The Problem With Flight Instruction

Perhaps youve heard the riddle, "What do you call the person who graduates at the bottom of the class in medical school?" The answer: Doctor. The maxim being conveyed applies equally well to aviation: What do you call the pilot who has met the minimum standards set forth in FAR 61.183-187? Answer: Certificated Flight Instructor. Yet whether acting in the capacity of doctor or flight instructor, that individual is directly responsible for another persons well being. Others literally may live or die based directly on the doctors and the flight instructors knowledge and skills. The path to becoming a practicing doctor evolved to include a rigorous course of study and years of apprenticeship: college, med school, internship, residency, fellowship. The tradition in aviation, on the other hand, has been to treat flight instructing as the bullpen for corporate and airline flying. Still clinging to this model, many instructors teach largely for their own benefit and not the benefit of their students. Instructing, after all, is supposed to be a transient phase; building time, the primary goal; low pay and high turnover at flight schools, expected.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

CFIs need to adopt best practices for teaching navigation by pilotage and dead reckoning so the clients don’t become lazy or slaves to the magenta line. [Credit: FLYING Archive]

Key Takeaways:

The traditional flight instructor (CFI) training model treats instructing as a temporary phase to build hours, leading to insufficient training quality and directly contributing to common aviation accidents, particularly related to maneuvering, stalls, and spins.
Studies reveal significant deficiencies in CFIs' foundational knowledge and practical expertise, such as stall/spin awareness, which perpetuates a cycle where instructors' weaknesses translate into students' dangerous habits.
To improve aviation safety, the flight instructor certification process must be recalibrated to demand true competency, emphasize advanced stick-and-rudder skills, risk management, and stall/spin expertise, and promote continuous professional development, ensuring instructors teach for survival, not just test passage.

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Perhaps youve heard the riddle, “What do you call the person who graduates at the bottom of the class in medical school?” The answer: Doctor. The maxim being conveyed applies equally well to aviation: What do you call the pilot who has met the minimum standards set forth in FAR 61.183-187? Answer: Certificated Flight Instructor. Yet whether acting in the capacity of doctor or flight instructor, that individual is directly responsible for another persons well being. Others literally may live or die based directly on the doctors and the flight instructors knowledge and skills.