I am an instrument student at a flight school with a "primary" CFII whom I'm logging dual instruction time. Things are going pretty well, making progress but the instructor has been unavailable a bit more lately. Now, I also belong to a flying club next door at the same airport where the planes are much cheaper but double-I instructor availability is not as prevalent. My checkout instructor at this club has been giving me hood time. The rental cost of the plane at the club plus non double-I instructor time is actually more cost effective, and scheduling has been more of a breeze than getting dual time with the flight school's instructor. My flight school instructor looked at my logbook and did a double-take on a recent entry with the checkout instructor. I'm guessing he's not happy because I'm not doing business with his flight school 100% and renting their higher rate airplanes with a safety pilot (i.e. his other IR students). My double I is encouraging me to do some safety pilot time with other IR students, which obviously isn't a bad idea either for some folks. From my standpoint, I didn't want to do as much safety pilot time at the school since we trade off (i.e. I need 2x the amount of free time), and I figure I get the value-added of CFI coaching at the club. BTW this checkout CFI is about 1-2 months away from his double I and is actually signed off on giving me FTD dual instruction. Hopefully this makes sense so far...
I guess the questions that arise are: would this be a red flag for you as an instrument student? Is it really a big issue if a non-II CFI provides mentoring along with being a safety pilot for the simulated hours that is NOT dual instructor allocated (i.e. the other 25 hours)? Is the CFI in a legal bind somehow because they should "know better" if they let me as PIC do something wrong?