Dudley Henriques wrote:

[...]
Absolutely! All pilots, including myself, can use some remedial work. I
did it all the time. The issue here however isn't that all pilots need
remedial work. The issue is that I was finding a DIFFERENCE in the level
of remedial work needed between accelerated and traditional training
methods, and THAT is indicative of a data point if nothing else.

Okay. As long as you're using "insufficient" to mean "not sufficient", I
understand. I even understand that the benchmark against which you're
measuring is your own and not the PTS. This is what I thought you were
claiming at first, before all the confusion about whether questions were
being asked and answered or how "insufficient" was defined were raised.

But this takes us right back to my original question about your opinion. If
you've a definition of "sufficient" for a private pilot that is higher than
the PTS, what does this say about the PTS? Or if this is not a matter so
much of the PTS, but of how exams are given...or how DEs "drill" down into
comprehension...

My question really is: is there a flaw in the testing system?

One could argue that your standards are higher than those of the PPL
checkride, and that doesn't by itself denigrate the PPL checkride.
However, you obviously think pilots should have that additional
comprehension.

Does that comprehension (or lack thereof) reflect upon a pilot's safety?
And, if so, why are we accepting the lower standard?

After all, we're not speaking of having more knowledge, or having
more/better skills. We do need to leave room for the Commercial and ATP,
after all laugh.

But is it so unreasonable to require that pilots understand the knowledge
that's already required of them?

- Andrew