Best and worst experiences with flight instructors

[usmarinemike]

I'm only a little ways into primary, but this is already bothering me. I've had one COC flight and it was like a breath of fresh air, because my flight leader focused on teaching me new techniques for things that I was struggling with. My on-wing has yet to say anything positive about anything, whether in flight or in the debrief. I mean, I know my flying needs a lot of criticism, but he treats every flight like it's a checkride. My gradesheets are typically three pages long and they list every minute detail of things I f-ed up, but the things that I know I did well don't ever get mentioned.

Ya might not want to come to jet land dude. The praise is pretty sparing. It's not that it's not there, but there certainly won't be much focus on the stuff you've done well. Before I started here, I thrived and grew on positive reinforcement. I trended toward marginal performance. I decided to refocus and look to my self motivation to get better. It worked, and I'm finishing out pretty well. I still wish I could get a verbal high five once in awhile, but it is what it is.

 

[Treetop Flyer]

Ya might not want to come to jet land dude. The praise is pretty sparing. It's not that it's not there, but there certainly won't be much focus on the stuff you've done well. Before I started here, I thrived and grew on positive reinforcement. I trended toward marginal performance. I decided to refocus and look to my self motivation to get better. It worked, and I'm finishing out pretty well. I still wish I could get a verbal high five once in awhile, but it is what it is.

Good job. You can do it. You're doing great. Suck less. Hope that helps.

 

[fc2spyguy]

Ya might not want to come to jet land dude. The praise is pretty sparing. It's not that it's not there, but there certainly won't be much focus on the stuff you've done well. Before I started here, I thrived and grew on positive reinforcement. I trended toward marginal performance. I decided to refocus and look to my self motivation to get better. It worked, and I'm finishing out pretty well. I still wish I could get a verbal high five once in awhile, but it is what it is.

Maybe I'm part of a different crowd. Just look at the negatives as a challenge, like something that needs an ass whooping.

 

[The Phiz]

Ya might not want to come to jet land dude. The praise is pretty sparing.

Definitely true. Its more like a lack of critique. Some of my favorite debrief words? "No issues on the...(insert phase of flight)".....If it's Friday, and the war room is open, you might even get a "Good job on the _blank_." In general, the shorter the debrief, the better you did.

 

[usmarinemike]

Good job. You can do it. You're doing great. Suck less. Hope that helps.

You would be a terrible fellatio coach.

 

[beaverslayer]

Ya might not want to come to jet land dude. The praise is pretty sparing.

Haha good to know...thanks for the heads up.

To clarify, I'm not looking for someone to hold my hand through primary--I'm just saying a little positive reinforcement now and then goes a long way, especially from your onwing.

 

[BarrettRC8]

My on-wing has yet to say anything positive about anything, whether in flight or in the debrief. I mean, I know my flying needs a lot of criticism, but he treats every flight like it's a checkride. My gradesheets are typically three pages long and they list every minute detail of things I f-ed up, but the things that I know I did well don't ever get mentioned.

Take it in stride dude - Aim to make your gradesheets one page/half page/one paragraph. I know it is Primary, but once you get beyond you'll simply be expected to perform well and the best you can hope for is a "No issues" on a debrief point.

Out of curiosity, what is his background?

 

[81montedriver]

Definately agreed. I knew I had a good flight when the instructor came up to me after the flight and said "Good flight, I've really got nothing for you, any questions?" The bad flights went something like this: "Why don't you go take five minutes, use the head, and we will talk about the flight a little bit."

 

[Python]

Ya might not want to come to jet land dude. The praise is pretty sparing. It's not that it's not there, but there certainly won't be much focus on the stuff you've done well. Before I started here, I thrived and grew on positive reinforcement. I trended toward marginal performance. I decided to refocus and look to my self motivation to get better. It worked, and I'm finishing out pretty well. I still wish I could get a verbal high five once in awhile, but it is what it is.

Definitely true. Its more like a lack of critique. Some of my favorite debrief words? "No issues on the...(insert phase of flight)".....If it's Friday, and the war room is open, you might even get a "Good job on the _blank_." In general, the shorter the debrief, the better you did.

Yup, pretty much exactly how it goes.

 

[beaverslayer]

Out of curiosity, what is his background?

60's. Not sure what variant.

 

[MasterBates]

Sounds LAMPSish.

 

[Gatordev]

Sounds LAMPSish.

While I rarely defend LAMPS, there's plenty of less than awesome IPs that come from other -60s.

 

[scoolbubba]

I'm only a little ways into primary, but this is already bothering me. I've had one COC flight and it was like a breath of fresh air, because my flight leader focused on teaching me new techniques for things that I was struggling with. My on-wing has yet to say anything positive about anything, whether in flight or in the debrief. I mean, I know my flying needs a lot of criticism, but he treats every flight like it's a checkride. My gradesheets are typically three pages long and they list every minute detail of things I f-ed up, but the things that I know I did well don't ever get mentioned.

Be glad he's putting in the time and effort to write up a grade sheet about why you suck. Everyone sucks. That's the beauty of primary. Get over it. If you want a gold star for effort, this probably isn't the right business.

It's a matter of compartmentalizing the suck, sacking up and ASKING for TECHNIQUES to suck less, and driving on and performing. If he's not offering advice but telling you that you're doing it wrong, put your big boy Navy size pants on and ask him to show you how to do it, or ask if he can offer techniques to change what you're doing while you perform the maneuver to get it up to/exceed MIF.

How long do you think it takes to write up a grade sheet for a 1.4 fam flight? Probably way more time than it takes for you to fuck it away. Just a thought.

 

[CommodoreMid]

I think the worst experience I had was in primary on an instrument hop. I wasn't having a great day (passed the flight, but barely, in the end), and we were on approach and I didn't quite understand the verbiage the controller gave. I can't remember what exactly it involved, but when I went to direct the instructor, with everything I said he kept just screaming NO! at me. He made no effort to say what exactly it was I getting wrong, much less offer an attempt to correct me. He just kept telling me no. He debriefed me on the ground, but thankfully this happened at the end of the flight, because by that point I think CRM had broken down so much that we were both so pissed off that it would have gotten bad.

 

[phrogdriver]

Every instructor has to know when to be a coach, and when to be a referee.