Positive CFI attributes

j1b3h0 said:
Great thread, Kimberly.

Did you ever feel like your intructor was not giving you his/her best? Like they weren't teaching from the heart? Like they somehow didn't want you to know what they knew?
A good instructor gives his all to his students, lends them every good book, willingly shares everything he knows with them, as he wants them to be better pilots than him, to be the instructor/mentor he never had. Good intructors are earnest and ethical and loyal: When they are working for you, you know they are working for you.

A good intructor lets students make mistakes, and gives them plenty of opportunities (practice) to right them. And, knows several ways to help them fix mistakes. Talented intructors help students learn to self-teach - how to see. A skilled instructor just knows how to provide the optimum amount of challenge to a student to enhance learning without overwhelming. It's always a good idea to end a lesson on a positive note, after a really nice landing rather than a bad one (not always possible). Your intructor should never give up on you.

No one should charge a student money to intruct a subject area for which the instructor isn't qualified. For instance, aerobatics or tailwheel. If the learning curve is steep for both instructor and student, the student shouldn't pay for that. In some cases, it can be dangerous, like learning just enough karate to get your butt kicked.

And speaking of money, an earlier poster thought flight intructors were expensive, as compared to other types of intruction. Really? Ever pay a golf or tennis pro for a lesson? I always thought airports are the wierdest places, economically speaking...hundreds of thousands of dollars of airplanes around, but no one within miles makes more than $25K/yr. Kinda makes a good instructor rare...
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LOL Jeanie is a CFI and started this thread, but thank you.
 
My CFI was great (is great, I still try to fly with him a couple of times a year) so this is more aimed at the flight schools: treat me like a customer (and a customer spending lots of money)!

I have seen some places that act like they are doing you a favor having you rent or train there. Not that they should rollover for the customer, but they need to remember, for some of us, flying is a hobby/recreation/pastime and we're not trying to become an airline pilot.

I think a healthy dose of customer service might go along way to help stop the demise of GA.....
 
Here's an example of rewording something to the student in hopes it makes more sense to them..... My new student, second flight today, was expressing trouble regarding trimming the plane. Saying "trim it so the pressure you feel is gone" or something like that wasn't working... So I took his hand showed him the difference between pressure and no pressure and then remembered he is a rancher/farmer/cowboy type (holding his hand and moving it reminded me of riding horses) I asked if he ever rode horses and he said yes so I told him to trim it so it feels she has a soft mouth. Tah dah, he got it.
Live and learn.
Thanks everyone for your responses it's interesting to me and goes along with what I think anyway, but it's good to hear.
The learning curve for a newish CFI is steep. It's been almost a year and I think I'm getting better.
 
Tracey said:
I came to the same conclusion-- after a female CFI that also yelled at me.
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Yelling is OK I guess but in my whole 9 months of training I only remember the real look of true anger on my calm primary CFI's face once. That was after my solo. He didn't watch so when a woman came over from a hangar and made a comment he freaked out as I described a crappy landing to him.... he YELLED that I should have gone around. Then I showed him the video I secretly took and he calmed down and said it looked OK.
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
Yelling is OK I guess but in my whole 9 months of training I only remember the real look of true anger on my calm primary CFI's face once. That was after my solo. He didn't watch so when a woman came over from a hangar and made a comment he freaked out as I described a crappy landing to him.... he YELLED that I should have gone around. Then I showed him the video I secretly took and he calmed down and said it looked OK.
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Mine yelled at me for watching youtube videos to try to learn some things. :dunno:
 
Tracey said:
Mine yelled at me for watching youtube videos to try to learn some things. :dunno:
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Some of them are real bad. As in instructional videos that give terrible advice. Remember the guy who had the video about getting flight following? Ask for a beacon code? Just be careful as a post solo student!

Nothing wrong with taking initiative and trying to learn, just make sure of your source . Search for "ask captain Scott" videos..
 
Yelling is a no no....

Although I remember saying NO rather loudly as a student dumped all of the flaps for a go around before adding throttle.... Fun times
 
Tracey said:
She did. Yes.
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WOW! :no::nono: Unacceptable

I can see warning you about quality concerns regarding what is posted and suggesting you discuss new insights ideas with me to make sure you haven't misunderstood something but yelling? Nope, not good
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
(User ID: fgcason)

- The best lesson and I do it on my own too: Sitting on the ramp, he blindfolded me and made me go through the emergency procedures by touch and memory, not a checklist, not with my eyes, and we did that until I got it right consistently. I can still find every individual switch on the panel of a Cherokee 180C just by reaching for it without looking. My hand knows where the switches are and my brain doesn't have to get involved which means I can think of other things like where to put down while my body tries to get the engine restarted.
http://www.pilotsofamerica.com/forum/showthread.php?t=42331
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Wow! Is your CFI a Jedi ? You better be sure Kimberly that you touching right things while blindfolded :D I can't tell how many people used similar blindfolded motor skill while shutting down perfectly working engines, accidentally cutting down rpm's or mixtures.

There is an useful acronym called DECIDE: Detect, Estimate, Choose, Identify, Do, Evaluate You better off by training efficient scanning techniques and be able to identify and verify the correct knob while you stressed.

What make you get excited you about your CFI right now may frustrate you when you become more educated in aviation sense.
 
sdflyer said:
Wow! Is your CFI a Jedi ? You better be sure Kimberly that you touching right things while blindfolded :D I can't tell how many people used similar blindfolded motor skill while shutting down perfectly working engines, accidentally cutting down rpm's or mixtures.

There is an useful acronym called DECIDE: Detect, Estimate, Choose, Identify, Do, Evaluate You better off by training efficient scanning techniques and be able to identify and verify the correct knob while you stressed.

What make you get excited you about your CFI right now may frustrate you when you become more educated in aviation sense.
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Did you see the User ID part? I said I was posting quotes from an old thread of mine. That was fgcason's story, not mine.
 
Jeanie said:
Yelling is a no no....

Although I remember saying NO rather loudly as a student dumped all of the flaps for a go around before adding throttle.... Fun times
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This "NO NO" involves self perceptional disorder which many CFI suffer while yelling loudly saying student "ge off the controls". :wink2: I actually know few CFI's who had to hit hand of their paralyzed/dead gripped students in order to get positive change of controls :D In fact, I doubt they ever flown with those students again
 
sdflyer said:
This "NO NO" involves self perceptional disorder which many CFI suffer while yelling loudly saying student "ge off the controls". :wink2: I actually know few CFI's who had to hit hand of their paralyzed/dead gripped students in order to get positive change of controls :D In fact, I doubt they ever flown with those students again
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A CFI told me once that he had to hit a student, hard, across her chest to get her to let go of the controls. He said that this happened a long time ago... it was either that or crash. :yikes:
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
Did you see the User ID part? I said I was posting quotes from an old thread of mine. That was fgcason's story, not mine.
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My bad.. although I merely responded to you post, so excuse me for putting your name in the context :nonod:
 
Tracey said:
A CFI told me once that he had to hit a student, hard, across her chest to get her to let go of the controls. He said that this happened a long time ago... it was either that or crash. :yikes:
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I actually did a little personal survey among CFIs on which part of the body must be hit in order to achieve a desirable results :) Surprisingly most of them suggested that students hands would be their first choice while I was thinking more about face since that were most boxers got knocked out :rolleyes:
 
That kind of yelling is skillful survival. Different from yelling because a student watched a you tube video or something else that doesn't threaten your life.

If I ever have a student need a hit or yell to save our lives you can believe I'll be very pro active.
 
Jeanie said:
That kind of yelling is skillful survival. Different from yelling because a student watched a you tube video or something else that doesn't threaten your life.

If I ever have a student need a hit or yell to save our lives you can believe I'll be very pro active.
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Oh i'm not doubting that! In context of survival yelling is pretty justified call :) However, yelling CFI due to youtube videos make me think about his/her re-evaluation by an aviation medical examiner (just to be sure) :lol:
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
From my early student pilot days, a thread about CFI's distracting you, some answers to your question (sort of):

(User ID: fgcason)

- The best lesson and I do it on my own too: Sitting on the ramp, he blindfolded me and made me go through the emergency procedures by touch and memory, not a checklist, not with my eyes, and we did that until I got it right consistently. I can still find every individual switch on the panel of a Cherokee 180C just by reaching for it without looking. My hand knows where the switches are and my brain doesn't have to get involved which means I can think of other things like where to put down while my body tries to get the engine restarted.

Thread here:

http://www.pilotsofamerica.com/forum/showthread.php?t=42331
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My father said that blindfolding was done to him in the Air Force.
 
Jeanie said:
Yelling is a no no....

Although I remember saying NO rather loudly as a student dumped all of the flaps for a go around before adding throttle.... Fun times
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Same thing happened to me on my first hour of dual given (insurance checkout for a certificated pilot....). I had the same reaction.

I've been yelled at in the airplane by a CFI and it did nothing but stress me out, so I try to be as calm and hands off as possible....Unless they're about to do something really dangerous like dump all the flaps on a go around.
 
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