New CFI

Well, after lingering in these groups for a while and dreaming about the day
I could start flight lessons I think that day is finally here. I made a
trip out to the local FBO to figure out what exactly the next step is and
more specifically how I go about choosing a flight instructor. It turns out
that the experienced instructors all have pretty full schedules mainly
because of charter flights. There is at least one experienced CFI that
might have some openings. The manager of the FBO recommended that I talk to
a new CFI at the FBO. He is brand new. He just got his CFI a few months
ago and he is not instrument rated. I guess I am looking for any advice on
starting lessons with a "baby" CFI. Obvious concerns are 1. That he will be
hesitant to put his students up for a check ride because he will not want
them to fail. 2. I might miss out on the wisdom of a more experienced
pilot. 3. His lack of an instrument rating will make me miss out on some
wisdom in that area as well. Obviously I know that CFIs have to start with
a blank slate and I am not necessarily opposed to taking up lessons with
him. I'm just interested in any feedback.

Thanks!

Jeremy

My CFI was young enough to date my daughter, but I would not have approved a
marriage.

Your obvious concern #2 would be my biggest concern. Seasoned pilots will
be able to tell you more about the control, sounds and feel of the airplane,
weather, flying and life in general because of their seasoning.

My CFII is also young enough to date my daughter, but I would approve the
marriage because he is very intelligent. He may not have the experience of
a high hours pilot, but I respect his brains and am happy to have him as a
CFII.

I guess the ideal combination would be an instructor with lots of brains and
experience.

Kevin Dunlevy


"Mediacom" wrote in message
news:JmcNe.260850$x96.20579@attbi_s72...
Well, after lingering in these groups for a while and dreaming about the
day
I could start flight lessons I think that day is finally here. I made a
trip out to the local FBO to figure out what exactly the next step is and
more specifically how I go about choosing a flight instructor. It turns
out
that the experienced instructors all have pretty full schedules mainly
because of charter flights. There is at least one experienced CFI that
might have some openings. The manager of the FBO recommended that I talk
to
a new CFI at the FBO. He is brand new. He just got his CFI a few months
ago and he is not instrument rated. I guess I am looking for any advice
on
starting lessons with a "baby" CFI. Obvious concerns are 1. That he will
be
hesitant to put his students up for a check ride because he will not want
them to fail. 2. I might miss out on the wisdom of a more experienced
pilot. 3. His lack of an instrument rating will make me miss out on some
wisdom in that area as well. Obviously I know that CFIs have to start
with
a blank slate and I am not necessarily opposed to taking up lessons with
him. I'm just interested in any feedback.

Thanks!

Jeremy

"Kevin Dunlevy" wrote in message
...

My CFI was young enough to date my daughter, but I would not have approved
a
marriage.

In this century, the father "APPROVES" of a marriage? Good Lord, what
backwater part of the world do you live in?


My CFII is also young enough to date my daughter, but I would approve the
marriage because he is very intelligent. He may not have the experience
of
a high hours pilot, but I respect his brains and am happy to have him as a
CFII.


Well, hell, since it appears that you are more interested in marrying off
your daughter to a "qualified individual", why not find a willing CFII as
your son in law and hope that he is willing to give you a family discount on
your lessons?


Jim

"Mediacom" wrote in message
news:JmcNe.260850$x96.20579@attbi_s72...
[...] I guess I am looking for any advice on starting lessons with a
"baby" CFI. Obvious concerns are 1. That he will be hesitant to put his
students up for a check ride because he will not want them to fail. 2. I
might miss out on the wisdom of a more experienced pilot. 3. His lack of
an instrument rating will make me miss out on some wisdom in that area as
well. Obviously I know that CFIs have to start with a blank slate and I
am not necessarily opposed to taking up lessons with him. I'm just
interested in any feedback.

You have valid concerns. However, keep in mind that your primary
instructor, while they will be extremely important in setting habits you'll
keep with you the rest of your flying career, they are far from the only
instructor you'll ever fly with, and have an opportunity to learn from.

A risk with a more experienced instructor is that they may not know when to
quit offering "extras". There's a LOT of new concepts and things to learn
for a new pilot, and an experienced instructor could overwhelm that new
pilot with things that, while useful to know, aren't really relevant to
learning the fundamentals of flying an airplane.

As far as your specific concerns go: #1 is more an issue of professionalism,
and I haven't heard of it being a serious problem. At most flight schools,
the instructor (and especially a brand new instructor) is not the sole
arbiter of when you go for your check ride. So an instructor should, one
hopes, not fear of recommending a student too early because he has a chief
instructor to help him ensure that his determination is correct.

#2 might be a valid concern. However, a brand new instructor who has flown
with an experienced instructor may many of the same insights to offer. And
of course, as I pointed out above, as a fledgling pilot, you may not really
be ready to take on all of the little extra tidbits that might be offered by
a more experienced instructor.

#3 seems to me to be of the least concern. You'll have plenty of time to
learn about instrument flying if and when you train for your instrument
rating. There's very little that can be offered during primary training
that will make much sense to you. Near the very end, you might get to a
point where it does, but then you should be spending your time prepping for
the checkride.

One strong argument in favor of brand new instructors is that they are often
people who were students themselves, only recently. They have a lot more
empathy and recent experience for what you're going through and that MAY
translate into a more effective teaching process. No guarantees, but it's
always nice when the person you're sitting next to really understands what
you're going through, rather than it being a long distant memory.

It really does depend a lot on the instructor. Some new instructors are
there just for the hours, and they are looking forward to running off to
"the majors" as soon as they can. Others take the instructing job
seriously, and being new to the job have a lot more enthusiasm and energy
than many more experienced instructors.

And likewise, while it's a pretty safe bet that experienced instructors are
less likely to be building hours (they stuck around this long, why would
they leave? ), they may have less empathy for a primary student, and may
have lost some of the enjoyment of instructing. Or they could be great.
You never really know without either talking to previous students, or flying
with them, and this applies to all instructors regardless of experience.

Pete

Are you sure about the CFI not having an instrument rating. This doesn't
sound right, since a CFI has to have a Commercial rating, and with some
exceptions all commercial ratings have an instrument rating first.
Maybe what was meant is that the CFI has no rating for instrument
instruction. That would be no big deal for working on a private. The new
CFI will probably be getting a II rating soon.

My original CFII was old enough to be my daughter.
She was 23, I was 48. She was right out of college
and working toward an airline career.

She was very nice, and knowledgeable and stuff, but after about
39 hrs (and I still did not solo, because I couldn't land
consistently) I took a lesson with a more experienced CFII
at our Flying club, after we both agreed that maybe I should do
so. He basically noticed a few things to work on
right away and landings improved that day! I had 2 basic problems, speed
control in the pattern and thinking that landings were mechanical. Do this,
and wait kind of approach. When I mentioned to her
what he said and what we done, she just kinda shrugged her shoulders.
So at that point, I felt like I lost all confidence in her and I changed
instructors which ended up costing me a few more hrs, but in the end I feel that
I understand things a lot more clearly and learned how to fly and not just do
certain maneuvers.

My experience has shown me that anyone can teach you how to learn the basic
maneuvers. It takes a good teacher to help you string them together
and understand what is happening and why you do things to make you a pilot.

Oh by the way the young CFI is now an ATP with a feeder airline in Milwaukee.

For what it's worth, that was my experience.

Kevin Kubiak - PP-ASEL

One system that is used to help new CFI's is Mentoring by a more experienced
CFI. If this is practiced at your FBO and your new CFI has an experienced
CFI mentoring him, I wouldn't worry too much. Do the CFI's at this FBO work
together, exchange experience and cross check each others students? Or are
they all extremely protective of their students and their paychecks
unwilling to confer with each other for the benefit of the student? Try to
hire the collective knowledge and experience of the CFI's rather than just
one.
Jim

On Fri, 19 Aug 2005 03:29:45 GMT, "Mediacom"
wrote:

Well, after lingering in these groups for a while and dreaming about the day
I could start flight lessons I think that day is finally here. I made a
trip out to the local FBO to figure out what exactly the next step is and
more specifically how I go about choosing a flight instructor. It turns out
that the experienced instructors all have pretty full schedules mainly
because of charter flights. There is at least one experienced CFI that
might have some openings. The manager of the FBO recommended that I talk to
a new CFI at the FBO. He is brand new. He just got his CFI a few months
ago and he is not instrument rated. I guess I am looking for any advice on
starting lessons with a "baby" CFI. Obvious concerns are 1. That he will be
hesitant to put his students up for a check ride because he will not want
them to fail. 2. I might miss out on the wisdom of a more experienced
pilot. 3. His lack of an instrument rating will make me miss out on some
wisdom in that area as well. Obviously I know that CFIs have to start with
a blank slate and I am not necessarily opposed to taking up lessons with
him. I'm just interested in any feedback.

Thanks!

Jeremy


As has already been said it depends on the instructor. Why not give it
a try and if you're not happy you can change?

It was not until I'd virtually completed my PPL I found out I was only
the third pupil my instructor had taught! What was most important was
the guy in charge was always on the back of the instructor to make
sure I was progressing as he expected.

I got my PPL in Florida in about a month and felt I'd been well
trained. Subsequent comments from instructors, back in the UK, have
made nice remarks about my flying.

On one occasions, a couple of yearsafter my PPL, when descending in a
large hole in the clouds, I lost the horizon. The engine RPM increased
whilst I was turning and descending and whilst I was VFR it was
effectively IMC. Immediately I remembered my instructor saying to
always believe the instruments. I reduced power, levelled the wings
and brougt it back to level flight very quickly. The rest of the turn
was done cautiously, checking the instruments and was soon back to
VFR. It was all over with 30 seconds but the training worked :-)

Good luck!

On Fri, 19 Aug 2005 03:29:45 GMT, "Mediacom"
wrote:

Without repeating what most have said, I think that Peter is very
close to my feelings as well. And if you google this and R.A.Students
this has been hashed over time and time again.

I will say that you probably missunderstood about his instrument
rating. I bet you he has this, but not his CFII where he can teach
instruments. I didn't get me CFII until recently and that was 4 years
after I got my initial CFI and MEI. For me it was a financial reason.
I studied the market where I was teaching at and just couldnt see
spending alot of money on the flying, tests, and the practicle without
having a student base to use it on. If my memory serves me, I turned
down maybe 3 students that wanted me to teach them insturments.
The only reason I got it now is that the guy I fly for now who ownes a
Saratoga, a Duke, and partial King Air 300 wants to get his
instrument. So he let me use the Saratoga and he paid all my fees, so
it cost me nothing. It took me 2 weeks and 1 day to do it in and most
of that was waiting for a slot with the examiner. So my point is,
this new CFI could be a great instructor, so dont dismiss him just
because he doesnt have his CFII.


Scott D.

"BillJ" wrote in message
...

Are you sure about the CFI not having an instrument rating. This doesn't
sound right, since a CFI has to have a Commercial rating, and with some
exceptions all commercial ratings have an instrument rating first.

Where did you get that idea?

There's absolutely no relation between the Commercial certificate and the
Instrument-Airplane rating, other than some restrictions on what a
Commercial pilot may do without the Instrument rating.

Nothing about having a Commercial certificate in any way implies having an
Instrument rating.

Pete