gatordev said:
Standardization, yes. Knowledge, yes. Skill, yes. ABILITY to TEACH, DEFINITELY. They shouldn't be an easy grader, but should be fair. If you fvck something away, you pay for it. Man up and take the hit. I know when I've fvcked up, I've deserved every below I've ever received. If you do something awesome, you get rewarded. Being an IP that is very easy to receive a below from, but impossible to receive an above from only earns you a reputation of being unfair. That's not a good instructor. Personality has a lot to do with it. Being a dick isn't necessarily useful all the time. It has a time and place, definitely. But 100% of the time? No. Like anything, that's a teaching device. You can yell at me all day, I'll tune you out in a very short amount of time. But say, I screw something up and you make a snide subtle comment, when normally you're a nice, personable guy, I feel like a moron and it's very effective. Some IPs forget their job is to teach, not to give you downs. When every flight feels like a checkride, and not a learning experience, something is wrong.
That's my take. I've liked most of my IPs in my flight school travels. Most I've learned from, most are "chill", and most will let you know when you're doing something stupid. Very few I've had personality clashes with and very few I've run across that are absolutely horrible teachers and make me wonder why the hell they're instructing in the first place. They're out there, but few and far between. I think most IPs are pretty good and do their job.
