Pilot Factory's.?

Question

It sounds like everyone thinks that these "Pilot Factory" schools with students teaching students to fly are the greatest places to learn. Lets hear from all the other pilots that have had to fly with these kids. They just don't understand that your CFI should have some experience to pass on to you before you go get in a commuter with 250 hours and 50 multi which there doing now. So lets here from the older crowd, what do you think?

Answer 1

Well, I'm not from the older crowd but I've flown with the older crowd as well as pilots with only slightly more experience than me and I find a paradox.

The low time pilots (the ones that came out of the factory to teach me before going on to better things) always were grilling me on things I was doing wrong or not doing right enough.  Even after training and a few hours under my belt it was still the same thing.

When I started flying commercially with a whole 200hrs TT, I got on with a small charter/flight school company owned by an ex fighter pilot and ex Cathay Pacific captain.  He would show me neat tricks, but he would never come down on me.  I was harder on myself.  My current boss stopped logging hours at 23,000 and never says anything when he flies with me.  He just says 'you must be doing something right, the plane is still in one piece and so are you'.

Answer 2

If all flight instruction depended on "professional teachers,"  then where would the teachers come from?  The way the system works, if you did not allow a method for young commercial pilots to build hours by instructing others, there would soon be NO instructors available to teach new pilots, because all the experienced ones would be working for the airlines.  Why would anyone in their right mind want to go out and risk life and limb for peanuts if it weren't for building time and experience toward a better job?

Answer 3

pilot factories are the worst for students.. I don't think part 61 is all that bad though.. my private certificate was done under part 61.. i had one instructor.. then i left to go to a part 141 aviation college.. i had 3 instructors during my instrument training.. each instructor had their own way of teaching and it cost me money... lots of it.. then i had two more instructors for my commercial training.. one of my instructors actually told me that he hates his job and cant wait to have enough time built up to go someplace else.. i think it would be better to do my training under part 61, find an instructor who actually wants to instruct, rather than go to a pilot factory and bounce around from instructor to instructor as they leave... the planes may not be as pretty under part 61 but they all fly the same and get the job done..

Answer 4

I think I already know where you stand on the issue, but there are a lot of generalizations you threw in there.

My only complaint about "pilot factories" is the attitude of many of the people who graduate from a program like that.  I don't think the problem lies in the training itself.  There are plenty of good instructors at those programs.  There are a lot of bad ones too.  But it's the same with any local flight school at an FBO.

At least the "pilot factories" are grooming people for standardized flying.  If the pilot coming out of one of these programs has the attitude of having a solid educational foundation on which to build skills and experience, great!  If you get a freshly minted commercial pilot who thinks he is owed a job because his education put him above and beyond that of any 10 year captain out there, there is certainly a problem there.  But you can get that same attitude from a person who has a fresh commercial certificate from a FAR 61 flight school who idolized his instructor and thinks he must be better than any person who came out of a pilot factory with an inexperienced instructor.

The real problem in the industry doesn't come from 141 flight schools.  It doesn't come from 61 flight schools either.  It comes from egotistical people who think that any kind of training different from what they got is somehow inferior.  How would you feel about "these kids" if they weren't egotistical, arrogant, and give the impression that they're "owed" a job ?  What if they had strong flying skills, strong CRM skills, and a humble attitude toward learning?  That wouldn't be so bad, would it?  But you know what?  Both of those attitudes are out there, and they exist no matter what kind of flight training background they come from.  It's just the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.

Answer 5

That is exactly why I advocate the FAA do away with

14 CFR 61.51(e)(3).

it would get rid of the time builders anD leave the instructing to

TEACHERS.