If you are a pilot (or CFI) you inevitably have had friends asking you for your advice about starting flight training – for themselves or their friends/kids: “How can I become a pilot as fast as possible?” Or perhaps more hopefully; “How can I become a really *good* pilot?”
This provides a moral dilemma for every experienced pilot/CFI. Our flight training market has largely become an industrial mass-production process of minimal standards. Have you looked for a good flight school that is not an assembly line? Fortunately, between the puppy mills, some amazing schools are doing great flight training, but finding them is a buyer’s dilemma. What can we learn from the better schools to optimize the “assembly line schools?”
The aviation world is exploding with opportunities for new pilots. This demand has pressured the flight training system to produce more pilots more rapidly, and the quality of training is clearly suffering. Pilots are increasingly prepared in an industrial fashion with inflexible syllabi and minimum hours (no extras). Initial eagerness and motivation are often destroyed in the grinder; these eager learners deserve better.
If you are a veteran CFI you know the amazing value of some of those extra lessons; they are gone! I feel bad for all the new pilots who never get to *enjoy* their flight training and nurture a passion for excellence. Instead, they are force-fed from a spartan buffet of minimum requirements; introjection rather than integration, rote rather than correlation-level learning. The applicants I evaluate are universally stressed out and miserable.
Flat-rate, guaranteed-price courses, are everywhere, based on the assumption that the “raw material” – eager learners – are uniform in their needs and skills. Every experienced aviation educator knows this “myth of the standard student” is driven by financial necessity and market pressures. Careful personalized instruction is essential to real learning because every learner has individual needs. Most of the damage is done by the see assumptions built into the course structure. Hopefully, these new eager learners retain their motivation for superior achievement, not just a minimal-level “pass.”
It is common these days to see promised private pilot certificates, in only three weeks. “Zero to hero” courses from start to CFI take 6 months and these graduates commonly have only 10 hours of “real solo” (take out the PDPIC). With the pace of training – and the need to accumulate hours – these new green CFIs are doing the majority of training for all our future pilots. We all know this whole process is upside down – the most senior CFI/pilots should be doing the flight instructing for the best results. But, of course, those people are being paid much more to fly a Gulfstream or Airbus.
“Death By Time Builder” by Meg Godlewski at Flying Magazine was a wake-up call to our industry. This tragedy demonstrated how badly this industrial process could go. Though this was an egregious example, I am sure lesser versions of this tragedy occur daily all over the country. Not every new CFI is well-prepared, or personally suited, to be an effective educator.
Also covered by Meg is a mandatory weather minimums memo enacted by a flight school in Orlando. This forces learners into flight (or pay a penalty) when MVFR conditions prevail – where has pilot risk management gone? This is obviously to expedite scheduling efficiency (read “profit”). These increasingly draconian policies prevent the development of critical pilot risk management skills and betray the increasingly fast training cycles at all these academies! This spread like wildfire across social media.
Is A “Three-Week PPL” Safe/Wise?
Can a dedicated new CFI – doing the best they can – educate a brand-new learner to be a safe pilot in just three weeks? Are safety standards being compromised in this desperate rush to complete training ASAP?
Since these schools succeed in three weeks, it is possible to train a person of average capabilities to pass the minimum standards of the ACS in three weeks. Remember, all FAA evaluations are pass/fail, and a 70% will earn you a certificate. This also could be “best person on the best day” or after several tries with a DPE.
A better question: “Is this safe and sensible for long-term safety”, and the answer is clearly “NO.” If these were “one and done” certificates at the private level with no further training, we would be in huge trouble. No new pilot retains enough information and skill from a three-week course to be a safe pilot without subsequent training and reinforcement. It is a physical fact that real habit formation and durable skills take more time to develop. Learning is a physiological process of nerve myelination and reflex reactions that requires reinforcement. Fortunately, most reputable academies keep building skills with future ratings. The new 3-week private pilot is on a very short leash as they build more competency.
The Real Problem
The real problem with accelerated training comes from the interference that occurs when each new course “overwrites” the previous course. Three weeks is not enough time to make durable, long-lasting habits; it’s physiologically impossible. And new VFR knowledge is immediately “overwritten” by IFR learning and flying in the standard sequence. IFR is followed immediately by commercial training and the IFR knowledge is gone. In my experience most CFIs adding instrument privileges are not even qualified to be instrument pilots; they have forgotten everything. And pilots at the end of a 6-month accelerated program are often a confused mess of half-baked habits. Nothing has been adequately reinforced to become a durable habit; too much too quickly. These pilots are often a mess with a pocket full of FAA paper.
A Better Sequence?
A much smarter sequence for career training would be to stay with VFR skills and follow private pilot training directly with commercial training. It would probably be wise to progress directly to the CFI before adding any instrument privileges – if this were still legal. That was the historic sequence before the FAA policy changed. Instrument flying is a very different skill set that needs more serious attention than it is currently getting. All professional piloting is in the IFR system. (The IFR after PPL makes sense for a recreational flier, but not in a career course).
Just a thought; but these new learners deserve better training that keeps their motivation and passion alive and builds durable skills. Just because “that is how we have always done it” is not a reasonable justification for the mess we see today. Fly safely out there and often.
SAFE Dinner @ OSH24
Tickets are available for the SAFE dinner on Thursday at Airventure (OSH). We moved the start time up to 5PM to be ready when the exhibit hangars close. This will be heavy hors d’oeuvres with adult beverages and dessert so you can “mix and mingle.” This allows guests to come or depart as your schedule demands (many gatherings every night).
We priced the tickets at $25 for food and drinks (dessert included) to help defray the $12K EAA charges for the tent (and the $60 per person catering charge). Our generous sponsors pay for most of the food and fun🙏 Please shop with them and support our friends. Fly safely out there (and often)!
Airventure (OSH)24 has been added to our “SAFE Toolkit” App (free download). This App has directions to all our events and provides push notifications of al🙏l SAFE events at the show -“allow notifications!” Additionally, the toolkit is chock full of CFI resources and helpful hints for applicants in the “Checkride-Ready™” tab (DPE best advice for flight test success).
Register and attend our August 11th Webinar on “Learning Rudder and Cross-Coordination.” See “Teaching Rudder.” and “Cross-Coordinated.“
Tell us what *you* think!