Yeah yeah, all flight instructors screw their students. All flight schools screw their employees. All airlines are out to screw their pilots and customers. All unions are out to screw their pilots and the airlines. On and on ad naseum. Would you like some cheese with that whine?

If you have a concern about charges and are not receiving the desired value, discuss it with your instructor. You are the paying client and can decide to not pay further at any time. However, should you decide to not pay, expect the CFI to not instruct you further.

Regards,

A really expensive CFI

That really added a lot to the discussion!

I doubt very highly that the CFI is seeing any more than half of that $60 or whatever per hour. The FBO is taking the rest, and probably telling him that part of his job is to charge a certain amount. I used to work for a place that had similar rules. I'd bill my students for the time spent in the FBO so that the boss would leave me alone. Then the real instruction took place away from the airport, for the price of maybe dinner and/or a couple beers.

When I was getting training, my favorite instructor would do the same thing. He was like, "I'm on salary, so I'm not going to charge you for ground school." I really appreciated this, as the money I was paying is still accruing interest. While I wasn't on salary, I remembered what it was like to be cut a little slack and helped out from time to time and I was happy to do the same for my students.

So like most people have said, find somebody/someplace you like because it'll make everything about learning to fly easier and more fun.

You worked out of PTK on the south side of the field I'm betting. Just a guess since you're obviously a redwings fan

As a CFI at my Flight School, I was directly in charge of writing down the hours spent on both the plane and myself. I would always discuss on the first lesson or two about how I charge for my services and what my expectations are vs. the students expectations for myself. An avg. where there was just a flight, not any "new" ground discussion, more of a pre/post flight breif, there was .3-.4 depending on how much the student forgot about the man. prior, or how bad they messed up during the flight.

I did the same thing for the "Fly for Food" type of training. Especially doing the X-C's, we'd go to JXN and for a meal, I'd knock off an hour(which saved them a ton of $$$$ and I had a good meal with a fellow pilot). It's ironic that over a meal it seems that discussions seem to really take on a stronger effect on their perceptions and learning of whatever topic is at hand. A lot of it I believe is the more relaxed environment and the fact that there's no one else there to judge anything they say/have questions about.

Nope, didn't work there, (nearby though) but know a couple guys who did.

And GO REDWINGS in '08!