FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt has announced that the FAA is forming an initiative to review the agency’s process of developing airmen knowledge testing material.
Unexpected changes to knowledge tests earlier this year suddenly and dramatically increased failure rates in those tests. Concerned that the FAA had changed the tests without providing training material explaining learning objectives to test-takers, AOPA and other industry groups met with the FAA’s airmen testing and standards branch to discuss the agency’s approach to test-question validation.
After a follow-up meeting with AOPA, the National Association of Flight Instructors (NAFI), and experts in test writing and validation, the FAA announced it would remove certain questions from the Fundamentals of Instruction test and re-grade tests; and now a new initiative will review the process by which the FAA develops new testing material, updates current questions, incorporates input from industry, and validates questions prior to changes in the existing test banks.
AOPA, NAFI, and other flight training experts advocated for the creation of the committee to ensure that knowledge tests are a valid and reliable measure of knowledge; the two associations, along with experts in academia from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Liberty University, the Professional Board of Aviation Certification, the University of North Dakota, the University of Oklahoma, and the University of Western Michigan, met to discuss failures in the knowledge exams and determined that the dramatic increase in failure rates was in part due to the methods used to write and validate questions. The groups recommended revising or removing certain questions from exams and discussed industry-accepted methods for developing and validating exam questions.
Flight training improvement strategies reviewed
Numerous initiatives in play
An aviation industry educational task force with the goal of reforming flight training has moved into a new phase of its work, with AOPA submitting responses to six recommendations issued in the project’s preliminary report.
AOPA presented comments to recommendations that emerged from the 2011 Pilot Training Reform Symposium hosted by the Society of Aviation and Flight Educators (SAFE). AOPA served as a sponsor of the event.
In response to the recommendations, AOPA discussed initiatives already in progress. One example of such initiatives includes a general aviation accident root cause analysis currently under way under the General Aviation Joint Steering Committee (GA JSC). AOPA currently serves as co-chair of the GA JSC and participates in the subcommittees directly involved in the analysis. This initiative will guide future risk mitigation strategies in GA operations and flight training.
Other initiatives currently under way are the AOPA Flight Training Student Retention Initiative, which launched in June 2010, and a knowledge test advisory committee that will work to develop a process to write and revise current knowledge exams with input from the flight training industry and experts in flight training.
AOPA, EAA work to expand driver’s license medical
Proposal to be submitted soon
Imagine keeping your four-seat airplane but not dealing with the high cost and stress of renewing your third-class medical. AOPA and the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) recently unveiled plans that, if successful, could greatly expand the number of pilots who could use the driver’s license medical standard currently available only to pilots exercising sport pilot privileges.
AOPA President Craig Fuller and EAA President Rod Hightower said the two groups are working together to finalize a request to create an exemption allowing additional pilots only flying recreationally to use the driver’s license medical standard. In order to ensure and even enhance safety, pilots would be required to complete a comprehensive course on aeromedical factors and self-certification.
AOPA and EAA plan to file the request for exemption after the first of the year. Under the proposed exemption, additional pilots holding recreational, private, commercial, or airline transport pilot certificates who only fly recreationally could choose to use the same driver’s license medical self-certification standard currently available to pilots exercising sport pilot privileges.
In addition to holding a driver’s license as proof of adequate health, a pilot would also be required to participate in a recurring online education program reinforcing and expanding a pilot’s understanding of aeromedical factors and self-certification requirements. AOPA and EAA believe such an educational program, developed by the Air Safety Institute in consultation with AOPA’s Board of Aeromedical Advisors and EAA’s Aeromedical Advisory Council, would provide an equivalent level of safety as a third class medical.
The exemption would be limited by aircraft size and type of operations—for example, a single-engine aircraft, with 180 horsepower or less, four seats or fewer, and fixed gear and operations limited to day VFR, with one passenger. That would greatly expand the number of aircraft a pilot might fly while operating under a driver’s license medical standard.
Related Articles
