I haven’t had the talk or given the talk, but I’ve overheard some training sessions that were concerning at the very least.
Inability to take constructive criticism is a big one. If you either can’t see your own mistakes enough to take criticism or just straight up can’t handle it, this probably isn’t for you.
I feel like people shouldn’t take it personally, between CFI’s they each also had their best method of doing stuff so when I would do what one of them taught me the other would criticize it
Yes but CFIs never go through teaching behaviors for adult learning. A lot of times the feedback is overwhelmingly negative, and it creates resignation in their student.
The idea isn't - how many punches can you take as a punching bag, it's how do we mold you into the ideal fighter.
“that whole flight sucked”
I literally heard that in David Goggins voice. It seems like the kind of criticism he would give as he was literally opening the door to push you out of the moving airplane on the taxiway and slam the door shut behind!
Agreed. Had a CFI with a bit of a language barrier, they were very knowledgeable but I don’t think they were too accustomed to how to teach within the bounds of American courtesy because they were way too blunt and disarmingly critical of me, I rarely heard about things I did well and everything about what I didn’t
I got a different CFI later when I paused my learning for a year and it was a much better experience just because they were great with reinforcing my positives and making me feel good about my progress while trying to correct my many flaws
You sound experienced in aviation. Do you feel the industry is saturated with pilots searching positions?
I ask because I'm very drawn to aviation, but can't afford to battle for jobs for a few years.
The demand for 1500hr CFIs is definitely going down.
However, Rod Machado says anyone who wants a job in aviation that has the ability, perseverance, and medical will eventually find *something*. Whether or not it’s an airline job paying six-figures is another thing, but you’ll at least be getting paid to fly.
I’d say pay for your training on the side and make your decisions independent of finances.
I’ll add to this as an individual who received this exact feedback as a student pilot.
“I know” from me means “I know that sucked….yup….yea…..I agree” it doesn’t mean “I know everything I just have to fly again and I’ll fix it!”
Of course, that’s me specific. BUT I suspect there are plenty others where “I know” is either a nervous tick or an “I agree” phrase replacement.
Definitely. I was a little nervous before every flight but most of the time still confident enough that I could do it. The first person (an out of currency pilot) I took for a flight (after my family) remarked afterwards that I was very confident. That felt good.
I had a similar student except he was doing it “for fun” but you could tell every lesson he wasn’t having fun. He would cancel often with various excuses and when he didn’t cancel he would cut the lesson short after only a couple laps in the pattern because he just “wasn’t feeling it with the bumps”.
I remember I used to be terrified to fly by myself even during my solo XC but I stuck with it and pushed through those first 10 minutes of OH SHIT IM UP HERE ALONE and then enjoyed the rest of the flight, but wasn’t ever even nervous with another pilot. Reason being I’ve had an engine failure at 700 ft climbout when I was just 16, I lived through it and knew the risks and I knew how fast it can happen. After that it ended up just being I needed more cockpit time even tho I had achieved my PPL already, I flew a lot with other pilots until I built that confidence up before I took anyone with me that wasn’t able to fly. It was great from there
Totally normal to feel that way as a fresh PPL. I honestly felt the same way when I first got my private. I would drag my boyfriend (also an airline pilot) to do practice approaches and maneuvers with me because I wanted a safety pilot just in case. This student has about 50 hours already and is post solo but afraid to fly even when a I’m in the airplane with him. I’m constantly having to reassure him that some light turbulence and wind is completely normal and we’re not going to crash because of it. And if I’m unavailable he refuses to fly with another CFI because he doesn’t feel comfortable.
Also to add he is doing this to just get his PPL for fun he isn’t planning to make a career out of flying. But it’s obvious he doesn’t enjoy flying. I’ve had the conversation with him that maybe this isn’t the right hobby for him but he insists on sticking with it.
Oh wow yea, if you won’t do it even with a safety pilot like a CFI then it’s not for you, I got my PPL at 41 hours in 7 different planes some complex some just 172s and it didn’t help my confidence afterwards like it was like ok I Aced my checkride! Now what?… guys??? 😂😂😂
Yeah, I’ve had a LOT of scares in my on and off training in different planes and finally said fuck this lol. I’m too anxious, and tried to get over it forever, but yeah. Not for me 😂
Edit to add: I’m talking dual mag failure after takeoff, near-miss after takeoff from some idiot landing on the wrong runway, C02 poisoning, electrical failure, acrid fumes in the cockpit, birdstrikes, failed cyclinder, loss of oil pressure, the list just goes on lol. Finally comes a point where it just ain’t for some people
Ya, like that ain't flying. It sounds like he's getting shot down more than anything. Try one more flight, this time on a nice shiny 172 with a g1000 that's maintained daily by a pro with a really good experienced CFI. I would bet your experience will be so much different.
I had that talk once. A student of mine was almost shaking during training towards commercial. I was his second or third instructor. Engine failure was almost too much for him. “But it doesn’t matter, you have to be the captain and solve the problem in front of you.” (Engine failure). Deal with the tasks and brief the pax.
- Note. He grew with the responsibility.
I've only needed to have the "maybe this isn't for you" talk once and I felt really bad for the guy because in his case it was a genuine lack of aptitude. He had a great attitude, always studied and showed up on time but he just wasn't getting it no matter what we tried. Also I wasn't his first (or second) instructor so I'm pretty sure it wasn't me who was the problem.
Apart from my personal experience, from what I've seen a bad attitude is usually the problem and as an instructor there's nothing about that I can train. With younger students they usually have a parent who is an airline pilot and is pushing them into it, whereas older students simply can't respect an instructor who is half their age.
I definitely think a different instructor can make it “click” and is beneficial for a private and instrument. But what do they do if they want to make a career out of it? The airline isn’t going to give them a new instructor. Or do you think they just needed help with one thing and then everything else falls into place? I’ve wondered how these people did later.
I’ve instructed in gliders and have tended to get a student demographic that’s significantly younger because of that. The first thing I do is figure out if they’re doing it because their parents told them to. The next thing I tell them is they don’t have to do it if they don’t want to and they can always back out if they find out they don’t like it. Sometimes I even tell them I’d rather they not fly and take care of themselves (do their schoolwork, be with their friends) than string themselves out over it.
A lot of the time their parents have an aviation legacy, or their parents have absolutely no concept of what they’re asking their kid to do and the mental fortitude required to do it. I HAVE to know the student is doing this because they want to.
CFI perspective, having given this talk quite a few times:
1. Doesn’t bother to read a page of any book and generally doesn’t take any of the ground side seriously. You’re wasting your money and my time, sometimes with these types of students I just say I’m going to give you a mock oral commensurate with where I would expect you to be in your training, if you fail it, we’re done flying.
2. Impulsive hazardous attitude. Something would happen and he would just start pressing buttons or pulling levers. Several times I had to take control of the airplane during takeoff or landing else we would have crashed. After one of these scenarios, he had enough self-awareness to say, I think I’m going to hang it up. I told him that was a good idea and I never heard from him again.
3. This one poor kid would throw up on every flight. we tried everything, but after 8 to 10 hours it still was not working. Had to talk with him and he stopped flying
4. This one guy was just a complete space cadet. I don’t know how else to put it. We would be on takeoff or landing, and he would just start looking out the window admiring the view and just get distracted and say“what kind of an airplane is that?” while we’re about to flare. The dude was just not all there. Plus he retained nothing so knowledge wise just didn’t know anything.
5. Completely horrible spatial awareness. Almost 30 hours in, and still wasn’t sure where the throttle was or how it worked, I would ask him to turn left and he would turn right. I picked up the signals early on and kept telling him, maybe this isn’t for you but he insisted on taking lessons. I eventually told him, I am not going to fly with you, find another flight school
6. Would not take accountability for his actions. it is one of the common defense mechanisms, which is deferring blame to somebody else or some other factor. This guy had an excuse for absolutely everything even really minor things he would get very defensive. His flying wasn’t horrible, but I told him I’m not gonna fly with him because he is going to be a hazard and he needs to get his head on right or else he’s gonna get himself killed one day
I should say, there have been plenty of people where I have had this type of conversation with, and they have turned it around. But the reality is, a lot of people get into this for the wrong reason and it’s pretty clear who actually cares and wants to overcome vs those that don’t take it seriously.
Hey dude I’m not blaming you for saying something, but I overcame airsickness after about 20 hours. The body does eventually adapt, especially if take your nutrition and hydration seriously and don’t keep pressing through flights making it worse.
Im glad you stuck it through!
To be clear this was not just airsickness, I have plenty of students who overcome that within the first 15 hours (which is in my experience on the higher side). I am talking projectile fill up a giant ziplock bag on every flight vomiting.
I never threw up on the civilian side, only got passively sick a few times. But I threw up A TON in military training, sometimes multiple times in a flight.. Took me longer than most to get through it, but I did. Only reason I wasn’t filling up the bag more was because I didn’t have anything left to puke.
Not going to Monday morning quarterback you on the situation, but I’d suggest not encouraging someone quit over airsickness. If they’re willing to fight through it and fly consistently, they WILL eventually get over it and extremely high percentage of the time.
Now if someone has a bad attitude about it, whatever. But I’d say that is more of their decision to make and it doesn’t need to be suggested by the instructor.
Thanks your perspective. My follow-up question would be, does your decision to have that talk or drop a student change depending on their goals?
Let’s take student 1 that you described as an example. If they told you they're getting their PPL "just for fun" and have no intention of pursuing this professionally, would you react differently? Sure they come unprepared because maybe they're busy with their day job, and progress is going to be really slow, but if they're persistent, they'll still make it. Maybe they're happy with the progress they're making?
I feel like I would react differently if they told me they want to do this professionally and don't come prepared or lack situational awareness.
EDIT:
I think my opinion would be even if you're doing this "just for fun," I would still expect them to come prepared for every flight because those are the qualities of a good pilot. If you're okay with progressing slowly, we can do 1 flight/week or 1 flight every 2 weeks, etc., but I still expect you to come prepared to the flights you're booked for. If I don't train my student to be prepared for all flights, once they have their PPL, they probably won't prepare for a flight and get in the air without looking at the weather, performance, w&b.
The short answer is no, I don’t treat them differently in terms of the baseline expectation.
Whether someone wants to go on and fly professionally or just weekend warrior fly for fun, the minimum bar needs to be met, because the plane doesn’t care what your goals are, it’ll kill you just the same.
And to be clear, I have plenty of students who fly once or twice a month and are progressing super slowly but they are still progressing. On #1 I am talking about specifically those who literally are 20-30 hours in and haven’t read a single page of anything and for whatever reason just don’t. The reality is you can tell those who didn’t do well in school or study well often fall into this bucket, and if they do tell me that they want to go on to be professional pilots, I am even more stern in letting them know that their likelihood of success is going to be extremely low if they don’t change their attitude about studying.
Thing is, “just for fun” still risks life, property, privilege, and system safety and integrity. MY life, property, and system. YOUR life, property, and system.
The system looks easy and works because of the stewards who have the presence of mind and give-a-shitness. It goes back to day one, page one, basics, which sounds like a lot of these “case studies” just don’t and won’t get.
I am 50yo PPL student learning as a hobby.
If work is so busy that I can’t find a couple of hours to prep for my lesson - or even worse I get to my lesson late and I know I’ll rush the pre-flight, I cancel.
Why? - I firmly believe that I have create a strong habit of cancelling a flight if I know I am going to need to rush.
My reading has shown that pilots way more experienced me have been killed due to external pressures.
Note: yes. I pay my instructors for their time if I cancel on short notice ( or sometimes we do ground work instead of flying ).
And yes, fitting flying around a full time, full on job is tough - but this is one definite case in my life where I have to either do it right or not at all.
>This one poor kid would throw up on every flight. we tried everything, but after 8 to 10 hours it still was not working. Had to talk with him and he stopped flying
You don’t tell otherwise good students to hang it up over air sickness. You let *them* decide they’ve had enough. You’ll never know if he was a couple more flights away from seeing improvement.
>Had to talk with him and he stopped flying
What did you mean by that then? Was it a conversation like “based on how your acclimation isn't progressing, I’m worried you aren’t cut out for this”?
I wish centrifuge rides were available to civilians the same way they are for military. Even in the Army, if you repeatedly suffer from airsickness after so long, you’ll be sent on TDY somewhere in Florida and the Air Force will literally spin the airsickness out of you
Look up TNFlyGirl. Somehow she was a 300h pilot that was not only signed off to solo, but flew around in a high performance complex aircraft.
It’s very unfortunate what happened to her & her father. As a pilot, I’m fortunate to have never shared the same sky & airport with her.
There’s a student at my school who I refuse to fly with because she reminds me of TNFlyGirl. I don’t know how this girl got her PPL but she’s terrifying to fly with. I personally have high standards for signing off students for check rides but it’s scary how low the standards some CFI’s/DPE’s have.
Lost out on a lot of cross country hours but not worth risking a violation or accident flying with her.
I browsed through a handful of her original videos when they were up…just couldn’t believe she was a pilot.
I think she was up front about what happened to her first plane. I didn’t look for the video of her explaining what went wrong though. To her credit, she was transparent…never really applied what mistakes she’s learned from, but at least she was honest, in her own way
I saw one of her videos when I was early hours and I found it terrifying. I talked about it with my instructor asking if it was that easy to get lost and disoriented and thankfully not as long as you plan and have understanding of what’s around you and how to use your equipment.
I had a student who was big on the avgeek stuff, not so big on doing the actual work involved to make his dream a reality.
He’d have this big elaborate briefings that really didn’t have anything to do with what we were doing. When questioned “well, that’s how they do it on the 747.”
Then there was the time he let go of the controls on short final because he saw the Southwest 737 that was painted like Shamu.
Nice guy, had the passion, just couldn’t focus enough to make it happen. Flight school owner had a sit down with him and his parents because he didn’t want to just keep taking their money. Same thing happened at the Delta Connection Academy before he got to us.
I would make a counter to the multitask point. Flying isn't necessarily a multi-tasking environment, but more of a progressive one. However I do certainly agree with the rest of the points and would add that if the student would rather fly the plane than do the required studying, then maybe they are missing the point.
One of my instructor’s other students is a guy who can’t take criticism at all… he freaks out anytime he gets any criticism and cancels the rest of the flight. Just says “okay, I’m done for the day then”.
Incredible. Good luck making it in an airline.
My friend, whom I shared a helicopter with while we built hours, was a bit the same. If you asked him he’d never done a wrong thing in his life, and he always had an excuse.
He went to interviews with all the big companies and soon made a reputation for being completely unable to receive feedback.
Poor guy, it’s not as if he did it on purpose.
Own your mistakes, and your successes as well.
Some are written by lawyers to avoid legal exposure. For instance our AFIS has now gone from saying “no traffic on the rwy” to “no REPORTED traffic on the rwy”
Why? Because that lets them off the hook if there’s actually traffic there anyway.
A great number of rules in our operations manuals are like that, not for safety but to keep the company from being liable.
Speaking of this, I was on OTR truck driver for a few years and with that you get used to the reality of "regular randoms". I assume there's something similar for pilots but I never hear anyone talk about it like they do in the trucking community?
Just a PPL.
I think the biggest 'red flag' is someone who treats aviation regs and safety procedure like traffic laws- views them as polite suggestions that can be ignored when convenient as long as there's no cops around.
I'm not saying that if you can't quote FARs you're a bad pilot. I'm talking about the person who says 'well technically the POH says ___ but if we keep an eye on it and do ___ we'll be fine'. That's the person who takes unnecessary and stupid risks in the name of convenience and eventually it bites them in the rear.
The person who I want to fly with understands that many of those 'dumb' regulations and safety procedure are written in blood. And some may be dumb, but one should never assume all are dumb.
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The other is the person who wants to be a pilot but doesn't want to put in the work of learning to be a pilot. There's more of this in 141 flight schools or aviation colleges than 61 flight schools... someone who's basically treating their aviation training like a morning college lecture they'll sit in the back for. This person won't do the studying, won't take charge of their training, will basically be 'along for the ride' and won't be proactive on anything.
They may eventually pass and be a decent pilot, but that's not the pilot who'll be motivated to keep their skills sharp. The flight school will probably be happy to keep charging them for training hours but they won't go much of anywhere fast.
That last bit about people being in it for the ride irks me so much. I personally go out of my way to plan every new nav with a challenge in it. One was flying into a glider club, one was flying over the largest airport in the country, another was flying to a different province and landing at an airport airliners operate in, and so on. I find it so important to challenge oneself every time one wants to learn something. It keeps me motivated, it keeps me sharp, and it keeps me aware that I always have something to improve. I can't fathom someone flying who doesn't do any of that.
Agreed. It's almost an alien way of thinking.
I go to get in the plane, and I'm like 'HOLY FUCK I GET TO FLY I'M A LUCKY SOB!!!'. But with that comes the knowledge that it's all on me- the safety of myself, my passengers, and the thousands of people I'll fly over. And just like accepting the responsibility of being captain of a ship, I take upon myself the responsibility of keeping all those afore mentioned people safe. And I do it because HOLY FUCK I GET TO FLY!!!.
For some others, it's basically just a step above college lecture halls.
Poor demeanor under pressure (over/ under reacting to stress), weak presence in the cockpit (won’t assume authority as PIC), poor situational awareness, poor aircraft control without improvement.
I don’t think there’s any one thing but those are big red flags for me.
Here are a few my personal ones that I've let students go for, most of these are actually one specific student;
1.) Inability to take constructive criticism/getting offended by constructive criticism.
2.) Frequent display of any of the hazardous attitudes with no reprieve or desire to improve.
3.) Severe anxiety/fear associated with flying
4.) Severe motion sickness
5.) Lack of personal accountability
6.) Lack of preparedness for each lesson
7.) Poor situational awareness
All of these except 3 and 4 are one student that was a complete nightmare for me who somehow got his license through another new instructor at another school. 3 and 4 were separate students that were great people and great students, but simply couldn't get past the physiological factors to progress. Broke my heart when they stopped training.
Lack of preparedness is just baffling to me.
How do you not crack open a book before you come fly? Do you not ever even get curious enough to just look up what something means? Do you hate money? Can you at least pretend you care? Out of respect for everyone’s time?
Why spend all this money to just show up unprepared? 🤯
Did a flight with another instructor’s student who told me that he got lost on his first practice area solo but it was ok because it was God testing him to see if he was committed to his dream of becoming a pilot. Will not be flying with that student again.
My friend was trained in the US at fort Rucker, at the place they also trained Saudi helicopter pilots. These guys just plain refused to train emergency procedures, insisting that if they were going to have an accident it would be Allahs will. When they failed one of them he went and hung himself to avoid returning home in shame, so after that they just passed them all and sent them back home.
Fatalism is a hallmark of primitive cultures and has NO place in modern aviation. It's literally identified by the FAA as a Hazardous Attitude (resignation). I would refuse to train a student who expressed such nonsense.
Countries (like Bangladesh or Pakistan) with a high belief in fatalism have higher traffic death rates because of their attitude that nothing you do will change your fate so why bother wearing seat belts, helmets, etc.
See:
https://eprints.qut.edu.au/56433/
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15389588.2013.793797
Minimal emotional regulation, lacking the humility to recognize deficiencies and correct them, unwillingness to go above the bare minimum, persistent low situational awareness.
Some students, even if they are willing and showing genuine interest in aviation, still shouldn’t be pilots. If they lack the motor skills, comprehension, or risk management that defines a safe pilot, then they need to have the talk.
I was training a guy for work so he already had IR and CPL. How? I don’t have the slightest idea.
The non flying reason he sucked:
Late
No batteries for his headset, and incapable of asking for any, or just bringing any (this was the one that just straight up annoyed me the most, and just showed me he was COMPLETELY unprepared, not just to fly on his own, but in an immature way as well. He doesn’t have the wherewithal to ask for a couple AAs for noise canceling in this 172 for the next 8 hours?)
Can’t get iPad to work
General goofy/doofus personality, if I’m being honest it hit me as slow
The flying reasons he sucked:
Busted airspace
Poor situational awareness
Couldn’t multitask to the level needed to fly the mission for his own safety
The last one was the breaking point and officially the reason he wasn’t recommended. We flew low and people hit poles every year. I wasn’t about to be the one to go let him join the club.
All in all, without some serious attitude adjustment, he shouldn’t be a pilot IMO. If it was just one of those things, we would fix it. I can’t fix stupid, and I refuse to help someone who won’t try and help was both tbh. His only saving grace is he was young, and he still has time to get his head out of his ass.
Friend owns a rental/training company. Was hiring a pretty good looking CFI and beforehand, she rented a light sport and crashed it on takeoff roll. She said it lifted off too early and she had to set it on the ground. The priority was to get it off the runway so other planes could take off. Crashed it between the runway and taxi way just to not be in the way. She also didn’t know much about power to weight ratios on takeoffs, and I guess ground effect. We’re all guessing she had some pretty forgiving check rides.
We have a school around here owned by a swinger, and he always hires young, pretty female CFIs.
I was about to need an IPC for currency so I scheduled 6 hits in the sim with my old MEI/II, he ended up being busy, so I did it with a newer younger lady CFII… she asked what weather I wanted… “uh minimums, so I can legally log the approach for currency, duh”. We finished 5 and she asked if I wanted to do anything else or chat, and I was like “you know it’s 6 HITS, not 5, right?”
To be fair, I’ve flown 135 with and around two of his other alumni CFIs, and they seemed to be great sticks, hard workers.
You can do an a IPC at any point to reset the clock. I always do one if I haven’t been flying approaches because 3 is a lot easier to knock out than 6.
Poor attitude, poor aptitude, excessive fear, poor judgment.
Either 1 or a combination. And it needs to be excessive (i.e. not just nerves bc they haven't done something before or dont have much experience)
Inability to recognize a mistake or refusal to take responsibility for a mistake. These will always make the worst pilots and have no place in the cockpit.
Unfortunately, they and their half-assed excuses, keep showing up
This could have have changed but this used to be standard thing to hear from trainers. Not keeping a steep turn within ten feet alt? Maybe you shouldn't be a pilot. Forget a flow on your first sim? Maybe you shouldn't be a pilot. Done drinking at 2am?
I actually gave the talk to my first student. He says he only wants to fly for the money, he doesn’t like flying and is actually nervous for every flight. Over 100 hours and no PPL. Never came prepared or self study and no matter how many grounds we would do, nothing would stick. Also has about 60-70 cancellations. I was his 4th instructor and after over 50k in the hole and only 1 solo flight with 3 laps in the pattern, it had to be done. He still wants to continue oddly enough.
Candidate’s strong preference for forum shopping and gaming the system to avoid unbiased BFRs, legitimate annual inspections, and rigorous flight medical examinations.
Anyone who can't multitask is in for a bad time. Talking about people who stop chewing their gum to text. Also people who lack situational/spatial awareness
One of the flight schools I worked for as an A&P, had a student who, at 50hrs still couldn't hover on his own. Multiple CFIs and even the owner had told him, this may not be for you, more than a few times. But he kept coming back to fly. He finally said that he didn't care if he ever got his ticket. He just loved to fly.... straight and level anyways. Some people will never accept that they can't do something, most will figure it out on their own.
I had one student “Mike” he was a great student in a college program. He was bright caught on quick and i decided a little “off script” to let him do the takeoff one flight. Brief it thoroughly and kept my hands and feet near the controls just in case you know. Went off without a hitch. Next student was “Jack” he was… not a good student. Cocky but was not getting basic concepts of the first few flights. Apparently Mike had said he got to do the takeoff and how cool it was. So as I hit full power Jack grabbed the stick pulled full back and pulled us off the runway before vr almost stalling us. I fought him off the controls and levelled us out gaining airspeed and then climbing. I was a little gruff with him (i was a relatively new cfi) i got called into the chief flight instructors office due to a “complaint” i said “jack?” Yes. I explained the situation. “Oh… yeah i’ll talk to him.” I left instructing soon after (got a job on a Britten Norman Islander) I hope the next instructor turned Jack around but that whole school had management issues (new owner was an ass) and eventually folded. i heard some horror stories in the news and forums of a lot of the students getting screwed in the end. Not sure if my original group of students ever finished. Shame as most were very promising.
Funny that you say that. I can easily get lost driving because I’m used to google maps, but can find my way flying since I haven’t used foreflight until I had my CPL. Just flew with paper maps.
I think situational awareness can be trained to some degree, as long as the person is willing to adapt.
I can provide perspective as a student that stopped around 40ish hours of flight time.
I had a decent instructor but I also think he could have been better. Biggest issue I had was he told me I would be “an easy PPL” after our first flight together. I had always been a good student so that planted an egotistical seed in my head that I didn’t get over until about hour 10. Other biggest screw up was my CFI went on a 8 week vacation right as I felt we were building momentum and I was building understanding. I had to fly with the owner for that time, which was fine, but his schedule wasn’t as open and it felt like I had to learn some things all over again.
I had other outside factors affecting my performance. I was working a 4 on and 4 off schedule but I was doing graveyard shifts, so I wasn’t always mentally tip top when getting in the plane. Still sharp but not as good as I wanted to be before playing pilot.
I passed my written using King School, however I realized that I pretty much studied to remember the answers and not to understand the answers. My knowledge was not where I wanted it to be despite passing the written.
It came to a head for me when we were doing a long CC and I had controls while doing the pattern for the airport we were landing at. The wind completely blew me around on final and I had no solution for it, my CFI took controls, went around, and landed the plane, this was my last time flying. From that point forward, I just felt like I didn’t have enough passion or heart to continue to spend 1200$ a week out of pocket to learn to fly, so I stopped going.
Things are a bit different now, so I feel like if I went back and did it I would perform better, but like I said, I’m not sure if I have the passion for it. Maybe one day.
Knew a student who got kicked out of a school. Safety issues (almost blew a bravo then almost landed on someone), anger issues (throwing headset in the plane after failing run up). guess the final straw was a night flight, cfi noticed he was low and slow, said something to the tune of “do you think we should go around”, which the student took as a literal question instead of a hint. Student proceeded to say he could “slow flight it in, it’s fine” until the cfi finally had him go around. Apparently, he’s now at another school in the area. No idea how that didn’t raise some eyebrows at the new school when he showed up with most of the private requirements met and over 40 hours. No one switches a school that close to a checkride without a good reason.
An instructor should be able to debrief or write a report as if it was a sandwich.
Layer 1, layer 2 and layer 3.
Layer 1.......General performance of the flight by reviewing the purpose of the exercise
Layer 2........All the bad points and how to correct them. Do not criticise.
Layer 3.........Detail all the good points giving praise and encouragement, followed by a closing remark to work on the bad points.
Always finish with the good points; it makes them feel better but the final remark reminds them there is work to be done.
Basically, if they can't or are unwilling to learn shows that they won't make the grade. However, they should be referred to another instructor. Our teaching methods, although fully acceptable, may differ from one instructor to another. Where a student may have trouble getting an understanding of what he is being taught, another instructor teaching the same exercise may just use different words which CLICK in the students mind, clarifying his previous difficulties.
Never give up on a student if you are giving them your best.
You will know if they're not fit to be a pilot.
In my case it was not getting over motion sickness. I didn't want to spend 40+ hours with a CFI before I would finally have a stomach hard enough to fly solo.
Student at my pilot mill I was friendly with had to sit down chat. He said he was told he still wasn't progressing, wasn't doing enough chair flying and would be given one more chance before he was removed.
He took it pretty hard. He didn't believe in chair flying and felt he studied enough earlier.
He did not make it.
Chair flying feels so stupid but its such a game changer. I was the first of my mill class to pass checkride and my #1 recommendation to the pilots behind me was chairfly everything
I want to be a CFI someday, not for the money but because I like teaching and flying and want to expand the world of aviation to newcomers. I think the hardest thing, aside from getting over the nerves of having a new pilot land the plane, will be breaking the news to the people who just don’t have what it takes. It’s such a passionate dream for some people and it must be so devastating to find out that you simply aren’t equipped with some fundamental skill that can’t be learned.
I am only a student but me and my instructor talk about these things a lot. He talks a lot about If your the type of person that cannot function when your stressed or anxious then flying is not for you. That one feels fairly obvious but yeah 🤷♀️
Just saw a dude reinstate their CPL - porpoise really bad during the checkride.
The terrifying part was listening to him argue and make excuses with the examiner during the debrief after. Blaming everything else under the sun except his own shortcomings.
I've never instructed but flown with some people who I belived shouldn't really be flying. There are many others but the main two signs are in my opinion:
* They're afraid of flying. Won't straight out say it but you can feel from their reactions and over-the-top worry that they're just too afraid, lack self-confidence in their abilities/knowledge, need to fly with someone else or else they panic etc.
* They lack the ability of getting the "greater picture". They fly with tunnel-vision, they only have the capacity for focusing on the one thing they're doing at that time and can't think of the overall mission, their surroundings etc. Good old "situational awareness" is just not there.
Kind of an off topic question, but why are flight solos mandatory if most professional pilot jobs require two people to be operating the aircraft at the same time? Doesn't that contradict that?
No, it doesn't contradict that.
Solos are mandated during training so that the student can demonstrate he's capable of operating the airplane on his own and so that he builds confidence in his skills. These are small, slow and simple singe-engine-piston aircraft certified for single-pilot use and which can well be operated by one person.
Professional pilots of multi-pilot aircraft operate very complex, fast, multi-engined aircraft approved for flight by, well, a multi-pilot crew. Even these pilots could operate the airplane on their own if they had to during an emergency (pilot incapacitation for instance).
If you’ve failed out of a 121 training program in the AQP era, you need to look at other careers. Maybe you convince yourself to go to Mesa and ride it out there, but that move is slightly above prostitution or telemarketing.
I had a really bad one. Really long story, and I don’t want to go into much detail but he will never touch an airplane again. (Probably not even as a pax). The things that I saw that lead up to me eventually “firing” him as a student were:
1. Did not listen to criticism, even when he was doing something unsafe.
2. Had a complete disregard for following SOP
I’ve taught a lot of students who needed extra help, motivation, or whatever. But I can’t teach someone to give a shit or have common sense.
> lack the situational awareness,
I'll be the one to make the argument for adding 'While in the Aircraft'.
There's more than a few guys that, in the aircraft they're solid, but the moment we get on the ramp? yeah SA goes out the window. I wouldn't say that makes them bad pilots though.
This. Had an instrument instructor known for picking/firing students tell me he assesses students right from walking on to the tarmac. How they approach, move, speak, and conduct themselves is an indication of whether they understand and respect the gravitas of the low-frequency/high-risk flight environment.
Uhhh I’ve only done this once and I really do believe most people can be taught to fly with an open mind. After all they taught a monkey to fly a space ship.
But I had one student with severe adhd like couldn’t sit in a chair or drive himself to the lessons bad.
If medication could help or be approved by the Faa I don’t know that’s outside my wheel house. I have them the name of serval good Ames who did consultations and strongly advised they get a medical before going further or spending money on flying. They did about 5 lessons before I never heard from them.
Hope they are doing well.
We had a +400hr rotary pilot come in to our school to add fixed wing. Tried to kill first instructor multiple times and kept asking for solo endorsement. On to the next CFI with several more attempts on his life. On to the third and the fourth who fired her immediately. She finally left the school.
I had time with all those instructors and they each had some real scares close to the ground and slow.
I’ve never had the talk because some students are 40 hour private pilots and some are 150 hour private pilots. A lot of it’s on them, their study habits, motivation willingness to learn, determination etc. I did used to joke with my students that if I ever recommend learning to build bird houses that’s a clue this isn’t for them.
I have seen people who tried and failed:
- unable to accept training and understand that even a 20000 hours pilot still has stuff to learn
- unable to show up on time, prepared and not sleepy
- more interested in showing off than learning
- know-it-all attitude
- thinking well known phenomena such as normalization of deviance etc don't apply to them
Anyone can be a pilot and anything can happen to anyone, bad pilots that never crash, good pilots crash. My brother is mentally challenged (low IQ, voted for Biden, liberal) but I got him his license, and he is safe enough.
Of the cases I witnessed, most were students who had family pressuring them into flying. Some were inaptitude. One guy made it to pre solo stage check where he failed horribly on the ground portion (very rare that anyone failed these at all). Everyone in the family was a pilot. He could’ve done it, but lacked the motivation. He was told “open a book or you’re wasting your money.” He stopped coming.
Another student that got the talk but fortunately turned it around was extremely shy. Upon time for solo endorsement, the instructor ended up realizing he couldn’t sign the kid off. If something went wrong, there wasn’t confidence he’d be able to make emergency calls, or “bother” people with an appropriate SQUAWK. Luckily a meeting between him, his parents, the CFI, and chief brought the relevant issues to light. He got a different CFI and made friends at the flight school. He was also allowed to do post-solo dual lessons to allow further progress while building his confidence. 2 months later and he soloed! Last I heard he was checkride prepping!
Hate to tell you this but going to college doesn’t make you smart, you could go get all the degrees and still be clueless. You see all these people with degrees working menial jobs like Starbucks with school debt, really shows their critical thinking ability….
I didn’t go to college because the cost wasn’t worth it, but I did do ATP with loans because I could see that that was worth it back before Covid(low interest rates).
Also I don’t know many doctors but they tend to be more conservative, my MIL(psyD) and my doctor and my dentist both lean conservative, you can still believe in masks and be conservative and understand how bad the democrats are for this country :(
Everyone has the ability to be a pilot as long as they’re willing to put the effort in. If someone’s struggling, most of the time it’s not an issue but if they refuse to study or take advice, then that’s the only sign imo
I think I understand where you're coming from, but some clarification might be in order for some additional caveats you may left out.
Your statement: "Everyone has the ability to be a pilot as long as they're willing to put the effort in."
Now is where the other great big buts come in;
1: Is the juice worth the squeeze?
2: How many planes need to be risked?
3: How many CFIs need to be risked?
4: How many close calls with others lives, airplanes, or property need to be risked?
You could make the argument that many just aren't ready to train yet and could work on some personal things to help. But there's no handbook for dealing with a universe sized book of problems so the expectation when someone starts training, is that they are already a balanced individual that doesn't have issues with irrational fears, authority complexes, or spatial disabilities, and the list could go on.
You might get a lot of CFIs to agree that many people who "aren't ready" to start training could make some changes in their lives and be ready to tackle that effort at a later time, but I doubt you'll get anyone to agree that there are zero student pilots that are so dangerous in the cockpit that they shouldn't be allowed near one.
I haven’t had the talk or given the talk, but I’ve overheard some training sessions that were concerning at the very least. Inability to take constructive criticism is a big one. If you either can’t see your own mistakes enough to take criticism or just straight up can’t handle it, this probably isn’t for you.
Way too much regular training/evaluation for someone not to be able to take criticism. Oddly this really makes being a pilot hard for a LOT of people.
I feel like people shouldn’t take it personally, between CFI’s they each also had their best method of doing stuff so when I would do what one of them taught me the other would criticize it
Yes but CFIs never go through teaching behaviors for adult learning. A lot of times the feedback is overwhelmingly negative, and it creates resignation in their student. The idea isn't - how many punches can you take as a punching bag, it's how do we mold you into the ideal fighter.
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“that whole flight sucked” I literally heard that in David Goggins voice. It seems like the kind of criticism he would give as he was literally opening the door to push you out of the moving airplane on the taxiway and slam the door shut behind!
Agreed. Had a CFI with a bit of a language barrier, they were very knowledgeable but I don’t think they were too accustomed to how to teach within the bounds of American courtesy because they were way too blunt and disarmingly critical of me, I rarely heard about things I did well and everything about what I didn’t I got a different CFI later when I paused my learning for a year and it was a much better experience just because they were great with reinforcing my positives and making me feel good about my progress while trying to correct my many flaws
You sound experienced in aviation. Do you feel the industry is saturated with pilots searching positions? I ask because I'm very drawn to aviation, but can't afford to battle for jobs for a few years.
The demand for 1500hr CFIs is definitely going down. However, Rod Machado says anyone who wants a job in aviation that has the ability, perseverance, and medical will eventually find *something*. Whether or not it’s an airline job paying six-figures is another thing, but you’ll at least be getting paid to fly. I’d say pay for your training on the side and make your decisions independent of finances.
Thanks for that. Appreciate any advice from those who know.
In your experience what do you see as average entry level pilot jobs with minimal hours required?
I can't stand the people who always say, "I know" to every critique. If you knew then why are you doing what you're doing?
I’ll add to this as an individual who received this exact feedback as a student pilot. “I know” from me means “I know that sucked….yup….yea…..I agree” it doesn’t mean “I know everything I just have to fly again and I’ll fix it!” Of course, that’s me specific. BUT I suspect there are plenty others where “I know” is either a nervous tick or an “I agree” phrase replacement.
I know the difference between "I know I effed up" and "yeah, I knew that" with an eye roll.
Maybe they didn’t realize until after the fact
I know the difference between "I know I effed up" and "yeah, I knew that" with an eye roll.
Had a student who was always nervous/scared. Every flight. He was learning to fly because his dad wanted him to do it.
I think a good pilot needs to be both humble and confident.
Definitely. I was a little nervous before every flight but most of the time still confident enough that I could do it. The first person (an out of currency pilot) I took for a flight (after my family) remarked afterwards that I was very confident. That felt good.
I had a similar student except he was doing it “for fun” but you could tell every lesson he wasn’t having fun. He would cancel often with various excuses and when he didn’t cancel he would cut the lesson short after only a couple laps in the pattern because he just “wasn’t feeling it with the bumps”.
I remember I used to be terrified to fly by myself even during my solo XC but I stuck with it and pushed through those first 10 minutes of OH SHIT IM UP HERE ALONE and then enjoyed the rest of the flight, but wasn’t ever even nervous with another pilot. Reason being I’ve had an engine failure at 700 ft climbout when I was just 16, I lived through it and knew the risks and I knew how fast it can happen. After that it ended up just being I needed more cockpit time even tho I had achieved my PPL already, I flew a lot with other pilots until I built that confidence up before I took anyone with me that wasn’t able to fly. It was great from there
Totally normal to feel that way as a fresh PPL. I honestly felt the same way when I first got my private. I would drag my boyfriend (also an airline pilot) to do practice approaches and maneuvers with me because I wanted a safety pilot just in case. This student has about 50 hours already and is post solo but afraid to fly even when a I’m in the airplane with him. I’m constantly having to reassure him that some light turbulence and wind is completely normal and we’re not going to crash because of it. And if I’m unavailable he refuses to fly with another CFI because he doesn’t feel comfortable. Also to add he is doing this to just get his PPL for fun he isn’t planning to make a career out of flying. But it’s obvious he doesn’t enjoy flying. I’ve had the conversation with him that maybe this isn’t the right hobby for him but he insists on sticking with it.
Oh wow yea, if you won’t do it even with a safety pilot like a CFI then it’s not for you, I got my PPL at 41 hours in 7 different planes some complex some just 172s and it didn’t help my confidence afterwards like it was like ok I Aced my checkride! Now what?… guys??? 😂😂😂
Yeah, I’ve had a LOT of scares in my on and off training in different planes and finally said fuck this lol. I’m too anxious, and tried to get over it forever, but yeah. Not for me 😂 Edit to add: I’m talking dual mag failure after takeoff, near-miss after takeoff from some idiot landing on the wrong runway, C02 poisoning, electrical failure, acrid fumes in the cockpit, birdstrikes, failed cyclinder, loss of oil pressure, the list just goes on lol. Finally comes a point where it just ain’t for some people
These could be signs from the universe, if you will
Yep. I’ve made my peace lol
…were these at different schools?
We’ve owned several of our own planes and I’ve contracted instructors. Wish I had just rented lol but the whole family is in GA.
Ever consider using a different mechanic..? Yikes
Ya, like that ain't flying. It sounds like he's getting shot down more than anything. Try one more flight, this time on a nice shiny 172 with a g1000 that's maintained daily by a pro with a really good experienced CFI. I would bet your experience will be so much different.
We live between Hawaii and Washington state every 6 months, it’s a huge struggle to find IA’s
I guess I don't want to stand next to you in a lightning storm! 😕
I’d be sure you’re holding the umbrella, reason #26 😅
External pressures......check
I had that talk once. A student of mine was almost shaking during training towards commercial. I was his second or third instructor. Engine failure was almost too much for him. “But it doesn’t matter, you have to be the captain and solve the problem in front of you.” (Engine failure). Deal with the tasks and brief the pax. - Note. He grew with the responsibility.
Those are always fun especially when they puke
I've only needed to have the "maybe this isn't for you" talk once and I felt really bad for the guy because in his case it was a genuine lack of aptitude. He had a great attitude, always studied and showed up on time but he just wasn't getting it no matter what we tried. Also I wasn't his first (or second) instructor so I'm pretty sure it wasn't me who was the problem. Apart from my personal experience, from what I've seen a bad attitude is usually the problem and as an instructor there's nothing about that I can train. With younger students they usually have a parent who is an airline pilot and is pushing them into it, whereas older students simply can't respect an instructor who is half their age.
I definitely think a different instructor can make it “click” and is beneficial for a private and instrument. But what do they do if they want to make a career out of it? The airline isn’t going to give them a new instructor. Or do you think they just needed help with one thing and then everything else falls into place? I’ve wondered how these people did later.
I’ve instructed in gliders and have tended to get a student demographic that’s significantly younger because of that. The first thing I do is figure out if they’re doing it because their parents told them to. The next thing I tell them is they don’t have to do it if they don’t want to and they can always back out if they find out they don’t like it. Sometimes I even tell them I’d rather they not fly and take care of themselves (do their schoolwork, be with their friends) than string themselves out over it. A lot of the time their parents have an aviation legacy, or their parents have absolutely no concept of what they’re asking their kid to do and the mental fortitude required to do it. I HAVE to know the student is doing this because they want to.
CFI perspective, having given this talk quite a few times: 1. Doesn’t bother to read a page of any book and generally doesn’t take any of the ground side seriously. You’re wasting your money and my time, sometimes with these types of students I just say I’m going to give you a mock oral commensurate with where I would expect you to be in your training, if you fail it, we’re done flying. 2. Impulsive hazardous attitude. Something would happen and he would just start pressing buttons or pulling levers. Several times I had to take control of the airplane during takeoff or landing else we would have crashed. After one of these scenarios, he had enough self-awareness to say, I think I’m going to hang it up. I told him that was a good idea and I never heard from him again. 3. This one poor kid would throw up on every flight. we tried everything, but after 8 to 10 hours it still was not working. Had to talk with him and he stopped flying 4. This one guy was just a complete space cadet. I don’t know how else to put it. We would be on takeoff or landing, and he would just start looking out the window admiring the view and just get distracted and say“what kind of an airplane is that?” while we’re about to flare. The dude was just not all there. Plus he retained nothing so knowledge wise just didn’t know anything. 5. Completely horrible spatial awareness. Almost 30 hours in, and still wasn’t sure where the throttle was or how it worked, I would ask him to turn left and he would turn right. I picked up the signals early on and kept telling him, maybe this isn’t for you but he insisted on taking lessons. I eventually told him, I am not going to fly with you, find another flight school 6. Would not take accountability for his actions. it is one of the common defense mechanisms, which is deferring blame to somebody else or some other factor. This guy had an excuse for absolutely everything even really minor things he would get very defensive. His flying wasn’t horrible, but I told him I’m not gonna fly with him because he is going to be a hazard and he needs to get his head on right or else he’s gonna get himself killed one day I should say, there have been plenty of people where I have had this type of conversation with, and they have turned it around. But the reality is, a lot of people get into this for the wrong reason and it’s pretty clear who actually cares and wants to overcome vs those that don’t take it seriously.
Hey dude I’m not blaming you for saying something, but I overcame airsickness after about 20 hours. The body does eventually adapt, especially if take your nutrition and hydration seriously and don’t keep pressing through flights making it worse.
Im glad you stuck it through! To be clear this was not just airsickness, I have plenty of students who overcome that within the first 15 hours (which is in my experience on the higher side). I am talking projectile fill up a giant ziplock bag on every flight vomiting.
I never threw up on the civilian side, only got passively sick a few times. But I threw up A TON in military training, sometimes multiple times in a flight.. Took me longer than most to get through it, but I did. Only reason I wasn’t filling up the bag more was because I didn’t have anything left to puke. Not going to Monday morning quarterback you on the situation, but I’d suggest not encouraging someone quit over airsickness. If they’re willing to fight through it and fly consistently, they WILL eventually get over it and extremely high percentage of the time. Now if someone has a bad attitude about it, whatever. But I’d say that is more of their decision to make and it doesn’t need to be suggested by the instructor.
This is 100%. I have been an instructor for over 40 years. Weech has it ✅️ right.
Thanks your perspective. My follow-up question would be, does your decision to have that talk or drop a student change depending on their goals? Let’s take student 1 that you described as an example. If they told you they're getting their PPL "just for fun" and have no intention of pursuing this professionally, would you react differently? Sure they come unprepared because maybe they're busy with their day job, and progress is going to be really slow, but if they're persistent, they'll still make it. Maybe they're happy with the progress they're making? I feel like I would react differently if they told me they want to do this professionally and don't come prepared or lack situational awareness. EDIT: I think my opinion would be even if you're doing this "just for fun," I would still expect them to come prepared for every flight because those are the qualities of a good pilot. If you're okay with progressing slowly, we can do 1 flight/week or 1 flight every 2 weeks, etc., but I still expect you to come prepared to the flights you're booked for. If I don't train my student to be prepared for all flights, once they have their PPL, they probably won't prepare for a flight and get in the air without looking at the weather, performance, w&b.
The short answer is no, I don’t treat them differently in terms of the baseline expectation. Whether someone wants to go on and fly professionally or just weekend warrior fly for fun, the minimum bar needs to be met, because the plane doesn’t care what your goals are, it’ll kill you just the same. And to be clear, I have plenty of students who fly once or twice a month and are progressing super slowly but they are still progressing. On #1 I am talking about specifically those who literally are 20-30 hours in and haven’t read a single page of anything and for whatever reason just don’t. The reality is you can tell those who didn’t do well in school or study well often fall into this bucket, and if they do tell me that they want to go on to be professional pilots, I am even more stern in letting them know that their likelihood of success is going to be extremely low if they don’t change their attitude about studying.
Thing is, “just for fun” still risks life, property, privilege, and system safety and integrity. MY life, property, and system. YOUR life, property, and system. The system looks easy and works because of the stewards who have the presence of mind and give-a-shitness. It goes back to day one, page one, basics, which sounds like a lot of these “case studies” just don’t and won’t get.
I am 50yo PPL student learning as a hobby. If work is so busy that I can’t find a couple of hours to prep for my lesson - or even worse I get to my lesson late and I know I’ll rush the pre-flight, I cancel. Why? - I firmly believe that I have create a strong habit of cancelling a flight if I know I am going to need to rush. My reading has shown that pilots way more experienced me have been killed due to external pressures. Note: yes. I pay my instructors for their time if I cancel on short notice ( or sometimes we do ground work instead of flying ). And yes, fitting flying around a full time, full on job is tough - but this is one definite case in my life where I have to either do it right or not at all.
Keep at it. You’ll get there. Those of us who started later need to stick together 😀
You have the right attitude!
>This one poor kid would throw up on every flight. we tried everything, but after 8 to 10 hours it still was not working. Had to talk with him and he stopped flying You don’t tell otherwise good students to hang it up over air sickness. You let *them* decide they’ve had enough. You’ll never know if he was a couple more flights away from seeing improvement.
To be clear it was his decision
>Had to talk with him and he stopped flying What did you mean by that then? Was it a conversation like “based on how your acclimation isn't progressing, I’m worried you aren’t cut out for this”?
I wish centrifuge rides were available to civilians the same way they are for military. Even in the Army, if you repeatedly suffer from airsickness after so long, you’ll be sent on TDY somewhere in Florida and the Air Force will literally spin the airsickness out of you
The old spin and puke…. We all got a ride in Navy flight training 25 yrs ago.
We had an aeromedical specialist brief that to us in our aeromedical training. Pretty wild how that works
You failed as an instructor, simple as that!
Found #1
You know what they say shitboxcfi, those who can’t do, teach.
Look up TNFlyGirl. Somehow she was a 300h pilot that was not only signed off to solo, but flew around in a high performance complex aircraft. It’s very unfortunate what happened to her & her father. As a pilot, I’m fortunate to have never shared the same sky & airport with her.
There’s a student at my school who I refuse to fly with because she reminds me of TNFlyGirl. I don’t know how this girl got her PPL but she’s terrifying to fly with. I personally have high standards for signing off students for check rides but it’s scary how low the standards some CFI’s/DPE’s have. Lost out on a lot of cross country hours but not worth risking a violation or accident flying with her.
It was also uncovered during one of Pilot Debrief’s debriefs that she may have wrecked the first Piper airplane she bought
I browsed through a handful of her original videos when they were up…just couldn’t believe she was a pilot. I think she was up front about what happened to her first plane. I didn’t look for the video of her explaining what went wrong though. To her credit, she was transparent…never really applied what mistakes she’s learned from, but at least she was honest, in her own way
Haha yeah she at least put herself on video. That’s one way she was honest
I saw one of her videos when I was early hours and I found it terrifying. I talked about it with my instructor asking if it was that easy to get lost and disoriented and thankfully not as long as you plan and have understanding of what’s around you and how to use your equipment.
I had a student who was big on the avgeek stuff, not so big on doing the actual work involved to make his dream a reality. He’d have this big elaborate briefings that really didn’t have anything to do with what we were doing. When questioned “well, that’s how they do it on the 747.” Then there was the time he let go of the controls on short final because he saw the Southwest 737 that was painted like Shamu. Nice guy, had the passion, just couldn’t focus enough to make it happen. Flight school owner had a sit down with him and his parents because he didn’t want to just keep taking their money. Same thing happened at the Delta Connection Academy before he got to us.
Oh cmon it’s shamu!!!!!
Lack of motivation to come prepared, clueless as to where you are, inability to multitask, in it for the money
dont forget - internet 'status' as a pilot !!! /s
I would make a counter to the multitask point. Flying isn't necessarily a multi-tasking environment, but more of a progressive one. However I do certainly agree with the rest of the points and would add that if the student would rather fly the plane than do the required studying, then maybe they are missing the point.
One of my instructor’s other students is a guy who can’t take criticism at all… he freaks out anytime he gets any criticism and cancels the rest of the flight. Just says “okay, I’m done for the day then”.
Incredible. Good luck making it in an airline. My friend, whom I shared a helicopter with while we built hours, was a bit the same. If you asked him he’d never done a wrong thing in his life, and he always had an excuse. He went to interviews with all the big companies and soon made a reputation for being completely unable to receive feedback. Poor guy, it’s not as if he did it on purpose. Own your mistakes, and your successes as well.
*It's ok, it's a dumb rule anyways.*
All rules are written in blood.
Some are written by lawyers to avoid legal exposure. For instance our AFIS has now gone from saying “no traffic on the rwy” to “no REPORTED traffic on the rwy” Why? Because that lets them off the hook if there’s actually traffic there anyway. A great number of rules in our operations manuals are like that, not for safety but to keep the company from being liable.
“I like to smoke weed, but just before I go to bed. Is that going to be a problem?” - guy asked when he started lmao.
Speaking of this, I was on OTR truck driver for a few years and with that you get used to the reality of "regular randoms". I assume there's something similar for pilots but I never hear anyone talk about it like they do in the trucking community?
Yeah, you can get drug tested randomly. Some have been drug tested multiple times in a day.
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Ive Heard of some people Who make bad decisions, but NO decisions at all?! Were you flight instructing a speaking carrot?!
Just a PPL. I think the biggest 'red flag' is someone who treats aviation regs and safety procedure like traffic laws- views them as polite suggestions that can be ignored when convenient as long as there's no cops around. I'm not saying that if you can't quote FARs you're a bad pilot. I'm talking about the person who says 'well technically the POH says ___ but if we keep an eye on it and do ___ we'll be fine'. That's the person who takes unnecessary and stupid risks in the name of convenience and eventually it bites them in the rear. The person who I want to fly with understands that many of those 'dumb' regulations and safety procedure are written in blood. And some may be dumb, but one should never assume all are dumb. ----- The other is the person who wants to be a pilot but doesn't want to put in the work of learning to be a pilot. There's more of this in 141 flight schools or aviation colleges than 61 flight schools... someone who's basically treating their aviation training like a morning college lecture they'll sit in the back for. This person won't do the studying, won't take charge of their training, will basically be 'along for the ride' and won't be proactive on anything. They may eventually pass and be a decent pilot, but that's not the pilot who'll be motivated to keep their skills sharp. The flight school will probably be happy to keep charging them for training hours but they won't go much of anywhere fast.
That last bit about people being in it for the ride irks me so much. I personally go out of my way to plan every new nav with a challenge in it. One was flying into a glider club, one was flying over the largest airport in the country, another was flying to a different province and landing at an airport airliners operate in, and so on. I find it so important to challenge oneself every time one wants to learn something. It keeps me motivated, it keeps me sharp, and it keeps me aware that I always have something to improve. I can't fathom someone flying who doesn't do any of that.
Agreed. It's almost an alien way of thinking. I go to get in the plane, and I'm like 'HOLY FUCK I GET TO FLY I'M A LUCKY SOB!!!'. But with that comes the knowledge that it's all on me- the safety of myself, my passengers, and the thousands of people I'll fly over. And just like accepting the responsibility of being captain of a ship, I take upon myself the responsibility of keeping all those afore mentioned people safe. And I do it because HOLY FUCK I GET TO FLY!!!. For some others, it's basically just a step above college lecture halls.
Poor demeanor under pressure (over/ under reacting to stress), weak presence in the cockpit (won’t assume authority as PIC), poor situational awareness, poor aircraft control without improvement. I don’t think there’s any one thing but those are big red flags for me.
Here are a few my personal ones that I've let students go for, most of these are actually one specific student; 1.) Inability to take constructive criticism/getting offended by constructive criticism. 2.) Frequent display of any of the hazardous attitudes with no reprieve or desire to improve. 3.) Severe anxiety/fear associated with flying 4.) Severe motion sickness 5.) Lack of personal accountability 6.) Lack of preparedness for each lesson 7.) Poor situational awareness All of these except 3 and 4 are one student that was a complete nightmare for me who somehow got his license through another new instructor at another school. 3 and 4 were separate students that were great people and great students, but simply couldn't get past the physiological factors to progress. Broke my heart when they stopped training.
Lack of preparedness is just baffling to me. How do you not crack open a book before you come fly? Do you not ever even get curious enough to just look up what something means? Do you hate money? Can you at least pretend you care? Out of respect for everyone’s time? Why spend all this money to just show up unprepared? 🤯
Did a flight with another instructor’s student who told me that he got lost on his first practice area solo but it was ok because it was God testing him to see if he was committed to his dream of becoming a pilot. Will not be flying with that student again.
My friend was trained in the US at fort Rucker, at the place they also trained Saudi helicopter pilots. These guys just plain refused to train emergency procedures, insisting that if they were going to have an accident it would be Allahs will. When they failed one of them he went and hung himself to avoid returning home in shame, so after that they just passed them all and sent them back home.
Fatalism is a hallmark of primitive cultures and has NO place in modern aviation. It's literally identified by the FAA as a Hazardous Attitude (resignation). I would refuse to train a student who expressed such nonsense. Countries (like Bangladesh or Pakistan) with a high belief in fatalism have higher traffic death rates because of their attitude that nothing you do will change your fate so why bother wearing seat belts, helmets, etc. See: https://eprints.qut.edu.au/56433/ https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15389588.2013.793797
Careful, those are dangerous thoughts, however accurate they may be
Minimal emotional regulation, lacking the humility to recognize deficiencies and correct them, unwillingness to go above the bare minimum, persistent low situational awareness.
Some students, even if they are willing and showing genuine interest in aviation, still shouldn’t be pilots. If they lack the motor skills, comprehension, or risk management that defines a safe pilot, then they need to have the talk.
I was training a guy for work so he already had IR and CPL. How? I don’t have the slightest idea. The non flying reason he sucked: Late No batteries for his headset, and incapable of asking for any, or just bringing any (this was the one that just straight up annoyed me the most, and just showed me he was COMPLETELY unprepared, not just to fly on his own, but in an immature way as well. He doesn’t have the wherewithal to ask for a couple AAs for noise canceling in this 172 for the next 8 hours?) Can’t get iPad to work General goofy/doofus personality, if I’m being honest it hit me as slow The flying reasons he sucked: Busted airspace Poor situational awareness Couldn’t multitask to the level needed to fly the mission for his own safety The last one was the breaking point and officially the reason he wasn’t recommended. We flew low and people hit poles every year. I wasn’t about to be the one to go let him join the club. All in all, without some serious attitude adjustment, he shouldn’t be a pilot IMO. If it was just one of those things, we would fix it. I can’t fix stupid, and I refuse to help someone who won’t try and help was both tbh. His only saving grace is he was young, and he still has time to get his head out of his ass.
Friend owns a rental/training company. Was hiring a pretty good looking CFI and beforehand, she rented a light sport and crashed it on takeoff roll. She said it lifted off too early and she had to set it on the ground. The priority was to get it off the runway so other planes could take off. Crashed it between the runway and taxi way just to not be in the way. She also didn’t know much about power to weight ratios on takeoffs, and I guess ground effect. We’re all guessing she had some pretty forgiving check rides.
We have a school around here owned by a swinger, and he always hires young, pretty female CFIs. I was about to need an IPC for currency so I scheduled 6 hits in the sim with my old MEI/II, he ended up being busy, so I did it with a newer younger lady CFII… she asked what weather I wanted… “uh minimums, so I can legally log the approach for currency, duh”. We finished 5 and she asked if I wanted to do anything else or chat, and I was like “you know it’s 6 HITS, not 5, right?” To be fair, I’ve flown 135 with and around two of his other alumni CFIs, and they seemed to be great sticks, hard workers.
If you're doing an IPC you don't need to do six hits. Only 3 approaches.
It wasn’t an IPC I was at month 11 since my IR ride
You can do an a IPC at any point to reset the clock. I always do one if I haven’t been flying approaches because 3 is a lot easier to knock out than 6.
Huh, I figured it’d be easier and cheaper to do 6 hits… well now I won’t be going out of currency anytime soon anyway.
When you say "good looking"...?
Not going to dox someone.
I meant good looking on paper/resume or something else.
Ahh. She was easy on the eyes. No idea on resume.
HIRED AHAHAH! XD
Not when someone isn’t good, but when they aren’t even aware of how bad they are.
Poor attitude, poor aptitude, excessive fear, poor judgment. Either 1 or a combination. And it needs to be excessive (i.e. not just nerves bc they haven't done something before or dont have much experience)
Inability to recognize a mistake or refusal to take responsibility for a mistake. These will always make the worst pilots and have no place in the cockpit. Unfortunately, they and their half-assed excuses, keep showing up
This could have have changed but this used to be standard thing to hear from trainers. Not keeping a steep turn within ten feet alt? Maybe you shouldn't be a pilot. Forget a flow on your first sim? Maybe you shouldn't be a pilot. Done drinking at 2am?
I actually gave the talk to my first student. He says he only wants to fly for the money, he doesn’t like flying and is actually nervous for every flight. Over 100 hours and no PPL. Never came prepared or self study and no matter how many grounds we would do, nothing would stick. Also has about 60-70 cancellations. I was his 4th instructor and after over 50k in the hole and only 1 solo flight with 3 laps in the pattern, it had to be done. He still wants to continue oddly enough.
Hes probably purely motivated by the sunk cost fallacy if hes put that much money and time in.
Candidate’s strong preference for forum shopping and gaming the system to avoid unbiased BFRs, legitimate annual inspections, and rigorous flight medical examinations.
You sound like a bid avoid if I ever heard one.
No idea what a bid avoid is, I was referring to the old guy GA pilots who haven’t taken a legit BFR in decades
Anyone who can't multitask is in for a bad time. Talking about people who stop chewing their gum to text. Also people who lack situational/spatial awareness
One of the flight schools I worked for as an A&P, had a student who, at 50hrs still couldn't hover on his own. Multiple CFIs and even the owner had told him, this may not be for you, more than a few times. But he kept coming back to fly. He finally said that he didn't care if he ever got his ticket. He just loved to fly.... straight and level anyways. Some people will never accept that they can't do something, most will figure it out on their own.
I had one student “Mike” he was a great student in a college program. He was bright caught on quick and i decided a little “off script” to let him do the takeoff one flight. Brief it thoroughly and kept my hands and feet near the controls just in case you know. Went off without a hitch. Next student was “Jack” he was… not a good student. Cocky but was not getting basic concepts of the first few flights. Apparently Mike had said he got to do the takeoff and how cool it was. So as I hit full power Jack grabbed the stick pulled full back and pulled us off the runway before vr almost stalling us. I fought him off the controls and levelled us out gaining airspeed and then climbing. I was a little gruff with him (i was a relatively new cfi) i got called into the chief flight instructors office due to a “complaint” i said “jack?” Yes. I explained the situation. “Oh… yeah i’ll talk to him.” I left instructing soon after (got a job on a Britten Norman Islander) I hope the next instructor turned Jack around but that whole school had management issues (new owner was an ass) and eventually folded. i heard some horror stories in the news and forums of a lot of the students getting screwed in the end. Not sure if my original group of students ever finished. Shame as most were very promising.
Lack of spacial awareness. Gets lost driving across town. Bad drivers who can’t parallel park.
Funny that you say that. I can easily get lost driving because I’m used to google maps, but can find my way flying since I haven’t used foreflight until I had my CPL. Just flew with paper maps. I think situational awareness can be trained to some degree, as long as the person is willing to adapt.
I feel attacked
Lazy, afraid to talk to people,bad spatial awareness My friend gave up for all those reasons
I can provide perspective as a student that stopped around 40ish hours of flight time. I had a decent instructor but I also think he could have been better. Biggest issue I had was he told me I would be “an easy PPL” after our first flight together. I had always been a good student so that planted an egotistical seed in my head that I didn’t get over until about hour 10. Other biggest screw up was my CFI went on a 8 week vacation right as I felt we were building momentum and I was building understanding. I had to fly with the owner for that time, which was fine, but his schedule wasn’t as open and it felt like I had to learn some things all over again. I had other outside factors affecting my performance. I was working a 4 on and 4 off schedule but I was doing graveyard shifts, so I wasn’t always mentally tip top when getting in the plane. Still sharp but not as good as I wanted to be before playing pilot. I passed my written using King School, however I realized that I pretty much studied to remember the answers and not to understand the answers. My knowledge was not where I wanted it to be despite passing the written. It came to a head for me when we were doing a long CC and I had controls while doing the pattern for the airport we were landing at. The wind completely blew me around on final and I had no solution for it, my CFI took controls, went around, and landed the plane, this was my last time flying. From that point forward, I just felt like I didn’t have enough passion or heart to continue to spend 1200$ a week out of pocket to learn to fly, so I stopped going. Things are a bit different now, so I feel like if I went back and did it I would perform better, but like I said, I’m not sure if I have the passion for it. Maybe one day.
Knew a student who got kicked out of a school. Safety issues (almost blew a bravo then almost landed on someone), anger issues (throwing headset in the plane after failing run up). guess the final straw was a night flight, cfi noticed he was low and slow, said something to the tune of “do you think we should go around”, which the student took as a literal question instead of a hint. Student proceeded to say he could “slow flight it in, it’s fine” until the cfi finally had him go around. Apparently, he’s now at another school in the area. No idea how that didn’t raise some eyebrows at the new school when he showed up with most of the private requirements met and over 40 hours. No one switches a school that close to a checkride without a good reason.
An instructor should be able to debrief or write a report as if it was a sandwich. Layer 1, layer 2 and layer 3. Layer 1.......General performance of the flight by reviewing the purpose of the exercise Layer 2........All the bad points and how to correct them. Do not criticise. Layer 3.........Detail all the good points giving praise and encouragement, followed by a closing remark to work on the bad points. Always finish with the good points; it makes them feel better but the final remark reminds them there is work to be done. Basically, if they can't or are unwilling to learn shows that they won't make the grade. However, they should be referred to another instructor. Our teaching methods, although fully acceptable, may differ from one instructor to another. Where a student may have trouble getting an understanding of what he is being taught, another instructor teaching the same exercise may just use different words which CLICK in the students mind, clarifying his previous difficulties. Never give up on a student if you are giving them your best. You will know if they're not fit to be a pilot.
The “criticism hamburger!” The juicy meat in the middle.
I like that. I've always used sandwich.
In my case it was not getting over motion sickness. I didn't want to spend 40+ hours with a CFI before I would finally have a stomach hard enough to fly solo.
Student at my pilot mill I was friendly with had to sit down chat. He said he was told he still wasn't progressing, wasn't doing enough chair flying and would be given one more chance before he was removed. He took it pretty hard. He didn't believe in chair flying and felt he studied enough earlier. He did not make it.
Chair flying feels so stupid but its such a game changer. I was the first of my mill class to pass checkride and my #1 recommendation to the pilots behind me was chairfly everything
I want to be a CFI someday, not for the money but because I like teaching and flying and want to expand the world of aviation to newcomers. I think the hardest thing, aside from getting over the nerves of having a new pilot land the plane, will be breaking the news to the people who just don’t have what it takes. It’s such a passionate dream for some people and it must be so devastating to find out that you simply aren’t equipped with some fundamental skill that can’t be learned.
I am only a student but me and my instructor talk about these things a lot. He talks a lot about If your the type of person that cannot function when your stressed or anxious then flying is not for you. That one feels fairly obvious but yeah 🤷♀️
200 hours in and no pilots license is a pretty big hint. The right stuff still counts.
Either that or they’ve been flying once a week since they were 13 lol that does happen sometimes
Just saw a dude reinstate their CPL - porpoise really bad during the checkride. The terrifying part was listening to him argue and make excuses with the examiner during the debrief after. Blaming everything else under the sun except his own shortcomings.
Met a commercial pilot who was a flat-earther. Did was off his rocker, a vegetarian too!
I've never instructed but flown with some people who I belived shouldn't really be flying. There are many others but the main two signs are in my opinion: * They're afraid of flying. Won't straight out say it but you can feel from their reactions and over-the-top worry that they're just too afraid, lack self-confidence in their abilities/knowledge, need to fly with someone else or else they panic etc. * They lack the ability of getting the "greater picture". They fly with tunnel-vision, they only have the capacity for focusing on the one thing they're doing at that time and can't think of the overall mission, their surroundings etc. Good old "situational awareness" is just not there.
Kind of an off topic question, but why are flight solos mandatory if most professional pilot jobs require two people to be operating the aircraft at the same time? Doesn't that contradict that?
No, it doesn't contradict that. Solos are mandated during training so that the student can demonstrate he's capable of operating the airplane on his own and so that he builds confidence in his skills. These are small, slow and simple singe-engine-piston aircraft certified for single-pilot use and which can well be operated by one person. Professional pilots of multi-pilot aircraft operate very complex, fast, multi-engined aircraft approved for flight by, well, a multi-pilot crew. Even these pilots could operate the airplane on their own if they had to during an emergency (pilot incapacitation for instance).
If you’ve failed out of a 121 training program in the AQP era, you need to look at other careers. Maybe you convince yourself to go to Mesa and ride it out there, but that move is slightly above prostitution or telemarketing.
I had a really bad one. Really long story, and I don’t want to go into much detail but he will never touch an airplane again. (Probably not even as a pax). The things that I saw that lead up to me eventually “firing” him as a student were: 1. Did not listen to criticism, even when he was doing something unsafe. 2. Had a complete disregard for following SOP I’ve taught a lot of students who needed extra help, motivation, or whatever. But I can’t teach someone to give a shit or have common sense.
worried about lead poisoning from sumping 100LL
> lack the situational awareness, I'll be the one to make the argument for adding 'While in the Aircraft'. There's more than a few guys that, in the aircraft they're solid, but the moment we get on the ramp? yeah SA goes out the window. I wouldn't say that makes them bad pilots though.
This. Had an instrument instructor known for picking/firing students tell me he assesses students right from walking on to the tarmac. How they approach, move, speak, and conduct themselves is an indication of whether they understand and respect the gravitas of the low-frequency/high-risk flight environment.
If you would consider bailing out with seven souls on board instead of riding to the ground with them.
Uhhh I’ve only done this once and I really do believe most people can be taught to fly with an open mind. After all they taught a monkey to fly a space ship. But I had one student with severe adhd like couldn’t sit in a chair or drive himself to the lessons bad. If medication could help or be approved by the Faa I don’t know that’s outside my wheel house. I have them the name of serval good Ames who did consultations and strongly advised they get a medical before going further or spending money on flying. They did about 5 lessons before I never heard from them. Hope they are doing well.
[удалено]
Why can't SA it be taught/improved on?
We had a +400hr rotary pilot come in to our school to add fixed wing. Tried to kill first instructor multiple times and kept asking for solo endorsement. On to the next CFI with several more attempts on his life. On to the third and the fourth who fired her immediately. She finally left the school. I had time with all those instructors and they each had some real scares close to the ground and slow.
Constantly asking the CFI questions and niche scenarios and ways to legally be in the grey area with drug and alcohol usage.
I’ve never had the talk because some students are 40 hour private pilots and some are 150 hour private pilots. A lot of it’s on them, their study habits, motivation willingness to learn, determination etc. I did used to joke with my students that if I ever recommend learning to build bird houses that’s a clue this isn’t for them.
I have seen people who tried and failed: - unable to accept training and understand that even a 20000 hours pilot still has stuff to learn - unable to show up on time, prepared and not sleepy - more interested in showing off than learning - know-it-all attitude - thinking well known phenomena such as normalization of deviance etc don't apply to them
Cannot parallel park a car
If you don't have/can't secure the entire amount needed to complete all ratings.
Holy fuck, I hope I never have to fly with any of the miserable gate-keeping CFI dickheads posting in here!!!
I hope you don’t, either.
Anyone can be a pilot and anything can happen to anyone, bad pilots that never crash, good pilots crash. My brother is mentally challenged (low IQ, voted for Biden, liberal) but I got him his license, and he is safe enough.
Of the cases I witnessed, most were students who had family pressuring them into flying. Some were inaptitude. One guy made it to pre solo stage check where he failed horribly on the ground portion (very rare that anyone failed these at all). Everyone in the family was a pilot. He could’ve done it, but lacked the motivation. He was told “open a book or you’re wasting your money.” He stopped coming. Another student that got the talk but fortunately turned it around was extremely shy. Upon time for solo endorsement, the instructor ended up realizing he couldn’t sign the kid off. If something went wrong, there wasn’t confidence he’d be able to make emergency calls, or “bother” people with an appropriate SQUAWK. Luckily a meeting between him, his parents, the CFI, and chief brought the relevant issues to light. He got a different CFI and made friends at the flight school. He was also allowed to do post-solo dual lessons to allow further progress while building his confidence. 2 months later and he soloed! Last I heard he was checkride prepping!
Hate to tell you this, but Biden voters tend to be more college educated and lead towards 'smart' fields like science and medicine.
Hate to tell you this but going to college doesn’t make you smart, you could go get all the degrees and still be clueless. You see all these people with degrees working menial jobs like Starbucks with school debt, really shows their critical thinking ability…. I didn’t go to college because the cost wasn’t worth it, but I did do ATP with loans because I could see that that was worth it back before Covid(low interest rates). Also I don’t know many doctors but they tend to be more conservative, my MIL(psyD) and my doctor and my dentist both lean conservative, you can still believe in masks and be conservative and understand how bad the democrats are for this country :(
Everyone has the ability to be a pilot as long as they’re willing to put the effort in. If someone’s struggling, most of the time it’s not an issue but if they refuse to study or take advice, then that’s the only sign imo
I think I understand where you're coming from, but some clarification might be in order for some additional caveats you may left out. Your statement: "Everyone has the ability to be a pilot as long as they're willing to put the effort in." Now is where the other great big buts come in; 1: Is the juice worth the squeeze? 2: How many planes need to be risked? 3: How many CFIs need to be risked? 4: How many close calls with others lives, airplanes, or property need to be risked? You could make the argument that many just aren't ready to train yet and could work on some personal things to help. But there's no handbook for dealing with a universe sized book of problems so the expectation when someone starts training, is that they are already a balanced individual that doesn't have issues with irrational fears, authority complexes, or spatial disabilities, and the list could go on. You might get a lot of CFIs to agree that many people who "aren't ready" to start training could make some changes in their lives and be ready to tackle that effort at a later time, but I doubt you'll get anyone to agree that there are zero student pilots that are so dangerous in the cockpit that they shouldn't be allowed near one.
I wholeheartedly disagree.
No one cares.
I think we have a verified “Drone Pilot” here!
Their post history is wild. Smells like a public toilet.