Selecting a CFI - Part I

After my first flight listed in "I owe it all to my wife...", I slowly started looking for a training school in the hopes that I would someday start lessons.  I didn't have any plan to get started at that point, but I wanted to scope out what the costs would be.  After some searching, I found that I had a former co-worker that had learned from an older gentleman in Taylor, TX (T74).  His name is Bruce Lynn, he is 84 years old, has nearly 9,000 hrs of flight, most of it training.  He has certified near 400 pilots, some military, most civilian.  What a great instructor with a ton of experience to teach me safe flying.
I gave Bruce a call and asked a bunch of questions.  He let me know that his rate was $25/hr for training.  To my amazement, that fee was Hobbs hours, so only when the plane was in operation.  This is by far the lowest price flight instruction in Central Texas or anywhere, for that matter.  My guess was that Bruce enjoys flying and enjoys teaching and doesn't charge much for it.  Other CFI's that I found were around $35-50/hr and that was total time spent with them i.e. pre-flight, talking, walking, post-flight, etc.  I was in.  I found a great instructor at a great price.  The only problem is that Taylor is about a 45 minute drive from my workplace, and because I would be flying some after work, it was a factor.
Bruce said that he was starting a ground school and I should consider starting there to make sure I learn the basics.  I showed up for class out at Taylor and began ground school.  I learned a ton of information during the class, but was dissatisfied with the pace of the class.  I wanted to learn more, faster, but Bruce has a slow and methodical style.  We also tended to drift into "hangar talk" with the other students which took away from the learning experience.  In my view, ground school should prepare me for the written exam, and I should be able to walk out of the class and pass the test.  At this point, I don't feel like I could do that, even though I have been diligent about my studies.

My first (and only) flight with Bruce was in a 1971 Cessna 150 with about 9,000 hrs on the airframe.  This was a huge downer for me.  I will not discount the usefulness of the 150/152 series as a trainer, but this particular plane was VERY ragged.  In my opinion, it was an old bucket of bolts, and I did not have a good feeling flying it.  The labels on the panel were barely readable and fully not readable in some areas.  During the flight, Bruce taught me the basics of flying - straight and level flight, climbs, and descents.  We also go into slow flight and emergency procedures a little.  As a person on his second flight, I found that I had the famed "death grip" on the yoke.  I gripped it and worked it so hard, I was in a full sweat.  I was all other the place and Bruce was forceful in his attempts to correct those tendencies.  He said "You are over-steering!" and "Let it go!".  See, planes are designed to fly themselves.  My thought was that I was driving a car, and I needed to man-handle the plane.  I've found since that day that you can't be expected to fly a plane with the skills of driving a car.  Yes, the plane needs to be controlled and told what to do (aka Fly the Plane), but it is simply done in a different way.
Flying with Bruce was an ok experience, but I had a couple of concerns.  First, he is not one to be verbose in explaining how things work, just that they do and here is how you do things.  That may be fine for some, but I want to understand everything about flying, not just do this, do that.  We had a disconnect in that area.  A second thing is that during this, our first flight together, Bruce did something that he later described as "wanting to get my reaction."  While we were in slow flight, which is flying at a very slow speed with a high pitch attitude, Bruce was teaching me how to use the rudder, and after I did that for awhile, he stomped on the right ruder, putting us into the start of a spin!  I would suggest to Bruce and all instructors to *not* do that on a first flight.  We had about 500ft of altitude loss in a moment and I went weightless into my seat harness.  For about a second, I was terrified, then I realized that Bruce would not put us in harm's way and he was under control.  I knew that the C150 is rated for acrobatics, so there was no danger.  As I mentioned, he said he wanted to gauge my reaction and that I did well.

What Bruce didn't know is that that stunt would contribute to my finding another CFI.