I recently flew with an instructor who was clearly afraid of the aircraft. The instructor had over 3000 hours but apparently it was all in the pattern.
I hadn't flown with a local FBO for about 6 months and they wanted me to do a check out with an instructor again. No problem I thought, a couple of quick touch and goes, half and hour max. Now mind you I was a regular renter with this school for about 3 years. I had a extended flying engagement and was away for about 6 months. Flying nearly every day. The chief pilot knew this but was being cautious. Not singling me out, he would ask this of anyone who didn't fly with the FBO in the last 90 days. (That is a topic for another day!)
So I as we are getting ready to head out to the aircraft the 3000 hour instructor tells me what she wants to do. Shockingly she wants me to go out to a practice area and spend about an hour doing the private PTS maneuvers before we head back to the field to do some touch and goes. Surprised to hear this and not expecting to spend that much on flying for the day, I asked her to check with the boss and see if we could maybe shorten this flight. I pointed out I was a professional pilot and CFI. Boss approved and off we go to do a couple of touch and goes. I am expecting at least 3.
We take off and the instructor is immediately guarding the controls. Remember I am a CFI and the instructor knows this. At the end of the runway is a noise abatement area so I dial the engine back a touch. We are talking just a few RPM and start my turn to the crosswind. The instructor jams the throttle to the firewall and yells out no more than 20 degrees of bank. By the time I am able to turn into the downwind, if we lost an engine I'd never make the field. The instructor tells me to keep the speed up in the downwind so we are screaming along at 90 (well it's fast for a 172 in the downwind). All the while our 3000 traffic pattern hour CFI is telling me what to do next. We get to the runway numbers out the window on the downwind and I start to lower the flaps (flap operating area aka the white arc is at 100). Again the CFI reaches out and grabs the controls. Flipping the flaps back up. Saying we shouldn't use the flaps till we are below 80.
At this point I take my hands on the controls and turn to the CFI and say "Either you fly the aircraft or I do. But until we figure out who is PIC I am not touching those controls." Our 3000 hour CFI says ok you fly the plane I'll be quiet. We land uneventfully like a 747 (that’s a joke about the size of our traffic pattern) and I suck in the flaps add power for the go around and our CFI grabs the power and says lets finish here. Points to a dark cloud claiming it might be a microburst and doesn't want to fly into it. They have seen enough and has no problem signing me off.
Happy to have the ride over with I taxi back to the ramp. In absolute dumbfoundness at the behavior of this CFI.
If the instructor is going to behave like this with another instructor, how will they behave with a student? If it was me I would have walked away from that school as soon as we landed and never looked back.
How does a 3000 hour pilot get to this point? Your comments would be welcome.
Discuss it here. http://cfiforums.com/node/15