Well, it's been a LONG time since I have posted. Especially on the subject of ATP as they put a very bad taste in my mouth, and the more REtraining I do, the more angry I become about the poor quality of flight training being given (not just at ATP but everywhere).
For those who don't remember me... here is a bit of background. I graduated from Embry Riddle and went to ATP in hopes of getting some quality flight instructing from instructors that care about thier students. I was excited to put all the stuff I learned at ERAU to use. Unfortunatly I am very disapointed.
I finished the ACPP in the spring of 04 and became a flight instructor at thier PHX location in the fall. I was a cookie cutter ATP flight instructor who really new nothing except what came out of the "supplement" and all I cared about was going to the airlines. This is the common mentality of instructors at the school. There was no direction to my instruction except for "the checkride is in 8 days, memorize the suppliment". My training was nothing but checkride prep, as was the instruction I was giving. Very sad indeed. I left ATP and found out that I was unhireable by most schools. I could no longer fly a Cessna... as I was not trained to fly cessnas. Nor was I an organize professional, as ATP's 15 day total instructor course and 1 day ground school with an instructor did not provide information on subjects like : effective lesson planning. Basically when I graduated from ATP, I was nothing but a button pushing monkey... no airmanship what so ever.
Ok, now the present. Over the past year/ year and a half I have been fortunate to be taken under the mentorship of a 30year veteran instructor who has taught in every A/C known to man. I have spent this time preparing extensive lesson plans and filling in gaps in my training and knowlege created by poor instruction on my flight school's part. I am now becoming an airman. His methods have come through in my flying.
Example: As of Feb 2006, I had not touched an A/C in over a year and was scared to death that I would plow it into the runway... Through out my extensive lesson planning, I had dug deeper into concepts of aerodynamics that, although studied in college, had never been brought to light thier effect in training. We climbed in to "wendy" our 1960 Cessna 172 and I had not ownly flown the A/C but landed better than I had in any training session at ATP (multi or single engine)
Sorry for the ramble, but my point is that ATP (as with many large flight schools) do not provide the quality education they say. They are simply checkride factorys producing button pushing monkeys who want nothing more than to get in the left seat of some large jet propelled A/C. Problem is, when the buttons stop working, the monkey has nothing left to do except throw poo, as they were not trained to do much of anything else.
This leaves the aviation industry in a very dangerous situation. I honestly believe that the industry is on the brink of a rash of accidents because of poorly trained pilots.
There were a couple comments made throughout this thread that I would like to just set some thought on.
Concerning the IRS loop holes they "Savy Business Men" at ATP are finding: If you think they are finding loop holes to avoid paying more $$$, what kindof loop holes do you think they are finding just to run thier operation the way they do? Remember, the FARs are the only rules that are actually written in blood. Every single one of the rules written in the FARs are there because someone died. So do you think finding loop holes to make your operation "legal" is safe? I don't.
Concerning the comment about the CFI's having to go through a very extensive checkride before getting thier ticket.... cough cough... BS! My Initial CFI was given by a DE on his deathbed known for sleeping through many of his checkrides. Oh yeah... I was beaten up... more by more own nerves than my examiner. The following day I was sitting with the same examiner for my CFII checkride... and yes... he was asleep. My CFII groundschool consisted of 2 hours of "tell me how to fly instruments from the right seat". Now... that completely explanes why I couldn't TEACH instruments. Explaning them for a checkride and teaching them to a student are two different rhelms of information. It's true that the checkride shouldn't be stressful... but not because the examiner is lax and the student knows and was trained to the gouge, but because they training that was recieved was challenging enough that the exam becomes a joy ride. When trained properly, the student never feels unprepared, just performance nerves.
Anyway... this is my experience and my opinion. I learn more everyday on the way flight instruction should be given. I hope to be instructing at a local school come February. My ride has been very difficult over the past couple of years, but very enlightening. I am fortunate to be able to do student teaching with my flight instructor's Private Pilot. (Kindof interesting how teachers who are going to teach 1st graders how to read are required at least 6 months of student teaching, but a flight instructor, who teaches people how to fly, is required none at all... perplexing really.)
Overall, I agree with much of what DE727UPS says, he speaks from much experience. Sounds like he is a little "old school" himself... awesome...
Good luck to yall... I'll try to keep in touch more often as things progress!
