How will you respond?
Over the years, conversations with flight and ground instructors, applicants and applicants-to-be, inspectors, and pilot examiners have revealed a wide divergence of thought on this issue. These opinions range from "the PTS does not require that applicants exhibit good judgment, just meet the standards" to "it is impossible to meet PTS requirements without judgment at least to the level of the PTS in question." For an industry that will, in this century, either rise or fall based on public perception of its standardization, such divergence of thought on a core issue is disturbing. It affects you not only in how you train and test, but also how you operate within the community after you obtain your prized certificate.
At this writing, the introduction section of the Private Pilot Practical Test Standards puts forth at least 11 specific statements that relate to judgment. Some wording is aimed at the examiner; the remainder targets the applicant. Its statement that the examiner is expected to use good judgment in the performance of simulated emergency procedures should go without saying. Knowing the American penchant for adding to the body of a regulatory work because a number of people have pushed an issue, the fact that such a statement had to be made indicates that the pilot examiner community needs to demonstrate more ably that which we are required to test. The PTS special emphasis areas individually relate to operations that show trends rather than being focused on any single task, but taken together form the core of a level of judgment that society reasonably expects of its pilots.
The public has a right to expect pilots to demonstrate positive aircraft control, stall/spin awareness, and safe aeronautical decision making. That pilots attain these goals through intelligent checklist usage, collision avoidance, wake turbulence avoidance, and runway incursion avoidance seems equally basic. New flight students seem mystified that we must address controlled flight into terrain, yet such accidents involving well-seasoned pilots occur with alarming frequency. Finally, any group discussion among pilots regarding the positive exchange of flight controls can lead to cheap entertainment for the rest of the day. The FAA concludes special emphasis areas with "Although these areas may not be specifically addressed under each task, they are essential to flight safety and will be evaluated during the practical test. In all instances, the applicant's actions will relate to the complete situation." Whether you are a student or a flight instructor, surely you will agree that combined, these define good judgment's framework.
Because an examiner's task is to test an applicant's correlative abilities rather than mere rote enumeration of facts, your task as a flight instructor, student pilot, private pilot, commercial pilot -- or whatever you do in the aviation field -- is to "first, do no harm." Consider the PTS listing of typical areas of unsatisfactory performance and grounds for disqualification. Any action or lack of action by the applicant that requires corrective intervention by the examiner to maintain safe flight should be automatic. Yet, from time to time, flight instructors come to pilot examiners with scenario questions involving their students and other examiners. In most cases, "What would you do if an applicant..." opens the door to questioning either an examiner's or an applicant's judgment.
The PTS, in its introduction, repeatedly addresses proper and effective visual scanning techniques to clear the area before and while performing maneuvers, and lists failure to do so as a disqualifying item. This reveals an area where flight instructors can massage good judgment into their students. A story is told of Charles Lindbergh, in his pre-fame days, intentionally climbing his mail plane into a summer night's overcast. Enraptured by the eerie glow of his nav lights in these pre-instrument clouds, a startled Lindbergh quickly abandoned his vaporous haven when another set of nav lights barely missed him from the opposite direction. A fellow airmail pilot flying a reciprocal heading had been tempted into the same experiment as our hero. Perhaps the only two airplanes aloft in the entire United States night sky, and they almost collided. Judgment.
Lindbergh's scenario is certainly not unique, as most aviation incidents or accidents are ADM- or judgment-related. ADM gloves the hand of judgment. This writer's studies continue to show that an inordinate percentage of preventable accidents are related to lapses in judgment, often called pilot error. As a chain of events unfolds, each poor decision leaves a pilot with fewer and fewer options until none remain. Pilots' decisions based on poor judgment create error chains, which accident investigators are becoming quite adept at discovering. It is up to us in the training end of the aviation community to become equally good at sharing these findings. Traditional pilot instruction has emphasized flying skills, knowledge of the aircraft, and familiarity with regulations. Vital as these are, current testing philosophy focuses on pilots' decision-making process and on pilot applicants making effective choices. However, the FAA is expected to issue a handbook on ADM that will provide additional guidance on the issue (see "Risk Management," June AOPA Flight Training).
Your DPE most likely knows that the FAA wants all pilots to have developed a systematic approach to consistently determine the best course of action in response to a given situation. When you take your checkride, your examiner should pepper the test's ground portion with scenarios that lead you to demonstrate your level of ADM. How you recognize and analyze the information, including seeking additional information if needed, and the rationality and timeliness of your proposed response are the essential characteristics of how your examiner measures your judgment.
For private pilot applicants, judgment issues tend toward not defining a problem or failing to recognize that a problem even exists. Since a test's ground portion is away from an aircraft, applicants' senses are not part of the procedure at that time, so mental awareness is key to testing at this level. The FAA's admonition to its cadre of examiners to test at the correlation/application levels hinges on this fact. Scenario questions remain an examiner's most trustworthy tool, and the bane of applicants and flight instructors who pray for easy tests. Opposite of this level of testing are those direct questions that measure only the rote level and don't size up one's judgment at all. On your upcoming checkride, expect scenario questions.
This is singularly important because for pilots, most in-flight problems are first perceived by the senses. Experience (miniscule in most private pilot applicants) and insight (a blend of mature observational abilities from finely honed instruction) allow pilots to distinguish that a change has occurred or an expectation will soon be unmet. Once this awareness has come alive, each examiner expects his or her applicant to analyze all available information to discover the problem's actual nature. Once that is done, the problem's severity comes under scrutiny.
It's common for examiners to create scenarios that include situations sometimes dangerous, sometimes not. As you prepare for your coming checkride (or your student's, if you are an instructor) it would be good to bear this fact in mind. Questions that DPEs ask should have answers, or at least elements of those answers, in the publications referenced in the PTS for that task or area of operation being tested.
All of this discussion does not mean that your judgment and your decision making will be mirror images of your examiner's. The way that we filter information through our attitudes and the headwork that we use to recognize and analyze available information will differ. For safety and efficiency, first-class training is meant to mold these into such a shape that any flight instructor would agree that the time for the checkride has arrived.
Dave Wilkerson is a designated pilot examiner, writer/photographer, and historian. He has been a certificated flight instructor since 1981 with approximately 2,000 hours of dual instruction, and is a single- and multiengine commercial-rated pilot.
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