Teaching PAVE

Flight instructors exist, at a minimum, to impart knowledge gained from experience, preferably their own. In the past, thats how risk management was taught: by telling there I was stories. Since younger, less-experienced instructors dont have the same backgrounds as their senior colleagues, risk management concepts and tools were introduced. Yet some instructors may not fully understand or implement them. Heres a primer on what students need to know.

Editorial Staff

Tuesday, August 25, 2015 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

Flight instructors should teach risk management using structured concepts and tools rather than solely relying on anecdotal stories, especially given less-experienced instructors' limited backgrounds.
A key takeaway for students is that merely meeting FAA "legal" minimums for pilot experience, aircraft readiness (e.g., fuel), or environmental conditions may not be sufficient for safe flight.
Instructors must emphasize specific hazards across categories: the pilot (e.g., insufficient recent experience, aeromedical risks), the aircraft (e.g., inadequate fuel reserves, systems knowledge gaps), the environment (e.g., convective activity), and external pressures influencing decision-making.

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Flight instructors exist, at a minimum, to impart knowledge gained from experience, preferably their own. In the past, that’s how risk management was taught: by telling “there I was” stories. Since younger, less-experienced instructors don’t have the same backgrounds as their senior colleagues, risk management concepts and tools were introduced. Yet some instructors may not fully understand or implement them. Here’s a primer on what students need to know.