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Old 03-16-2021, 06:30 PM
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Cargocapt
On Reserve
 
Joined APC: Nov 2018
Posts: 16
Default How would you handle this?

I'm getting close to retirement. I am ending a career having flown 121, Air Force before that and now 135. At points in my career I was an IP and check airman. I hold an ATP with 9 types with something north of 30,000 hours. I allowed my flight instructor certificates to lapse long ago.

Nearing retirement I would like to keep flying and I am renewing my flight instructor certificate to teach the next generation. I only need to renew one which renews all of them. Since I will be instructing in small Cessna type aircraft I chose to perform in a single engine Cessna.

I am preparing for a checkride at the local flight school. It is a school I would eventually like to instruct with as its the closest to my home. I am now on my fourth instructor. The last three have left for bigger airplanes after two or three flights. I have had to repeat a number of lessons due to the churn in flight instructors. The school is not aware of my background only that I am a soon retiring airline captain.

Recently I had a very odd interaction with my newest instructor who is the youngest of the four. He does not provide feedback. We do a maneuver he says to me "that was good" and we move onto the next one. I am now on my fifth lesson with this young man. I have no idea where I am in preparation for him to sign me off. I would have signed myself off long ago. After each flight I ask him where we are, he wants to do one more flight just to clean things up without specifics about what we are cleaning up. On more than one occasion I have asked him during a maneuver what his expectation was, knowing the PTS expectation, and his response was he did not know and would need to look it up. Meanwhile my PTS is on the dashboard in clear view and I have been referring to it during each flight and maneuver.

After a recent flight, after our debrief, which was essentially him billing me and not much reviewing, I asked him some pointed questions in a very casual voice not confrontational in any way. What's the plan here? He gets unusually defensive with me. I'm just asking for clarification about what specifically I should be focusing on and his response is I need to know the PTS. As I am speaking with him I have the PTS in hand. I've been referring to it during our flights and walking through each task to ensure we are covering what he needs to sign me off for a exam. I have even been marking the PTS what tasks we have accomplished.

During the now unusually one way heated conversation, where I had to question him why he was so hostile, we went from one more flight to now four or five and the specifics are I need to know the PTS. And he is so angry he is going to charge me for the time he wasted with this conversation. Which he proply does as we are still sitting there.

Though this conversation I was very calm yet mistified why this young man was suddenly so hostile towards me. This was a fairly bizarre experience. I understand flying a single engine cessna is very different from flying an heavy freighter. Given my background and experience I would like to believe I should not need this much instruction to prepare for a renewal of a flight instructor certificate. I would be interested opinions or suggestions here. Asking for yet another instructor is going to be problematic and I don't believe the school has another instructor at this level.

I'd like to see if there are other options from the obvious fire him as an instructor. I am hopeful there is some way to salvage this.
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