Insights

Misconceptions abound

The first concern of anyone desiring flight training is to find an experienced instructor. This is a misconception, and such misconceptions are typical in many fields of endeavor. It reminds me of my airline experiences. When non-flyers hear the term chief pilot, they think ace of the base. Nothing could be further from the truth. Pilots who love to fly stay in the cockpit. Others escape to safer pastures such as management and training centers. If that opinion offends anyone, I don't apologize. In most cases, it's the truth.

Flight instructing is a difficult job. Most instructors become jaded after two or three years of full-time instructing, because their sights are set on the airlines, charter flying, or a good corporate job. I can remember when I thought, If I have to fly the traffic pattern again with a student pilot, I'm going to blow my brains out. That was 38 years ago.

Consequently, I never hire experienced flight instructors. New, inexperienced instructors have lots to learn--the main advantage of being an instructor--but in a structured program with proper leadership, they are fully qualified to teach the basic certificates and ratings. As a chief flight instructor, my job is to prepare them for the careers they dream of, and as long as they are learning, their motivation and dedication remain unparalleled.

Their first requirement is to understand my training philosophy of maximum confidence, minimum workload. Pilots know there are several ways to perform any given task. In fact, one of my favorite sayings is, "Ask 10 pilots how to perform a task and you'll get 12 opinions. Ask 10 FAA inspectors how to perform a task and you'll get 15 opinions." That's not a joke; I'm dead serious.

Maximum confidence means that we do not teach elements that are not necessary for a given task. We concentrate strictly on what must be mastered, because that generates more repetition and deeply ingrained physical and mental habit patterns. However, what is taught must work in the worst situation that a pilot is likely to encounter.

I can't teach experience, nor can anyone else. But from my experience, I do know the worst situations that pilots encounter and the required procedures for those situations. That's what we teach. After graduation, pilots will occasionally deviate from what they were taught. That's human nature. But if those pilots get into trouble, they will revert to the original procedures providing the proper habit patterns were established during flight training. That is a critical flight safety element.

I have never interviewed an insincere flight instructor. But I have interviewed many who were misinformed, and I do sympathize with their situation. It's not their fault. They're just repeating what they were taught, and unfortunately they were taught incorrectly. That occurs because their instructor was misinformed and did not provide the proper leadership. It becomes an endless cycle that is a detriment to aviation.

If you get a group of inexperienced instructors together without proper leadership, they will come up with ideas about instructing and flying that make perfect sense. However, in the real world of flying, those ideas are faulty. Pilots with experience simply don't do those things.

Minimum workload is the second half of my training philosophy. Show me a pilot who is continually busy in the cockpit, particularly an instrument pilot, and I'll show you an improperly trained pilot. Pilots must always have free time available in order to deal with unexpected distractions, irregularities, and emergencies. To do otherwise compromises basic flying requirements and flight safety.

So how do we get more experience into general aviation training? The FAA helped that cause when they changed flight instructor medical certification requirements. Instructors can now teach with a third class medical certificate--or without any medical certificate if not acting as pilot in command.

Instructors with considerable experience would become quickly available if flight instructor pay was revamped. When the next airline pilot shortage occurs, flight schools will have a hard time finding instructors--and experienced chief instructors--unless the pay situation is rectified. Flight instructors make less than tennis instructors, golf instructors, and auto mechanics. Can anyone justify that?

Regardless of the current situation, mangers of structured flight schools--those with comprehensive training syllabuses and instructor standardization training--should inform prospective students that an inexperienced instructor is not a detriment to their training objectives. That highly motivated individual will possess more than enough knowledge for the task at hand.

Ralph Butcher, a retired United Airlines captain, is the chief flight instructor at a California flight school. He has been flying since 1959 and has 25,000 hours in fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft. Visit his Web site.