"You get your CFI and build up your proficiency, then you get your CFII and get your instrument skills up. It's a long hard road but that's the way it works," said the old Citation captain I was introduced to by a fellow pilot who told me he was looking for a new copilot. One can easily understand he and many other senior members of the aviation community are coming from with this belief in terms of how teaching others, however I must question the safety and effectiveness of this system. I remember before I started my flight training I had always looked forward to flying with a veteran airline captain who would act as my mentor to achieve what he had by imparting his vast amount of aviation knowledge and experience. Unfortunately I was shocked to discover that my flight instructor was actually going to be a new pilot who himself was in the training process to become an airline pilot. .

   My flight instructor, along with countless others and soon to be myself, are in a stage in their pilot careers I have come to refer as "low timer hell." That is, new pilot struggling to gain valuable experience in order to meet the minimum hiring requirements of the airlines and other commercial operators. Unfortunately for myself and many other students at my flight school, below substandard instruction was rampant, and the truly troubling aspect of my situation was the fact that these deficiencies were not discovered until I began my commercial training at another school with a much older, more seasoned instructor. Although I was fortunate enough to have these issues identified and corrected, the later stages of my flight training took much longer than normal as my new instructor had to polish out all the rough spots my previous CFIs had left. This is because these newly minted "time building" instructors often earn their CFI, CFII and MEI ratings immediately after earning their Commercial Pilot License, which can often happen as low as between 200-250 hours of flight time. This in turn enables them to teach other new pilots to earn their own flight ratings, the very same ratings that they themselves had earned only a few months prior.

   The main question here is the quality as well as safetly of flight training this system offers new pilots, whether having recreational or commercial aspirations. Just thinking about it immediately calls to mind an incident that occured at my first flight school where a student lost directional control during rollout on his second solo landing and ended up in a ditch adjacent to the runway...after having received all of his training from a 21 year old who lacked both experience and complete understanding of his responsibilities as a Certified Flight Instructor and failed to stress proper crosswind and rudder use technique during landing. Although it is very easy to blame the instructor, as he was after all an immature 21 year old "party animal" just looking for a good time, but it must be considered that he is what he is, along with many others in his age group. So one must take the time to ask, has someone of this inherent maturity level with only 320 hours really had enough time to fully assimilate and make sense of the vast amount of knowledge required to achieve mastery?

   Then there is also the question of whether every person who aspires to become a commercial pilot dressed in a glamorous uniform flying sparkly new jets to exotic locations is actually fit to teach others. Although I must agree that teaching is by far one of the best ways to review and learn material for yourself, teaching requires a truly unique personality, one that requires patience, dedication, the right attitude and a personality suitable to convey the pertinent information during a specific situation. Not every person is born with or is able to develop this, and it must also be considered that it is unfair to expect this from all new pilots when the vast majority of jobs never require employees to train others. And there is yet another consideration, that being whether a person even with the proper skills and mental capacity can properly cope with the harsh realities of being a CFI. Paltry wages and odd working hours are the two most common frustrations among CFIs I've spoken to, and I've also heard many more people mocking the profession on several occassions, "Yeah, become a CFI and make six bucks an hour," when they noticed the pamphlet advertizing the CFI on the counter at my flight school.

   Finally, does the fact that a person lacks the capacity, interest or dedication to take on the substantial amount of responsibilities and liabilities that becoming a CFI involves mean that they should be barred from moving on to realize their dreams? This I see as being the largest problem of all, because it doesn't just allow, but forces all new pilots through this system regardless of their personal suitability to teach. This in turn further harms the pilot pool along y churning out poorly qualified CFIs who will pass on their flaws to even more pilots who will also teach, and so the process continues. So in closing, the issue is twofold, there is an ethical issue of fairness to all who chose to pursue their their dreams of flight, and a much more important moral issue of whether the "pilot seasoning" process is actually counterproductive and defeating its own purpose with the, "Blind leading the blind," as I've heard several people describe the system.