Hey guys I’m a 19 year old student pilot planning on attending atp within the next couple years. Right now I’m training at a local ground school and I’m having trouble with my cfi. I’m about 10 hours into my training and I don’t feel as if I’m making enough progress. My instructor assigns me homework for our next lesson for example he will tell me to watch videos on power on/ off stalls. I do as he tells me but once we are actually in the air he doesn’t correct me when I make a mistake or tell me what I could do to improve , he is silent. Once we land he assigns me another topic and we don’t re-visit the previous topic and i know I still need work on it. He keeps talking about soloing me and just have me my written exam but I don’t feel as if should be soloing if I still don’t know how to perform proper flight maneuvers like stalls, s-turns, turns around a point etc… I’m confused on what to do ? Is this normal from a cfi ?
Alex,
Obviously I’m not there but I can tell you that no one has all their maneuvers down before they solo and certainly not at 10hrs (that’s simply unrealistic on your part). I suspect your progressing normally and your instructor is fine with it. That said if you have concerns your instructor should address them. I’d tell the instructor and if he doesn’t give you satisfactory answers their manager. Beyond that you may need to find another.
Adam
Alex,
I second what Adam said here. At the end of the day, you are the customer though and if you do not feel comfortable with your CFI, you should ask to fly with a different one.
Chris
I understand that I’m only 10 hours in and won’t have all my maneuvers down but it feels like we are moving to the next maneuver without me fully understanding it or performing it properly consistently. Is this normal ?
Alex,
No, I would not say that is normal. I suggest that you fly at least one flight with another CFI and see what you think.
Chris
Alex,
It’s not not normal. What I’m saying is after 10hrs there’s little you’ll be performing perfectly. Again I would express my concerns to you instructor and if you’re not satisfied then take it to a manager or change instructors.
Adam
Hey Alex,
I felt the same way! My maneuvers were stressing me out. Before my private pilot checkride I was practicing a lot on sim, due to my hours going over due to currency policy for the solo phases. Was able to get a few flights in before my checkride and was able to get those maneuver down. If you can sim it… you can do it in the plane no problem! Hardest thing to sim is reference maneuvers. You got this! Passed checkride and was feeling good about all the flights I did before.