Where are the CFIG's?

The advertisement for CFIG's recently posted, and the discussion it
spawned, made me realize something. I have yet to see a soaring club
that had enough CFIG's. I'm sure they're out there, but I bet they're
not the norm. Some have waiting lists to join if you lack a glider
rating. Some have given up on doing instruction at all. And some
limp along, depending on the good will of the few CFIG's they have to
work often, pitch in, and get the job done. Students get to fly once
a week if they're lucky.

Most clubs know they need more instructors. Some give instructors
special perks - reduced or eliminated club dues and/or initiation
fees, scheduling priority, maybe even free flight time. A few even
actively advertise. Most of the focus is on attracting those who are
already CFIG's. In my opinion, that's wrongheaded. Sure, it gets
quick results - but it doesn't fix the fundamental problem. You need
to plan for the long haul and grow your own instructors.

It starts with retention. When I speak of retention, I don't mean
someone who pays his club dues, comes out to do club duty, and flies
ten hours (or less) a year. I mean someone who is actively soaring,
developing skill and experience. Those things are necessary for
becoming an instructor. The FAA claims that you can instruct in
gliders with 25 total hours and 100 flights as PIC but we all know
better.

If there isn't a large base of experienced active pilots, then there
isn't a pool from which to draw CFIG's. It's really that simple. How
many experienced active soaring pilots do you know who got that way
flying circles around the home field? Right, none. Unless you want
to make glider ownership a prerequisite for becoming an instructor you
need to make XC in club ships not just theoretically possible, but
common and convenient. Anyway, who wants a CFIG with no XC
experience?

The next step is instructor development. This is going to sound like
sacrilege to some, but the club needs to encourage pilots to let
passengers fly - to the extent that the pilot is capable. That
happens two ways.

First, remove the roadblocks. Don't restrict pilots from flying from
the back seat - encourage it. I used to belong to a club that
required private pilots to have a special checkout for flying from the
back seat - in every make and model, and it had to be renewed every
year. It's probably too much to expect a club to trust the pilot's
judgment in deciding whether he needs instruction in flying from the
back or not (though of course that's the right way) but certainly one
back seat checkout is sufficient. If you must have recurrent
requirements for flying from the back seat, at least make them ones
that don't inconvenience the pilot. For example, requiring the BFR to
be flown from the back seat if the pilot wishes to retain back seat
flying privileges adds no cost or inconvenience. Remember, neither
the FAA nor the insurance company cares which seat the pilot flies
from.

Second, allow the pilots to work up to instructing. Some will never
be comfortable with letting a passenger fly, and that's fine. They're
not going to be instructors. But don't allow those people to project
their discomfort onto others. This is one of those areas where
individual temperament and aptitude counts for far more than total
time, and really is not a good place for rulemaking.

Some will start by allowing the passenger to fly at altitude
immediately after passing the checkride, while others take longer.
With time, they'll have him flying on tow. Maybe landing. Eventually
even taking off. That necessarily means that sometimes an ugly
looking landing will be made, and sometimes the glider will be way out
of position on tow. There's a fine line to walk here. Make sure the
pilot understands that he can hand off the controls but not the
responsibility, but also make sure he understands that when a
passenger is flying, he's only responsible for keeping things safe,
not necessarily pretty.

When you see a private pilot who is routinely out of position on tow,
making landings that look like last minute saves, and otherwise flying
sloppy, of course this is cause for concern. It's important to
understand that if the passenger is the one doing the flying, it's NOT
cause for concern. The pilot is exploring the limits of the envelope,
figuring out how far he can let the passenger go. Far better he do it
now, while he's paying for his own flight and thus feels no pressure
to let the passenger fly.

When you see someone who clearly enjoys letting passengers fly, keep
an eye on him. He's someone who will probably enjoy instructing. As
soon as his skills are up to it, you want to encourage him to work on
his ratings.

A logical first step is the AGI certificate. It costs about $200 to
get one (2 computer tests at $80 each, and 2 test prep books at $20
each) and half of that counts towards the CFIG. If you expect that he
will be a CFI-G within two years (no reason he shouldn't be) then
encourage him to take the CFI-G written at the same time. Same test
prep book covers both.

An AGI can take a lot of the workload off the CFIG's. He can do the
required 1 hour portion of the BFR. He can teach ground school and
sign them off for the written, and he can work with them on the areas
where they were found deficient and give that signoff as well. He can
give the endorsement that covers the assembly and disassembly of a
glider. And it gives him a taste of what it's like to teach in a more
formal setting, and may encourage him to continue. It may also
convince him he doesn't want to do this - and that's good too. You
don't want someone teaching who doesn't really want to be teaching.

The next necessary step is the commercial. There's really not a lot
of difference between the private and commercial checkrides. If he's
comfortable letting a passenger fly on tow, he will breeze through it
- assuming he can get the necessary instruction. Make sure he gets
it. Make sure he understands that it's OK to schedule a 2-seater and
an instructor for this, and that his need for instruction is no less
important than the need of the presolo student.

Some DE's require that the commercial be flown from the back seat.
After all, it's hard to give someone a good ride if he has to be
folded into the back of the glider. Few DE's will insist on the front
seat. Therefore, have him do the commercial from the back seat. If
he's letting people fly from the front seat it should be no hardship,
and it will make the CFIG ride a cakewalk.

Be proactive. It's not out of line to have a club officer (who needs
to be a CFIG) responsible for instructor development. It's not
unreasonable to ask him who he has in the pipeline. CFIG's are not
immortal. Some die, some get too old to fly, and some leave the club.
There always need to be new ones coming up.

Finally, make sure your potential CFIG understands that the weight of
the world does not immediately descend upon his shoulders the day he
gets his ticket. The big strength of the club instruction model is
this - the new CFIG doesn't have to go it alone. Make sure he
understands that there are more senior instructors available to him -
to discuss difficulties, to fly with his students, and most
importantly to calibrate his judgment. And make sure it's all true.

That means making sure that you have a chief instructor who is a
mentor to the junior instructors, not someone who spends his time
making rules, playing favorites, or being inaccessible. Chief
instructor is a leadership position. He need not be the best pilot
around, or even the best instructor. Of course he must be experienced
and competent, or he won't have the respect of the junior instructors,
but he must, above all, be a people person. He must be plesant to
work for, but able to accomplish the mission of the organization -
training the new crop of pilots and instructors. Remember, this isn't
a military organization - if he can't get buy-in from the junior
instructors and has to give orders on a regular basis, he is by
definition incompetent for the job. Find someone else. The great
thing is, you only need one.

There's not really a lot a club can do to make instructing attractive.
Getting the ratings takes time, money and effort. There's no money
in it (any financial incentives a club can come up with will be
trivial), no career advancement, it's hard work, and there's both
physical risk and legal liability. Those of us who do it always have
and always will do it for very intangible reasons - to share the joy
of flight with another, and to give something back to the sport that
gave so much to us.

But there sure is a lot a club can do to make it unattractive, and
convince the potential CFIG not to bother with getting his rating - or
maybe to get the rating and leave the club to instruct elsewhere.
Don't do those things.

Don't have the club instructors working more hours/days than the other
members who tow, cut grass, stage gliders, or perform other duties.
Here's a person who spent his own time and money to help the club -
extra work is no way to repay him. More to the point, it's a massive
disincentive to potential instructors.

The chief instructor must of necessity have some power over the junior
instructors, but don't allow that power to be arbitrary or absolute,
and be careful who you allow to be chief instructor. I can't say this
enough times - you need someone who is respected, diplomatic, and
pleasant to work for. It only takes one major blunder by the chief
instructor, even with cause, and most of the people who were
considering getting their CFIG will put it on hold. Anyone here want
to take an unpaid job working for an asshole? I know of one incident
where a chief instructor publicly fired a junior CFIG; it was YEARS
before anyone in that club got a CFIG rating.

In general - you can't do much to ignite a pilot's enthusiasm for
becoming an instructor, but you can do a whole lot to kill it. Don't.

When you fail to do the above - when you make rules left and right,
when you allow an asshole who happens to be a PSM (Powerful Senior
Member) to be chief instructor, when you make no effort do develop XC
in club ships and no effort to develop instructors, then you never
have enough. And then you resort to expedients.

The obvious one is to wait for CFIG's to join the club. This isn't
much of a plan. On average, you lose more to age, illness, and moves
than you gain from moves. If there is more than one operation in the
area, you might try to get more than your share by advertising and
offering financial incentives - no club dues, free flight time, maybe
some pittance paid for instruction. This is not the winning strategy
you might think. Most glider instructors are not in a financial
situation where such incentives make any real difference.

Plan B is to hope high hours power pilots (especially power CFI's)
join the club and get their CFIG's. This is also not the winning
strategy you might think. Who wants to be taught by someone who has
been flying gliders for 3 months? Sure, it's possible - a current and
proficient power CFI can join a club, solo in half a dozen flights,
get his private at 6 hours, and at exactly 15 hours in gliders can
become a CFI-G. What's more, he is probably safe. He can teach
aircraft handling - takeoff, tow, maneuvers, and landing. But he
can't teach soaring.

For a proficient and reasonably experienced fixed wing pilot, getting
a CFIG is laughably easy even if he only holds a private ticket in
airplanes. I took my initial commercial and CFI in a glider, and the
total instruction and practice time including both checkrides came out
to significantly less than 10 hours. The writtens and checkrides were
a cakewalk. And I can quite comfortably teach gliding. I even
trained a CFIG candidate once. But you don't want me teaching XC.
I've never even flown my gold distance.

Having a few instructors like that is not a big deal - XC experience
in excess of the silver distance (some would claim any XC experience)
is not particularly relevant to presolo training. In the short run,
it reduces instructor workload and/or makes instruction more
available, thus making recruitment of new members easier.

But if such instructors become the majority, a certain attitude begins
to permeate the flight training. Soaring opportunities are ignored in
training unless they are spectacular (and maybe even then) and the
soaring characteristics of the trainers are ignored as well. Maybe it
gets the students to solo (and maybe even the private certificate)
faster, and safety is not compromised, but they don't learn the skills
necessary to stay up in anything less than ideal conditions, and thus
lack the skills necessary to advance to XC. They fly circles around
the home field for a while and get bored. Some quit, others fly a few
hours a year and never progress. This is poor retention, and it means
there's no possibility of having a pool of experienced active pilots
from which instructors can be drawn.

And the vicious circle begins anew.

Michael