Early in the previous decade, the FAA began heavily promoting a flight training concept known as scenario-based training (SBT). SBT was billed as a highly structured script of real-world experiences to address aviation-training objectives in an operational environment. Hailed as a new and innovative component of the FAA-Industry Training Standards (FITS), it turns out that the use of SBT in flight training is neither new nor innovative.
The FAA was teaching instructors to use a practical version of SBT as far back as 1969 in the original Flight Instructor Handbook. It did so under the rubric of contrived experience. A contrived experience creates a simulated scene, which is the Latin root of the word scenario. These scenes might include a simulated engine failure, an unexpected stall, or even simulated flight-control failure. Contrived experience helps instructors reinforce fundamental flight skills. Unfortunately, today’s version of SBT no longer focuses on fundamental skills. It now emphasizes advanced decision-making skills while unwittingly diminishing the primary purpose of flight training, which is to teach some to fly.
Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) described how it used SBT in its FITS curriculum. It said that “good flight instructors have always incorporated real-world situations into their flight training.” According to MTSU, one way instructors do this is by asking their students “what if” questions. For instance, during a flight, an instructor might ask her student what he’d do if the weather prevented a landing at the desired destination. The student might wisely suggest diverting to another airport, followed by an actual diversion.
According to MTSU, a scenario presented in flight is called an inside-the-flight (ITF) scenario. MTSU suggests that ITF scenarios are different from the type that many in our industry now promote. Apparently, we no longer think that ITF scenarios are perceived by the student as having real-world consequences, since they don’t affect that student on an emotional level. In the example, the student’s decision to change destinations wasn’t properly influenced by a deeply compelling reason to reach his original destination.
MTSU suggests that a more emotionally engaging and realistic scenario is one where the student was given a compelling reason to reach the original destination before departure. This is called an outside-the-flight (OTF) scenario.
One example of an OTF scenario is where the student is told before departure that he’s delivering a transplant organ to a donor at the destination airport. Apparently, pretending something to be true before departure (an OTF scenario) is more compelling than pretending it to be true during flight (an ITF scenario). I think this example shows how we’ve lost sight of the purpose of primary flight training.
Teaching a student pilot how to divert in flight isn’t primarily about teaching him or her to cope with the consequences of a decision. It’s about teaching the “plotter and chart” mechanics necessary to land at another airport. Our modern version of SBT asks students to think beyond their level of experience when they should be thinking about the experience itself. After all, how can a student consider the emotional difficulty of making a decision to deviate when he hasn’t acquired the necessary skills to deviate in the first place?
For primary students, the cockpit should be a place to learn how to fly using practical ITF scenarios and contrived experience. This keeps the focus on teaching fundamental flight skills. Advanced decision-making and critical thinking skills should be taught when and where appropriate. The vast majority of these skills are best taught in the classroom, not in the cockpit. Lectures, videos, audios, and/or books all are appropriate means to convey this knowledge. Using pretend-based OTF scenarios to teach advanced decision making at the expense of emphasizing fundamental flight skills isn’t an effective way to teach anyone how to fly. We can’t expect students to learn efficiently if we fail to emphasize the basic skills first.
The FAA understood this idea in 1969 with its concept of contrived experience and ITF scenarios. At that time, our ability to “teach” didn’t exceed our “grasp.” Today, we might be striving for too much, too soon, in our desire to change a student’s behavior.
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