The Victoria Flying Club is getting ready for a busy training season thanks to a strategy that has allowed it to keep a healthy complement of flight instructors. Chief Flight Instructor Graham Palmer has attracted experienced pilots from a variety of backgrounds to pass along their skills to students. He and another Class 1 instructor can qualify them as instructors and they can get to work. The school has 18 instructors and is actively training new ones to replace those who are hired away by airlines and other commercial operations.
“Right now it really depends on how well a flight school can maintain its capacity for training flight instructors,” Palmer told the Victoria Times Colonist. “As long as flight schools can hang on to their Class 1 flight instructors, they should remain in good shape.” Flight schools across the country are struggling to hang on to instructors as pilot-short carriers take them as first officers.