ctd57

It is real flying though. Tell anyone who has been there that it is not. It is the hardest type out there in my opinion. It applies in the way that you hear guys on here saying that unless you have thousands of hours, you have no real experience. Just because they have all of that time, doesn't mean that they are gods gift to aviation. I was just implying that they couldn't handle that type of flying, unless they had been there. You have to make decisions quicker than the airplane, and at 500'AGL, you don't have a lot of time. At FL240, you have a lot more time to think about it. I guess what I meant to say that flying up there is easy. I was just agruing that in the civilian world of flying, there really isn't much different between someone with 500 hours and 1000 hours as a flight instructor. It was just more laps in the pattern and more maneuvers. You reach a plateau as a flight instructor after so many hours of doing it. The new experiences will come once they move on to say 121 or 135 ops.

PinnacleFO

I think these programs are ok, think about it. They are getting good training and would you rather have some person next to you who came from a well structured program with good training who maybe has a little less hours, or some guy who has 2000 hours flying out of an uncontrolled field and has probably never been in class b airspace. I will take the low time guy anytime.

ctd57

I guess that is what I was trying to get at. You can earn great experience just by flying out of a certain class of airport. It doesn't matter how many hours, but what type of flying was accomplished in those hours.

rickair7777

From personal experience there's a big difference between the 500 hour and 1000 hour CFI. Typically CFI's start with ASEL stuff, then work up to CFII, and finally MEI. You probably plateau around 1000 hours dual given, assuming you have done signifiacnt CFII and MEI. I do agree that a CFI who works only in uncontrolled airspace isn't learning as much.

Brand-new CFIs are usually nervous enough to stay alert and not push their own envelope too much. Statistics have shown that 600 hour CFIs have a tendency to get complacent, and are thus more prone to accidents. The ones who scare themselves (and survive) are less accident prone by the time they reach 1000 hours. I have personally seen this function like clockwork in my subordinate CFI's, and we actually would do a safety seminar at the 500-600 hour point to try to reinforce this lesson before our people learned it the hard way...some of them still learned it the hard way.

crewdawg52

You won't see someone with thousands of hours and years of flying experience breaking company rules by taking an empty plane to FL410 just because the it's certified to!

BURflyer

What your saying the captain was asleep during that flight?

sgrd0q

I thought the captain "dude" had 6,900 hours.

ctd57

I personally started off with my MEII. I have been instructing at a Class C airport, and have about 600 hours with 470 multi. I have been scared good a couple of times, once during a stall, the other during a Vmc demo. Everytime I go up, it feels like groundhogs day. The same stuff over and over, I am not complacent though, I still keep my guard up, but on a personal level, I feel that I am no longer learning anymore. Now it is just about continuing to give quality instruction, and build flight time. I need a new challenge to further advance myself in my aviation career. I guess for alot of CFIs, they don't start of in a multi, and not all in controlled airspace. I think the experience is more important than total time, that is all I am saying

rickair7777

MEI is definately where the best "learning opportunities" occur...VMC demo in the pattern, single-engine stalls, etc. I agree that if you've been scared a few times as an MEI, you have probably popped your invulnerability bubble and are about ready to move on...but you still might learn a few things. Most folks don't get to do MEI until later in their game.

ctd57

What is your background, I noticed on your profile you said that you have both military and civilian flight experience, but you also talk about being a CFI.