After reading a post here about a student's bad CFI experience, I was reminded of my own opposite CFI experience.

This is kind of a long and sad story.

I did my initial flight training at a small (single 1800 x 50 foot runway) part 61 privately owned airport in Connecticut in 1975. Of course, as a starry eyed brand new student with dreams of soaring through the "endless halls", I lacked the experience to evaluate flight schools or individual CFI's and was dependent on the luck of the draw. Any new student may end up with a disinterested time builder or a career teacher who is passionate about aviation and passing his or her skills on to others.

In my case, I drew the latter, whose day job (I did not know that at the time) was as a dairy farmer. As an inexperienced student at the time, I was not aware that I had drawn the royal flush of CFI's with Bob. As the years passed and I became aware of what a gift Bob had passed on to me through his amazing teaching style, I made several attempts to look him up to see if he was still active, with no luck.

Last year, as I was looking at my old log book, I noticed that, in my search at aviationdb.com, I had mis-spelled his name by one letter and, ultimately, found him living in Vermont. After locating him, I decided to give him a call to thank him for the gift of aviation that he had passed on to me so I called.

When a woman answered the phone, I gave her my name and explained why I was calling and asked if I had located the right person. She replied that "yes, this was the right person but Bob died from cancer two years ago". I had spent much of my life living in Vermont not far from where Bob and his wife had bought a Dairy Farm and could have easily visited them, but for a spelling error. I was able to tell her about my time as Bob's student and the subsequent decades benefiting from the skills that Bob passed on to me.

In those days, I was a young 20 year old still living with my parents and was working second shift at Pratt & Whitney. I borrowed $1000.00 (yes you could actually learn to fly for that kind of money in 1975) from the credit union to fund my training. Two or three times a week, I would get up in the morning to go flying and then go to work in the afternoon to pay for it. I started in early April and soloed at 12 hours. By late May and June, I was doing my solo cross countries on those glorious New England late spring days and, on August 2, at 44 hours, passed my check ride. It was a tribute to Bob's teaching that I hit hose mile stones at relatively low time.

Over the years, I ended up buying into a flying club based at CON and got to fly a beautiful 182 all over the place, including three trips to OSH. During that time, thanks to Bob and that old process of "learning by gradual immersion", I became comfortable with everything from short field grass strips to flying into DCA to visit The National Air and Space Museum with my 12 year old son.

Although terribly disappointed that I missed thanking Bob while he was alive, I was, at least, able to tell this story to his widow knowing that it brought some comfort to hear an echo from the past telling stories about her late husband.

I will never forget turning left base for runway 1 at 7B9 and hearing Bob's voice reminding me to look right for the bozo check watching for the unannounced pilot skipping the pattern to do a straight in.

Thank you Bob. May you rest in peace.

"the CFI suddenly pulled the power, canceled the takeoff over the radio, and started shouting at me. I was honestly terrified and had no idea what went wrong."

There is no excuse for any teacher at any time (particularly a CFI) who is being paid by OP for shouting at a student for making a mistake. This CFI is completely unqualified to teach and should explore an alternate career path that might involve using the phrase "would you like fries with that order?".

There is no place for bullies in the cockpit and OP should complain, in writing, to his flight school management about the incident.