.
Perhaps, but I think it would also be worth while to have some of the test criteria reviewed. One should also be limited on how many times one can fail such test - and that feeling hurting language should be used rather than the current "partial pass" euphemism. But that's just my opinion on the subject. I do get the feeling that there is some brute forcing the flight tests and written tests. In other words keep making attempts until one gets through. The old million monkeys on a million flight tests thing. I do know that I've heard of a lot of flight instructing going on during tests which shouldn't be the case.
Depends on how much self respect you have. If your price is that low, well then fill your boots.
I have plenty... and I will happily take a fools money.
Casinos do this all the time.... I dont understand why you would "fire" a student for being crummy...
Well, it depends on your level of professionalism. If you see yourself as a member of a profession, and you have respect for your students and peers, there will come a point when you realize that you are not capable of providing the service being sought; producing a competent pilot that you could consider your peer. At this point a professional realizes they have reached the limits of their abilities and takes action to ameliorate the situation, (new instructor or explain to the student that aviation is not for them). A used car salesman continues to milk the student.
In answer to the original question, I've never fired a student, but I have sat a few down and told them they had limited aptitude and that they may want to consider another path. They both opted to continue.
"I'd wager that everyone who ends up being good at flying has days where you get mad at yourself and are really unhappy with one's own performance. The consistent feature of students who do poorly are those who are perfectly happy with their own poor performance. You don't get better if you don't feel you need to be."
Sometimes it just takes longer for some people to attain the skills, but when they do they really do!
Gabby Gabreski was the top American fighter ace of World War 2 and flew jets in Korea.
In 1938, during his first year at Notre Dame, Gabreski developed an interest in flying. He took lessons in a Taylor Cub and accumulated six hours of flight time. However, his autobiography indicates, he struggled to fly smoothly and did not solo, having been advised by his instructor Homer Stockert that he did not "have the touch to be a pilot".
TheNorthman wrote:Sometimes it just takes longer for some people to attain the skills, but when they do they really do!
Gabby Gabreski was the top American fighter ace of World War 2 and flew jets in Korea.
In 1938, during his first year at Notre Dame, Gabreski developed an interest in flying. He took lessons in a Taylor Cub and accumulated six hours of flight time. However, his autobiography indicates, he struggled to fly smoothly and did not solo, having been advised by his instructor Homer Stockert that he did not "have the touch to be a pilot".
That's just proof that there's been bad instructors from way back, contrary to popular belief. Incidentally, most of the worst instructors I know have "fired" way more students (usually by several orders of magnitude) than I have over their somewhat shorter instructing careers.
I don't really believe that Instructors should be "gatekeepers" of the aviation community, nor should they be the arbiters as to who has the capability or not. Simply do the actual instructor job and things take care of themselves.
If a student is struggling, your job is to identify the weaknesses and address them appropriately with the student. Provide a proper analysis and the appropriate actions and training to address them. Don't let them progress unless they have adequately mastered the current skill. The student then decides if and when to call it quits. If they choose to continue and "brute force" it, who's to say they won't succeed once they clear the hurdle(s)?
It's really fairly simple. And if you're going to argue that many instructors aren't capable or aren't doing their actual job, then why would you suggest that they take on a much more difficult (and almost totally subjective) assignment of somehow being able to decide who will or won't make a good pilot?
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Being stupid around airplanes is a capital offence and nature is a hanging judge!
“It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.”
Mark Twain
I think one of the main issues in regard to identifying and correcting weaknesses, is that instructional technique plays a role in how this occurs.
Not a lot of people are willing to own up to a mistake anymore (be it a student taking ownership of a cockup, or an instructor). So, figuring out who is "to blame" is tough. How often do you hear students who have been sent out on solo air work flights, come back and say "that was a great flight - no issues at all". And then they go dual on the next run, and have an absolute nightmare.
Students look at progress based on an assessment they make, looking at their peers progress (which is a pretty piss poor way of assessing things - because everyone lies), and by looking at the FTM and the boxes in their PTR.
What students don't always realize, is that instructors have Lesson Plans, which progress through the exercises, building from easy to difficult, known to unknown, etc.
When your student hits a performance plateau, sometimes the smartest thing to do is take a step backwards and repeat a somewhat more basic lesson. Oftentimes students get caught up in moving forward (and instructors are keen to get 'er done as well), that they fail to adequately learn a skill or a manoeuvre. So, step back, do that flight over - but don't necessarily tell your student that you are demoting them and going back to do something over - just change it up. A review flight is a good thing from time to time.
I tried to fire a few, cfi wouldnt let me, passed them off to another instructor, they eventually stopped coming or went to another school, you would think inconsistency at ~75 hours without a first solo has to take a toll on a person's brain
