Instructor hours

[redlaser]

Should Instructor hours count towards obtaining a ATPL licence, As all instructors all know for a fact that most of the time it is the student who is actually flying the airplane, but the instructor gets to log as PIC, A lot of commercial pilots get an Instructor rating just to build time towards their ATPL licence, but in actual fact they sit and watch their students fly the aircraft, What is your take?

[SuperchargedRS]

YES.

Do you long the time when the plane is flying under autopilot?


Being a good instructor takes quite a bit of work.

Letting the student learn from their mistakes, letting them take a bad landing to the point they have basically zero chance of salvage and then as a instructor you recover, all this while you are wearing your teacher hat, and teaching using very few words.

That takes more skill than logging hours sitting enroute flying a charter single pilot IFR plane.

[skypirate88]

Of course it should count. Even if the student is flying, as an instructor you shouldn't just be sitting there doing nothing. I taught for 2.5 years before moving on and never saw it as just a way to put hours in the book. I took pride in my students success, and always tried to find ways to go beyond the basic curriculum.

[photofly]

PIC time has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with who's flying, and everything to do with whose ass gets nailed to the wall when something goes wrong. Two thousand hours risking students doing dumb things for which you'll get nailed, is worth an ATPL, as far as I can see.

[PositiveRate27]

Should the hours sitting right seat to a skipper with thousands of hours of experience telling you what to do and bailing your ass out when you pooch things royally count towards an ATPL?

I learned more about human factors and CRM, as well as how to fix things when you are in a low energy regime, when I was an instructor than I ever have at the airlines.

When was the last time you were on the back side of the power curve at all, let alone 50 feet over the runway?

[goingnowherefast]

Ex-instructors generally make great training captains in the 703/704/705 world.

This is once aspect where the industry actually works fairly well. A 2000hr instructor with an ATPL is going to realistically get a FO job in a King Air/Metro/Navajo. Not a direct entry command job on a 2-crew aircraft, which is really what the ATPL is for.

[Meatservo]

The best way to truly understand something, is to try teaching it to someone else.

[Chris M]

Back in ye olde days when I flew gliders with Air Cadets I spent two years instructing. Everything before that was getting my stick and rudder skills up to where they needed to be, but once I started teaching everything else really started coming together. Situational awareness for one - knowing where I am in relation to 3 other gliders and two tow planes and staying well enough ahead of my students that they won't try to get us far enough away from the field that we won't be making it back definitely puts your head in the game.

[YBW-Kid]

Good pilots don't fly the airplane with their hands and feet. First they manage it mentally with their heads. Good pilots are good managers first. Remember the old adage where the airplane slams into the ground and the pilot arrives 10 minutes later. It's about staying ahead of the airplane in all circumstances and conditions.

Instructors learn to manage the airplane with one other variable factor, the unpredictable student. They spend hours staying ahead of a student who is likely behind the airplane. The reward is when the student morphs into a manager and demonstrates they are getting further and further ahead of the airplane. This experience is invaluable and is PIC time worthy of any ATPL.

[redlaser]

Recently I heard through the grapevine that TC was going to allow only one fifth of the flight hours that an instructor flies towards his or her ATPL licence, Would this approach by TC stop a lot of Commercial pilots from becoming instructors in order to build flight times, and discourage them from becoming Flight Instructors.

[C-GKNT]

Recently I heard through the grapevine that TC was going to allow only one fifth of the flight hours that an instructor flies towards his or her ATPL licence, Would this approach by TC stop a lot of Commercial pilots from becoming instructors in order to build flight times, and discourage them from becoming Flight Instructors.

TC can't even make time to change rules that really need be changed, beneficial ones with likely zero opposition. Why would they take the time to make such a contentious change of questionable value?

Where did you hear this? Why 1/5th of the flight hours...how about 22.7% instead?

A number of years ago, I heard through the grapevine that TC was going to change the IFR expiration rules. I did 3 renewal rides before anything got implemented.

Glenn

[AuxBatOn]

The 1500 hours required and 750 PIC hours for the ATPL are not for the hands and feet aspect: it's for the decision making and overall airmanship. You can teach a monkey to handle the yoke, rudder pedals and power levers. It takes experience to learn airmanship and decision making.

[Rookie50]

Good pilots don't fly the airplane with their hands and feet. First they manage it mentally with their heads. Good pilots are good managers first. Remember the old adage where the airplane slams into the ground and the pilot arrives 10 minutes later. It's about staying ahead of the airplane in all circumstances and conditions.

Instructors learn to manage the airplane with one other variable factor, the unpredictable student. They spend hours staying ahead of a student who is likely behind the airplane. The reward is when the student morphs into a manager and demonstrates they are getting further and further ahead of the airplane. This experience is invaluable and is PIC time worthy of any ATPL.

Good post.

I'm a low time pilot who's at best an average stick. I would like to think my flight management skills have grown those as I've gained a little time. Hoping that will keep me alive.

[Ex99guy]

First they manage it mentally with their heads. It's about staying ahead of the airplane in all circumstances and conditions.

Instructors learn to manage the airplane with one other variable factor, the unpredictable student. They spend hours staying ahead of a student who is likely behind the airplane. The reward is when the student morphs into a manager and demonstrates they are getting further and further ahead of the airplane. This experience is invaluable and is PIC time worthy of any ATPL.

Sorry to burst your bubble but it doesn't take a whole lot of brainpower to stay ahead of an airplane that's floating along in the circuit or to and from the practice area at 90kts. Especially when the schools are setting limits on winds, ceiling, and visibility. How many "real world" decisions are actually being made?

Call it rewarding but morphing a 0 hour wonder into a 40 hour wonder doesn't take much effort. That experience is worth about as much as the paper hanging on the roll in my bathroom.

Just my two cents but instructing time is worth about as much as the paper its printed on.

Edited for grammar.

[photofly]

The point you're missing is that, if instructing time is worthless or not - that's still all you need for an ATPL. An ATPL clearly ain't much.

[Ex99guy]

The point you're missing is that, if instructing time is worthless or not - that's still all you need for an ATPL.

If you're asking me, the answer is yes.

[digits_]

Sorry to burst your bubble but it doesn't take a whole lot of brainpower to stay ahead of an airplane that's floating along in the circuit or to and from the practice area at 90kts. Especially when the schools are setting limits on winds, ceiling, and visibility. How many "real world" decisions are actually being made?

Call it rewarding but morphing a 0 hour wonder into a 40 hour wonder doesn't take much effort. That experience is worth about as much as the paper hanging on the roll in my bathroom.

Just my two cents but instructing time is worth about as much as the paper its printed on.

Edited for grammar.

Have you ever been an instructor / given any flight instruction ?

[land3]

Sorry to burst your bubble but it doesn't take a whole lot of brainpower to stay ahead of an airplane that's floating along in the circuit or to and from the practice area at 90kts. Especially when the schools are setting limits on winds, ceiling, and visibility. How many "real world" decisions are actually being made?

Call it rewarding but morphing a 0 hour wonder into a 40 hour wonder doesn't take much effort. That experience is worth about as much as the paper hanging on the roll in my bathroom.

Just my two cents but instructing time is worth about as much as the paper its printed on.

Edited for grammar.

Question for you 99guy:

I was hired by big red with 4400 hours, most of which was instructor time on C-150 and C-172's. I flew their metal for 35 years, finishing my career on the triple7 with 24,000 hours in my logbook. How come they thought my instructor time was worth more 'than the paper it was written on'?

[goingnowherefast]

I deal a lot with ex-instructors in their first 703 job.
A 1000hr instructor know their shit, know the books and the rules really well. Miles ahead of the 200hr pilots for knowledge. The instructors are accustomed to taking control of an airplane at the edge of doom and saving the plane. Their stick and rudder skills are superior to a 200hr pilot.

Where the 1000hr instructor is lacking in comparison is in decision making and experience with regard to commercial operations. How many instructors have seen a non-precision approach flown to minimums at night, and don't see the runway until 1 mile final because the forest fires that day were bad that day. A 1000hr copilot will know how much ice the plane can handle, know what an approach at minimums into the 13th duty hour is like. Flying into a busy airport at night, in icing, everybody getting holds, the instructor will be flustered, not know what's going on and will be way behind the airplane. The 1000hr copilot will have predicted before hand where the hold will be, and have already figured it all out before hand. The 1000hr copilot will also know how to utilize the PNF and will have a good understanding of the 2-crew concept.

By the time the 1000hr instructor reaches 2000hrs, with the 1000hrs as a copilot, he will have figured all that out. By the time they are both captains, generally the instructor is better. His knowledge base from being an instructor allows him to learn commercial aspects of flying more quickly. His experience sitting beside a student allows him to better predict what a new FO is going to do. He will have more patience with an FO and be a bettor mentor for the FOs he flies with.

So since you are asking if instructor hours should count towards an ATPL? I say absolutely! They're not going to go from instructing on the Seminole to direct entry 777 captain, but by the time they have a position that actually requires them to have that ATPL, (2-crew aircraft captain), they do an excellent job.

Plus, when comparing a 200hr pilot to a 1000hr instructor, the instructor has already had the "I'm a commercial pilot ego" knocked out of them, and their attitude is much better.

[JasonE]

Sorry to burst your bubble but it doesn't take a whole lot of brainpower to stay ahead of an airplane that's floating along in the circuit or to and from the practice area at 90kts. Especially when the schools are setting limits on winds, ceiling, and visibility. How many "real world" decisions are actually being made?

What about the more interesting moments...like when a student firewalls the throttle during a spin recovery instead of power idle???

Instructors always need to be on their game.

[YBW-Kid]

JasonE- Just to be clear I did not make the above comment you have just attributed to me. That was EX99guy's comment to my comment. I do not agree with his/her comment about bursting your bubble. Here is my original comment again.

"Good pilots don't fly the airplane with their hands and feet. First they manage it mentally with their heads. Good pilots are good managers first. Remember the old adage where the airplane slams into the ground and the pilot arrives 10 minutes later. It's about staying ahead of the airplane in all circumstances and conditions.

Instructors learn to manage the airplane with one other variable factor, the unpredictable student. They spend hours staying ahead of a student who is likely behind the airplane. The reward is when the student morphs into a manager and demonstrates they are getting further and further ahead of the airplane. This experience is invaluable and is PIC time worthy of any ATPL."

[redlaser]

Not so long ago there was a Flight instructor who crashed a Twin-Aztec short of the runway by shutting down the wrong engine during a training flight , one week later he was hired by Air Canada,

[photofly]

As opposed to the Single Aztec?

[DanWEC]

Sure. That sounds believable. He was the instructor? What sort of exercise was he doing with the student that had the instructor controlling the shutdown? Reference please.
I guess it makes sense though, considering most instructors I know go right to Air Canada......