When your CFI takes your money for a wild ride
When I first started working on my private back in High School, I had a great first instructor. He was in his mid-twenties; not too far out of college. He wasn’t a dick and understood how to get his students to learn to be confident in the airplane. Unfortunately for me, he was soon hired to fly charter for another FBO, and as a result my name got passed onto another instructor. This guy was older, and he obviously thought this made him smarter. He preached to me how he would probably yell at me in the cockpit and that being tough on me will inevitably make me a better pilot. So, I trusted his methods thinking that I would be tough as a rock and well schooled in my maneuvers by the time he got done with me. He refused to send me solo, even in the pattern despite the fact that my previous instructor had me practicing T&G’s solo quite often. He would yell at me when I didn’t know something and I noticed that this was starting to happen all the time (me not knowing something). He would get in the plane and go up with me for two hours straight and we would do T&G’s non-stop. And never did he say progress was being made or that I was doing well. If he ever said “good job” it was quickly followed by a synopsis of what I did wrong. When it came to X-C planning, he yelled at me when I showed up without radials off of two VORs to corroborate my checkpoints, keeping in mind we were in an old Cessna 152 II with a wobbly VOR receiver. Honestly, looking at the ground and referencing the sectional was far more accurate. He dragged me on for about a year when I convinced another instructor to ride with me on my night X-C. This other instructor told me I was doing great and commented that I must me near the end of my training. I should have known right then that something was up, when one guy tells me I’m up to par and another tells me I shouldn’t even be allowed to fly in wind over 5 knots. About this time I was only a few months away from moving away to college and I needed to finish up my private before I got there so I could enroll in their flight program. All summer I flew with this guy, and nothing changed. I had all of my time requirements met, my X-C’s were done and I felt ready to go do take my test. BUT my instructor would not sign me off, not after flawless flights and flawless two-hour blocks of T&G’s. It was painful. And to kill my confidence further, he sat me down and charged me $35 and hour to school me for the written test which I knew the required material. He finally caught me up once on something I didn’t know: what Virga was. He jumped on that like a hobo on a sandwich. With a week to go before college, I had passed my written test, but could not get him to sign me off to take the practical/oral portions of the exam. I had no choice but to cut my losses (which were upwards of $7000 by this point). When I moved down to Carbondale to go to SIU I was rejected from my flight slot and told to finish up my private. Which I was able to do at their local FBO within two weeks. To this day I refuse to fly with my old instructor, and have discouraged others from flying with him. I firmly believe that this guy really did not care at all whether or not I earned my license. He became a much richer man due to my AOPA credit card and my summer jobs. If you ever think that you’re falling for someone who doesn’t care about your progress, go up with another instructor, and ask them for a synopsis, as this will often help you gauge where you really stand. As we can all relate, its a terrible but unfortunately necessary feeling to know exactly how much money this is costing you and not knowing when you’ll be able to stop spending.
June 19th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
Bravo Bravo!!!!