Chief Flight Instructor Ride Alongs

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azaviator08

New Member
Wondering if anyone has this at their flight school? Chief CFI regularly doing random ride alongs with CFI's. Seems like a good idea to me. An opportunity for all CFI's to learn and further develop their teaching skills. Do you think students would feel uncomfortable with this?
 
I'm not an instructor, but I think it's a good idea. It certainly keeps a CFI on his toes. I don't think a student would be bothered by this, at least I wouldn't be. I would prefer the chief to simply take notes though, and not say much. If the chief was talking during the flight, I might feel that it wasn't as productive as it could have been.
 
Yes this is common. Sometimes they would ride along with a CFI and other students. It was also common that if too many CFIs were just standing around you were fair game for the Chief or Assistant Chief to grab you and say lets go fly. What they would ask you to do would be totally up to them as far as maneuvers go. The whole point to doing this is to:

1. Make sure you are putting out the quality work the school expects from their instructors.

2. Are you teaching to their standards and along with the school's guidelines. Everyone teaches a Lazy 8 or steep turn their own way whic is fine as long as the completion standards are met. However, some schools have maneuver check lists and they expect you are teaching your students to follow those procedures. That's how they told the FAA they would run their 141 op.
 
I used to enjoy doing them. Got me out of the office, away from the paper and into an airplane to see how some of our students were doing as well as our instructors.

How can I evaluate my employees if I don't know what kind of job they're doing?

-mini
 
I think it's a good idea. I wish our chief and assistant chiefs would do it. As it is, they're too busy with other stuff.
 
I think it's a good idea. I wish our chief and assistant chiefs would do it. As it is, they're too busy with other stuff.
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:yeahthat: At DWC I didn't see it much with students being taught and just doing ride alongs. But each instructor had I guess you could call it a mentor who they worked with towards upgrades and regular evaluation flights. I would say 100 percent worth it and in my opinion a necessity to give some kind of standardization to a schools teaching procedure. (My current job site doesn't do this :mad:)
 
I had one because of a student wanted to leave me. Her complaints of me were a direct result of her decisions. The flight was funny because we only had time to reach the practice area and the go back to the airport as a result of her not studying the material I had assigned about five times. The 45 minute run-up is so much fun! Basically her complaints were BS and the chief knew it. She still changed instructors and her current instructor has kept her at lesson 6 for at least a month. She probably has racked up 20 hours of flight time on that lesson alone.

In other words, we only go up with our Chief for the 141 checkout and when students complain.

minitour said:
I used to enjoy doing them. Got me out of the office, away from the paper and into an airplane to see how some of our students were doing as well as our instructors.

How can I evaluate my employees if I don't know what kind of job they're doing?

-mini
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Are their students passing their first time? ;)
 
The three 141 schools I went to (two as a student) didn't do them.

I really don't see much point in them. An actively flying CFI will show if he is worth his salt pretty quickly.

Won't the chief know what and how the CFI is teaching when he does the students stage check?

Plus, it isn't like the CFI is going to forget about the chief in the back seat and not put forth a little extra effort.
Cameras and microphones, that is what we need! By god these CFIs have gotten out of hand.
 
With all the stories I've heard about CFIs that just have their students fly around, I think it's a great idea.
 
sdfcvoh said:
:confused: more info? this sounds newsworthy.... you workin' for FOX?
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I knew a CFI that would sleep in the aircraft with a private student flying. That same private student later decided to pull the mixture out on final instead of the throttle while on a solo flight.
 
Never known anyone to just fly around and not teach, but i have known one CFI who liked to do taxi practice for the whole hour.
 
Douglas said:
Won't the chief know what and how the CFI is teaching when he does the students stage check?
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Not necessarily. Some people get really worked up over stage checks/checkrides. That obviously can bring out the worst in that student. Does that mean the instructor isn't doing their job properly?

-mini
 
minitour said:
Not necessarily. Some people get really worked up over stage checks/checkrides. That obviously can bring out the worst in that student. Does that mean the instructor isn't doing their job properly?

-mini
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Exactly. And if it IS me, I'd appreciate a bit of input as to how I can improve my lessons.
 
Douglas said:
Then the chief is doing it wrong...

I disagree.
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So when they go in front of the DPE and can't spit out aircraft equipment requirements for their "home drome's" airspace because they get so nervous, the DPE is doing it wrong...

I see.

-mini
 
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