Back to the original question, here are my two cents:
I haven't read Rod's article, so I can't comment on the specifics.
In general, I'd say the biggest thing that will help retain students is feeling connected to their instructor. The instructor has to be the type of person who makes the complete experience enjoyable. That means the *complete* experience. Not just the technical aspect of teaching steep turns. I mean everything from chit chatting about what they did last weekend, to making them feel safe when practicing stalls, to having a clear cut plan of action on how to get the customer through training.
Instructors who know how to fly are a dime a dozen. Instructors who have it all when it comes to a gleaming personality, technical knowledge of flying, business sense, communication skills, etc. are really, really, really rare. The longer I do this job, the more I realize how rare this type of person is.
Teaching the "bare bones" basics in VFR equipped taildraggers sure does sound fun--to you, me, and apparently Rod Machado--but I doubt it would do much to retain students. I believe it would trade one problem for another. For every customer who would get really excited about flying because of this approach, I bet you'd lose customers who would get frustrated by not seeing the correlation between what they're doing in training and what they ultimately want to do as pilots.
I'd say we, as an industry, would see bigger improvements in student retention if we improve the quality of the instructors and flight school owners than if we try to revamp our training syllabuses. We're going to have to fundamentally shift our attitudes towards training. Forget the idea of trying to make it cheap. Set the prices at whatever it takes to pay the bills. Pay the instructors well, so they actually want to stick around longer than their first airline/cargo/charter job offer. Fly nice, clean, safe, well equipped planes. Don't hire instructors who suck. Just because they have a CFI certificate doesn't mean they deserve to work as an instructor. They need to have the personality for it. It might be hard to find this type of person, but it won't matter, because your current instructors actually want to stick around once you have them. Flight school owners need to put customer service at the top of the list, not something to cut in an effort to save money.
If everyone approaches flight training in this way, it won't really matter if a school is flying VFR taildraggers or G1000 Cessna 172s for primary training. Customers will stick around because they'll have a great experience with their instructor, the school's management, etc.
Now, regarding the discussion about spins, aerobatic, and tailwheel training...I don't think it has much to do with retention, but some of you make it sound like everyone would be "better" or safer pilots if these things were emphasized more. I disagree.
I've never seen any hard statistical evidence that proves pilots who undergo this type of training have fewer accidents. In fact, one could argue the contrary--back in the 1950s, when tailwheel/spin/stick 'n rudder flying were all drilled in to people more forcefully than today, we, as an industry, had terrible accident rates. Accident rates have steadily declined over time to all time lows in recent years. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what causes what, because there are so many different types of accidents and changes in training that have occurred over the years. But I have a hard time believing that our modern, GPS equipped, tricycle gear aircraft are actually making us *less* safe than the alternative.
I think Fly_Unity also had some excellent thoughts on the practical side to this whole shortened approach to training:
Really though, I think 10 hours is to low in todays environment for most people. Maybe it wasnt in the 50's when Americans all had a mechanical mindset and drove tractors and other equipment. In todays world, few people have that mindset. Now days its more of an electronic mindset.
Also with how expensive General Aviation is now days its a different story. 30 years ago if you ground looped or flipped the airplane you fixed it with duct tape and kept going. Now days, Its a very expensive deal with a prop strike, insurance goes up, FAA gets involved in anything, Airplane has damage history making it worthless. Insurance wont allow low time time pilots solo taildraggers unless you pay them a thousands. The list goes on.
Airtraffic control has little tolerance in busy airspace to mess with a guy with only 10 hours in a pattern. FAA Examiners and DE's are stricter following PTS standards that a private pilots license is no longer a license to learn. Less people are learning to fly for the fun of it, but rather as a career.
Sure it would be nice if every student learns to fly in a Super Cub, Spins on private checkrides, all dirt strips, no GPS, land where ever you want, and the Airlines all used DC-3's, However, in todays world thats not going to be possible. Looking down memory lane, the 50's are enticing no matter what career your in.
:yeahthat:
I am terrified in tall building or on bridges. (And I know nothing is really going to happen, but I just can't force myself to do it. I almost didn't make it on the cruise ship.)
