Bad instructor on a Flight Review?

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BLong44

Filing Flight Plan
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Blong44
I recently scheduled a flight review to get current after being out of aviation for over a decade. The day of the flight review the instructor was 40 minutes late and didn't notify me he was running behind.

We completed the ground instruction and then headed out for the actual flight instruction. During this phase he said numerous times that he was doing things that he recommended I don't do myself but he was trying to save me time/cost. Examples: a rolling run up and staying in ground effect during a landing to avoid the extended taxing by landing further down the runway.

The worst experience I had during the flight was shortly after take up I had to adjust the plane for proper attitude and began a little sick to my stomach. I have not flown for a decade and was not used to the feeling yet. The flight instructor mentioned that I would have to get used to the feeling again. After that statement he took controls of the plane and without warning pulled the yolk all the way back and then slammed it all the way down. A severe climb and then a severe drop in attitude. The roller coaster effect was so violent the ashtrays, pieces of plastic and misc items in the plane flew up and hit the ceiling of the plane and landed everywhere. After that I began rather sick to my stomach and spent the rest of the flight just wanting to land and leave.

Should a flight instructor with a private pilot wanting to only become current and whom has not flown in over ten years act like this on intro flight?

Thanks
 
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No, but I must ask what did you do to make him hate you so much?
 
Would you say this warrants looking for a new flight instructor?
 
I would. If you cannot trust your instructor, and have no rapport with him, things can only go downhill.
 
This was my first and only flight with the instructor. He didn't know me will enough to like or hate me.
 
Wow. That's wrong. He didn't give you a copy of the FAA guide to an effective flight review and give you a chance to ease back in? I'd want to talk to his boss if he has one.

Ryan
 
Sounds terrible. I would definitely fire the CFI. The CFI works for you and should go at your pace and let you do what you need to do.

David


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That sounds nasty, and he is definitely due his marching orders.

My school just told me about a student, whom during his PPL got yelled at and even slapped by the examiner, and by all accounts he was a very fine student but just got a bit flustered by being yelled at. ( he passed by the way)

Not sure who this examiner thinks he is, but I told my instructor to advise him not to raise a hand or his voice to me during my check ride, or it will be a real short trip. :mad:

Little power trip I'm guessing, but no need to be unprofessional, and showing up late is just a sign of disrespect in my book
 
Who/where is the flight instructor? I'm due for a FR, I'll give him a ride he'll never forget...
 
Henning said:
Who/where is the flight instructor? I'm due for a FR, I'll give him a ride he'll never forget...
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I had the same thought. Can we come and watch? It should be fun.

Kinda reminds me of one of my instructors: I was a brand new pilot checking out in a 172 for the first time at a new airport. His demonstration? Hammerhead stall!

Should a flight instructor with a private pilot wanting to only become current and whom has not flown in over ten years act like this on intro flight?
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I can't imagine a justification for a flight instructor to act like that with any combination of pilot, experience, and recency.
 
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I am sorry that your BFR was so unpleasant. I occasionally have forgotten that my passengers might not be as excited as I am about seeing a stall (not hammerhead!) demonstrated. We pilots with strong stomachs need to be considerate of others!
 
A flying farmer routine by Henning?

Somebody get that man a GoPro or two, we could make a Pepsi commercial!
 
I think you already know the answers to your questions. Sorry you had such a bad experience.
 
I'd dump him. It's not like there aren't others to choose from.

I threatened to fire one on-the-spot during an IPC when he went and reset some functions in the GPS because that's the way HE flew. I had a rather stern conversation with him and passed the IPC just fine.

Also had an issue on my introductory flight many, many years ago where the CFI got chewed out by tower for doing a 180 on the runway after landing instead of using the taxiway - if that's the way he flew folks that trained with him, I could easily see him teaching bad habits. It was 10+ years later that I signed up at a different FBO for flight training.

That said, I find it most effective to have a conversation with the instructor beforehand about what each of us expects to accomplish during the lesson & set ground rules for the flight.
 
Oh, please, seriously, tell Henning who this guy is. That instructor is exactly the kind of instructor that needs to be sent fleeing from aviation. Tell us all who he is so that we can all do our best to prevent any other students from meeting up with him.
 
BLong44 said:
I recently scheduled a flight review to get current after being out of aviation for over a decade. The day of the flight review the instructor was 40 minutes late and didn't notify me he was running behind.

We completed the ground instruction and then headed out for the actual flight instruction. During this phase he said numerous times that he was doing things that he recommended I don't do myself but he was trying to save me time/cost. Examples: a rolling run up and staying in ground effect during a landing to avoid the extended taxing by landing further down the runway.

The worst experience I had during the flight was shortly after take up I had to adjust the plane for proper attitude and began a little sick to my stomach. I have not flown for a decade and was not used to the feeling yet. The flight instructor mentioned that I would have to get used to the feeling again. After that statement he took controls of the plane and without warning pulled the yolk all the way back and then slammed it all the way down. A severe climb and then a severe drop in attitude. The roller coaster effect was so violent the ashtrays, pieces of plastic and misc items in the plane flew up and hit the ceiling of the plane and landed everywhere. After that I began rather sick to my stomach and spent the rest of the flight just wanting to land and leave.

Should a flight instructor with a private pilot wanting to only become current and whom has not flown in over ten years act like this on intro flight?

Thanks
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I can maybe understand the late part or flying down the runway in ground effect(good practice for Oshkosh and crosswind controlling near the ground for me). The rest not so much. I was sick for the first week of six during training. My instructor took the controls when I ask and flew as smooth as possible(much smoother than I could at the time) back to the airport. Yep, I would find another CFI. Welcome back to this fun but expensive hobby. If you are close by and just want to go up for a fun flight to get back used to things, come on over. Perfect time of year here in a couple more weeks. KPMH.
 
I may be a little OCD about punctuality, but 40 minutes and no phone call or txt msg? unacceptable.
 
Blong44, if you let us know where you are, I'm certain that someone here can recommend to you a nearby instructor that will provide you with the valuable refresher training you need. How you were treated is not appropriate, and is about the complete opposite of how a flight review should be handled.
 
Sorry you had a bad experience. I'd expect a "welcome back" flight like this one would not result in a FR endorsement even without the shenanigans, because it's unlikely that one can step in after a decade's absence and perform adequately well.

So the first thing I'd do differently would be to adjust the student's expectations. Then the first flight would be much like an intro flight, with a review of the four fundamentals, ground reference, stalls - it would be a fairly comprehensive evaluation with no expectation of good performance - the point is to identify the areas that need work. Student would do all the flying unless a demonstration was requested.

Other advice is good - say where you are and you'll get recommendations for a different/better CFI.
 
Learn what you can from the guy and move on. Even if you have a signed-off flight review it doesn't preclude you from getting instruction elsewhere. As with any sort of personal service hiring getting recommendations is almost always the key to getting hiring good people.

I had a instructor who had bizarre ideas how to land a 172 while I was getting my FR once. I finally stopped listening to the clown and used the speeds out of the flight manual as I always had and had little further problem. My wife unfortunately kept trying to listen to this bone headed advice to use 70 knots and had problems getting the plane down on the runway.
 
TMetzinger said:
Sorry you had a bad experience. I'd expect a "welcome back" flight like this one would not result in a FR endorsement even without the shenanigans, because it's unlikely that one can step in after a decade's absence and perform adequately well.

So the first thing I'd do differently would be to adjust the student's expectations. Then the first flight would be much like an intro flight, with a review of the four fundamentals, ground reference, stalls - it would be a fairly comprehensive evaluation with no expectation of good performance - the point is to identify the areas that need work. Student would do all the flying unless a demonstration was requested.

Other advice is good - say where you are and you'll get recommendations for a different/better CFI.
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Just relearning how to talk on the radio, let alone fly and chew gum at the same time would be a challenge for me after 10 yrs. I think my last two FR's were an hour on the ground and an hour in the air, but then I average 45-50 hrs/yr.
 
flyingron said:
Learn what you can from the guy and move on. Even if you have a signed-off flight review it doesn't preclude you from getting instruction elsewhere. As with any sort of personal service hiring getting recommendations is almost always the key to getting hiring good people.

I had a instructor who had bizarre ideas how to land a 172 while I was getting my FR once. I finally stopped listening to the clown and used the speeds out of the flight manual as I always had and had little further problem. My wife unfortunately kept trying to listen to this bone headed advice to use 70 knots and had problems getting the plane down on the runway.
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I use 70 Kts in the -10. Our full gross stall speed with full flaps is 54 Kts. I was told 65 Kts in a 172S with a 33 Kt stall speed(i hope that speed is right-been a while). Looking back, jeez, no wonder I floated forever.
 
**** poor CFI for a flight review. His job was to let you be the PIC and be there to assist and answer questions. I would not go with him again if I were you.
 
For as many fails as there are on the CFI initial, it still doesn't seem to weed out the jerks.
 
denverpilot said:
For as many fails as there are on the CFI initial, it still doesn't seem to weed out the jerks.
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I have a quote saying partly that "half of the people in any profession don't care."

I think there is a lot of truth in that.
 
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