I have had a few instructors that have done the American Flyers route and seem to like it as well. The unfortunate part is that I started my flight training with American Flyers and an instructor who only had aspiration to be flying a GV like his daddy (as he would always say). So needless to say, I spent about $500 listening to his dreams of sitting left seat in a GV instead of flying myself. I know that all AF's aren't like that I am sure, but it was hard to start out that way.
With respect to the cattle hearders comment, again I know there are good schools out there that have plans in place to push instructors through and they seem to work just fine. Question is, as an instructor student, are you getting the most of that type of training and acquiring the necessary means to be a good teacher? I suppose I would be willing to pay the extra $1000-$1500 to go to one of the more nationally know schools (that is if I can bum the money off of one my dogs, lol), but is the knowledge base taken from it worth that much more?
One of the other issues I am running into is that there aren't many schools with instructors capable of teaching the CFI ticket in my area!? I'd hate to think that my only choice is to spend the extra money and not get what I need to out of my training simply because there aren't enough instructors locally that have 2 years in.
I have been offered the name of a former DPE that has gone back to only teaching CFI's and wonder if that might be the way to go?
Thanks for the advice in advance.