pilotbassist

I am a relatively new flight instructor at a part 141 school, and a student of mine was recently told he would need to undergo a psychological evaluation before receiving their student pilot certificate. This is because the student served some jail time in the past year. Charges are not drug/alcohol related, they are traffic tickets and missed court date type offenses. I was just wondering if anyone had any advice on expediting the process/ better helping the student, or have been through similar situations before and had some useful input on the issue.

atpwannabe

I've noticed that no one responded to your question. You may want to pose your question on jetcareers.com. Hope this helps.




atp

lear553560ed

If you truly have your student's interest in mind, then you may inquire as to their ambitions into the spending money on becoming a pilot in the first place.. [need to undergo a psychological evaluation].. If this individual has an actual deficiency, ..[This is because the student served some jail time in the past year.].. you may ask yourself if you want this individual sharing your airspace, let alone your cockpit. You may also consider that this individual has past circumstances (problems with the law) that would eliminate him/her from any prospect of flying positions in the current, or future job climate, which I would think you should disclose to your student. [Charges are not drug/alcohol related, they are traffic tickets and missed court date type offenses.] And you know this to be fact how? Besides traffic tickets aren't good either, let alone missed Court date offenses.
Not trying to read too much into your question, but it seems that the student asked a good question, and you are trying to keep a student, in bad economic times for flight instructors, for the wrong reasons, I.E. your own.

atpwannabe

Hold on lear553560ed....don't jump the gun. I had my personal challenges in the past and yes, I've had to go under psyche testing, however that shouldn't preclude me from the flight deck. At least the FAA pointed out that there may be some issues that I needed to deal with and with the proper help, assistance and guidance those issues are being addressed, dealt with and resolved.

Most, not all of us, have issues that could be of some hinderance to our flight career. I stop short of using the universal quantifier ALL. If a person doesn't have any issues that they're dealing with then that's great; however, if they do, give them a chance to level the playing the field and if they tear their a$$, then that's on them.

Btw, look at the NWA pilots, the UPS pilot in ATL that was preying on little boys, countless pilots drunken on duty and the list goes on and on and.......

Give the kid a break.

JMO. Not trying to start to argument.



atp