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Paramotor Training block course or not?


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All,

This just popped back into my head so I thought I would post it here.

I have spoken to 3 people in the last month who are coming to me for 'extra training' having been on a block course.

It has become very clear that the people I have spoken to who have all been on the same course all be it at different times, they are all at different levels and one in particular is just scary!

Examples of 'some' of the 'basic' bits of missing knowledge are:

Use of timmers / tip steering and the effects of. (Caused a new pilot to be very scared by needing to use them for the first time, on his own on a windy day while getting blown backwards.) Left the course as a pilot!

Never flewn without a radio / instructor on the end, (creating an understandable lack of confidence after the course, the pilot has not taken off since training.) also left the course as a 'pilot'

And worst of all, one pilot has left his training with NILL meteorology, or Air law theory. (not even so much as the 500ft rule!)

Now then....

It's not that the instructor is as fault as some people learn faster than others but my point is....

If you pay for and go on a bulk course for a week,

What standard do you reach?

When are you a pilot?

Is a week enough for 'you'?

What if it's rubbish weather for a week or even a few days of it, Do you pay again for another week and hope for better conditions?

Then on the other hand.....

If you do a course as per Pete B and I, in that we do not sign people off until they have completed the syllabus and the training can be done as and when the trainee pilot has the time. I see the advantages as....

A guaranteed standard is reached for a guaranteed amount of money. If it takes you 12 days instead of 10, it will not cost you any more money to reach the same standard.

The trainee pilot has a local environment to continue his / her training and gain experience from local piots who they will already know from their training days. They can continue to make use of club mentors until the confidence to identify and fly from a local field is found.

I may be missing something here, but I feel as though a bulk course is not a good way to go if you want to get fully trained.

Comments from people who have been on a bulk / intensive paramotor training course welcome, I do want to get this clear in my head as an instructor and from the trainee pilots view point.

Tarraa for now

SW :D

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So assuming there IS one...

What if you don't complete it in your allotted time frame due to bad conditions as an example? lets say you get your first flight or two in...

Do you A) go flying?

or B) Pay for another week?

SW :D

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I did two "bulk weeks" and a day, I pick things up quite quickly so this approach worked for me in fact my two weeks in the Spanish sun were excellent!

But saying that I never went into it thinking after two week I would be a pilot, If I didn't feel that I had learnt everything I needed to know to be safe I would have done more training.

It's down to the instructor to tell the student if they are not up to it (some people just cant do it) but I suspect that taking peoples money comes above anything else in some cases (not pmc i'm sure)

Tom

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So assuming there IS one...

What if you don't complete it in your allotted time frame due to bad conditions as an example? lets say you get your first flight or two in...

Do you A) go flying?

or B) Pay for another week?

SW :D

Personally I'd pay for another week as my early days were more about confidence in my abilities, rather than lack of knowledge.

I paid for my training in GB on an hour by hour basis though so only paid when the conditions were good.

Cheers,

Alan

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I am fortunate enough to have tried both approaches.

I tried the more relaxed approach, only learning when the weather was good. I personally found this method didn't work for me as I felt I was taking one step forward and then two steps back due to having to reacquaint myself each time with what I had learnt two weeks before or whenever despite trying to do things inbetween lessons.

For me the bulk approach meant that I was able to progress and learn at a better more stable pace due to the intense nature of the course. I found also that by having a number of instructors on the course meant that I received alot more one-to-one help and instruction which improved the learning process and enabled me to better understand what I was doing and identify why certain things were going wrong. I also feel that having the same group of people for the week meant that there was very much a team spirit and that we all help each other when moral was low and praised each other when we progressed. I also found the course to be extensive and had a clear written sylabus covering everything I needed to leave a confident pilot and included alot of theory and lectures.

I also experienced the issue of not being able to fly for a number of days while on my bulk course, due to unforseen high winds. I was given full credit for all days that were not used and have since used some of this credit and will be using the rest in a couple of weeks time. Indeed, everyone that attended that week received the same level of committment and I was glad to see some of them get into the air when we used some of our credit for training earlier in the year.

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An interesting topic and I’m guessing that the final choice will depend a lot on personal circumstances. I would suggest though that whichever route that you do take that you should be following a tried and tested syllabus, and not be signed off until you’ve completed it. How can it be any other way?

Most instructors will claim that they follow a syllabus but how good is it? Take a look at this example http://homepage.ntlworld.com/brianskyma ... llabus.pdf and compare it to the PMC or the BHPA syllabus. It may be that I’m being unfair in highlighting this as an example, and that the training given is top notch, but I think that you’ll agree that as a starting point the PMC or BHPA syllabus illustrates a much more professional approach to training.

I’d go further and say that good training isn’t just a question of ticking boxes and being signed off but that at the end of their training the student should feel in themselves that they have the knowledge and confidence to start flying safely - your instructor says you can do it but do YOU feel confident that you can do it? Slightly more difficult to quantify but something that a good instructor should understand. We’re all different, there’s no one size fits all, and I haven’t seen a syllabus with a tick box for “State of Mind”. That for me is where an instructor really earns his corn; it’s the balance between the technical tutoring and the person tutoring, knowing when someone needs a kick up the jacksy or a cuddle (in a manly way).

It would be interesting to know how many people complete a training course but then don’t take up the sport.

I’ve had experience of both methods and I’ve come to the following conclusion:

The block course, first off I’d be wary about some of the promises that are made e.g. “We’ll take you from nothing and have you flying in a week”, some people might achieve it but in my experience they are in the minority. The reasons are varied but inevitably the UK weather plays a big part.

Another option might be to try and beat the UK weather and sign up for one of the overseas courses with their “guarantee” of good weather! My experience of Spain was that there is no such thing as guaranteed good weather and even there several days were blown out.

In theory of course all this is factored into the training, so when it’s raining you have a Met lecture, but what happens if you’re not signed off by the end of the course? In my case I had a couple of days credit and an invitation to join the next course to fill in the blanks but the rigidity of the block course, with its fixed start and finish dates, makes it difficult. On more than one occasion I’d travelled a fair distance to do a particular task but ended up sitting in on a lecture that I’d already had. I saw the Risk and Reward DVD three times during my training. Then your credits run out and it’s “more money please”.

On the plus side, as this type of course is usually run on some sort of residential basis, you do spend a lot of time with your fellow students. It’s great to be able watch each other’s progress and to chew over the day’s events over a meal or a beer in the evening. Another plus is that as you’re probably staying in close proximity to the actual training field you are ideally positioned to take full advantage of the weather when it is good.

If I was starting from scratch today I’d follow a more flexible approach. Signing up for a course with a fixed fee and a good syllabus, in the knowledge that it takes as long as it takes, seems to me to be the right way to go. I’d also do a lot more research on my instructor and seek out personal recommendations.

Another important consideration is what you do when you’ve completed your training? In the case of the block course that I attended it was “goodbye and enjoy the sport”. The club environment and continuing nurturing that the PMC offers makes a lot more sense to me.

For many people though the decision won’t be as simple. What do you do if you have family commitments and can’t take yourself off for two weeks to learn to fly, or you work shifts, or you live some distance from your nearest instructor? It makes things a whole lot more complicated.

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