About Acellerated Courses for Private

"Jim Fisher" wrote in message
...
"Dudley Henriques" wrote in message

Tell you what; we'll just put you down as a no vote and call it a
day
shall we.
All the best,
DH

I am not a yes or no vote. I don't know.

I'd like you to answer the following question that I've asked thee
times so
far with no repsonse:

"Either the written test & checkride is a joke and jillions of
"pilots"
unworthy of the privilege are swarming over our heads or the test &
Ride are
effective enough to weed out the worst of us and send them back to the
drawing board. It can't be both, can it?"

--
Jim Fisher

Jim;

The reason I haven't answered your question isn't because I can't, or
don't want to. It's because I'm getting from the "tone" of your posts to
me that it wouldn't matter much what I answered.
You obviously have some VERY strong pro opinion on accelerated flight
training and this opinion is different from my own. I accept that.
You on the other hand, seem to think your point about flight tests will
prove me wrong, so you keep pushing that at me.
The problem with answering you is that the premise for your question is
flawed as it addresses what I have said, and that makes it extremely
difficult to deal with what you are requesting. In fact, a lot of what
you have posted fits the same category. The reference to IFR training
for example. I wouldn't mind you disagreeing with me about IFR
accelerated training. The problem is that I don't disagree on the IFR
position and have plainly stated as much to you several times now.
I simply have to assume in these circumstances that you and I just have
to agree to disagree and let it go at that, rather than spend a ton of
bandwidth trying to get together on something we'll not be agreeing on
anyway :-)
I'll give your "question" a try here and see what happens if you like,
but I don't see us getting anywhere. Just the tone of this post to me;
"I've asked you 3 times now to answer this" is unsatisfactory to me.
The plain simple truth of it is that we just don't seem to like each
other :-) No biggie at all really.
Now to your "question".
Let me make it as clear as I can for you. Your premise that by my
standards, the flight test must produce either an incompetent pilot or
send a failure back to the drawing boards is flawed. You have totally
misinterpreted what I have said.
What I said was that I had never flown with a product of an accelerated
basic training program where that pilot didn't in my opinion need
remedial training to bring them up to what I consider to be appropriate
comprehension standards.
This shouldn't be read to imply that these pilots were unsafe. It should
however be interpreted to mean that in my opinion, these pilots might
have had better comprehension had they not taken the accelerated route.
It's simply a matter of my believing that one system is more optimum
than the other. It's not a statistical analysis; it's an an opinion, and
as an opinion, doesn't have to be proved at all.
Now, apparently you disagree with this. That's fine. By all means, push
the accelerated program if you like. I think I've gone to great pains to
allow you an uncontested opinion.

There, now I've answered your question.

Dudley Henriques
International Fighter Pilots Fellowship
Commercial Pilot/ CFI Retired
For personal email, please replace
the z's with e's.
dhenriquesATzarthlinkDOTnzt

"Dudley Henriques" wrote in message
Let me make it as clear as I can for you. Your premise that by my
standards, the flight test must produce either an incompetent pilot or
send a failure back to the drawing boards is flawed. You have totally
misinterpreted what I have said.
What I said was that I had never flown with a product of an accelerated
basic training program where that pilot didn't in my opinion need
remedial training to bring them up to what I consider to be appropriate
comprehension standards.

So is that a product of the acellerated training itself or is it a product
of the typical acellerated student who "graduates" with only 40 to 50 hours
under his belt instead of the usual 70 or so? If that accelerated student
had the blazed through 70 to 100 hours would he be "as good as" the
traditional student? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Perhaps the typical accelerated student represents a particular mindset of
people who perhaps aren't as dedicated to learning to fly as traditional
students. Perhaps they just aren't as passionate about flying as "normal"
people. After all, these students probably tend to be doctors, busy
businessmen and folks with more money than time. They just need to get this
"training nonsense" behind them so they can be more productive in their
careers. If they had instead gone through traditional training, would they
tend to display the same kinds of weaknesses? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

That's my whole point, Dudley. Not one soul here - including you - has
provided any more than lightweight ancedotal evidence and baseless theories
that accelerated students tend to suck.

The reality and the body of evidence (consisting of thousands of successful
graduates of these programs going back 100 years) tends to indicate
otherwise.

--
Jim Fisher

Jim Fisher wrote:

The reality and the body of evidence (consisting of thousands of successful
graduates of these programs going back 100 years) tends to indicate
otherwise.

There is no "evidence" to show that these pilots would not have been
better if they had had a conventional course. Unless you come up with
some, I'll stick with logic and the expectations of highly experienced
instructors, whose anecdotal evidence runs counter to your pet theory.

The other side of the coin is the high proportion of private pilots who
spread their training out over too many months, and even years, and who
waste both time and money while failing to make much progress. Every CFI
can tell you stories about that kind of student, but I suppose their
"evidence" would be inadequate for you, too.


Jack

"Jim Fisher" wrote in message
...
"Dudley Henriques" wrote in message
Let me make it as clear as I can for you. Your premise that by my
standards, the flight test must produce either an incompetent pilot
or
send a failure back to the drawing boards is flawed. You have
totally
misinterpreted what I have said.
What I said was that I had never flown with a product of an
accelerated
basic training program where that pilot didn't in my opinion need
remedial training to bring them up to what I consider to be
appropriate
comprehension standards.

So is that a product of the acellerated training itself or is it a
product
of the typical acellerated student who "graduates" with only 40 to 50
hours
under his belt instead of the usual 70 or so? If that accelerated
student
had the blazed through 70 to 100 hours would he be "as good as" the
traditional student? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Perhaps the typical accelerated student represents a particular
mindset of
people who perhaps aren't as dedicated to learning to fly as
traditional
students. Perhaps they just aren't as passionate about flying as
"normal"
people. After all, these students probably tend to be doctors, busy
businessmen and folks with more money than time. They just need to
get this
"training nonsense" behind them so they can be more productive in
their
careers. If they had instead gone through traditional training, would
they
tend to display the same kinds of weaknesses? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

That's my whole point, Dudley. Not one soul here - including you -
has
provided any more than lightweight ancedotal evidence and baseless
theories
that accelerated students tend to suck.

The reality and the body of evidence (consisting of thousands of
successful
graduates of these programs going back 100 years) tends to indicate
otherwise.

--
Jim Fisher

Let me try this worded more simply for you.

A flight instructor has simply posted an opinion on accelerated training
at the basic level based on his personal experience dealing with these
issues for fifty years. That opinion states he believes the best all
around way to learn to fly is taking a path that allows ample time
between lessons so that comprehension can keep pace with rote learning;
rather than a method that doesn't allow this time.
This is simply an opinion; not a statistical analysis.
No one has used the term "accelerated programs suck" except YOU!
No one has used the term "the check ride is a joke" except YOU!
No one has used the term "Jillions of pilots unworthy of the privilege
are flying over our heads" except YOU!

Is a picture beginning to form here for you? It sure is for me. In your
effort to defend your position on accelerated training, which is heavily
a pro position, you are grossly over reaching with glittering
generalizations describing scenarios that don't exist in the basic
premise.
The truth is that there is no argument, and nothing has to be proved.
It's my opinion that these accelerated programs are not optimum. That
doesn't in any way imply the things you are saying in your responses.
Dudley Henriques
International Fighter Pilots Fellowship
Commercial Pilot/ CFI Retired
For personal email, please replace
the z's with e's.
dhenriquesATzarthlinkDOTnzt

Dudley Henriques wrote:

What I said was that I had never flown with a product of an accelerated
basic training program where that pilot didn't in my opinion need
remedial training to bring them up to what I consider to be appropriate
comprehension standards.
This shouldn't be read to imply that these pilots were unsafe. It should
however be interpreted to mean that in my opinion, these pilots might
have had better comprehension had they not taken the accelerated route.

Why is the PPL exam set permitting people to become pilots with a level of
comprehension you find inappropriate?

- Andrew

"Andrew Gideon" wrote in message
online.com...
Dudley Henriques wrote:

What I said was that I had never flown with a product of an
accelerated
basic training program where that pilot didn't in my opinion need
remedial training to bring them up to what I consider to be
appropriate
comprehension standards.
This shouldn't be read to imply that these pilots were unsafe. It
should
however be interpreted to mean that in my opinion, these pilots
might
have had better comprehension had they not taken the accelerated
route.

Why is the PPL exam set permitting people to become pilots with a
level of
comprehension you find inappropriate?

- Andrew

Just because I found the comprehension levels "inappropriate" shouldn't
be misconstrued into meaning that I believe the flight test standards
were lax. This wasn't the case at all. I would consider the standards to
be an established MINIMUM for defining a safe pilot. What I am saying is
that in my experience, the comprehensive levels of the accelerated
trainees could have been BETTER!!!!
My standards are fairly high it's true, especially for my airplanes, but
they are not so high that I wouldn't check out a safe pilot who I felt
simply needed remedial work on his comprehension.

My usual method was to simply spend the time necessary with the pilot
and bring them up to speed on anything I found during the check flight
that I thought was out of line with that pilot's experience level.
The rub on all this is that many of the things that I discovered needing
some work were not critical things necessarily, but rather things that I
felt a pilot at the level of experience I was checking should know. A
lot of it had to do with the depth of the understanding, rather than the
total absence of comprehension.
Being safe is one thing. Being evaluated by a check pilot looking for a
specific depth of comprehension to match your hours of experience is
quite a different thing. All of us, including me, can use more
comprehension. What I was finding was a pilot who I felt should be
understanding what was happening at a deeper depth than I was getting
for the rating held and the hours flown. You could classify it as
something I felt the pilot should know more about than I was getting
from him. Nothing critical, just something I wasn't getting from a lot
of the pilots who were coming through the program taking a little more
time BETWEEN FLIGHTS!!!!
Dudley Henriques
International Fighter Pilots Fellowship
Commercial Pilot/ CFI Retired
For personal email, please replace
the z's with e's.
dhenriquesATzarthlinkDOTnzt

Dudley Henriques wrote:

You could classify it as
something I felt the pilot should know more about than I was getting
from him. Nothing critical, just something I wasn't getting from a lot
of the pilots who were coming through the program taking a little more
time BETWEEN FLIGHTS!!!!

You indicate that the comprehension under discussion is "nothing critical".
In that case, why do you seek it out at all?

Elsewhere in this thread, you implied[1] that the additional comprehension
translates to additional safety. I believe that!

But doesn't this imply that the less comprehending pilots are less safe?
And when does that become "not safe enough"?

- Andrew

[1] In et:

I HAVE suggested however that in my opinion, the pilots I have flight
checked who have come through the accelerated path, although safe
enough, could have in my opinion been even better pilots had they been
given the time for their comprehension levels to catch up to their
performance levels.

I'm taking "better pilots" to imply "safer pilots".

"Andrew Gideon" wrote in message
online.com...
Dudley Henriques wrote:

You could classify it as
something I felt the pilot should know more about than I was getting
from him. Nothing critical, just something I wasn't getting from a
lot
of the pilots who were coming through the program taking a little
more
time BETWEEN FLIGHTS!!!!

You indicate that the comprehension under discussion is "nothing
critical".
In that case, why do you seek it out at all?

Elsewhere in this thread, you implied[1] that the additional
comprehension
translates to additional safety. I believe that!

But doesn't this imply that the less comprehending pilots are less
safe?
And when does that become "not safe enough"?

- Andrew

No. The less comprehending pilots have met minimum standards are have
been deemed safe enough to be certificated.
All we're discussing here is a HIGHER degree of comprehension than that
required by those minimum standards.
It's not black and white.
Dudley Henriques
International Fighter Pilots Fellowship
Commercial Pilot/ CFI Retired
For personal email, please replace
the z's with e's.
dhenriquesATzarthlinkDOTnzt

Suppose that the flight test were conducted three weeks after the last flight
the student actually took. Comparing the accelerated students with the
standard curriculum students, which do you think would be more likely to pass
this delayed flight test?

My feeling (just that) is that the standard curriculum students would be in a
better position, since their knowledge, gained over a long time, will probably
remain a long time. The accelerated students, it would seem to me, would be
more likely to have forgotten stuff over the three weeks they were not flying.

OTOH, it might be that those three ("inactive") weeks would provide enough time
for the information to gell, and the accelerated students would do better than
they would have earlier. (whether this would be better than the normal
curriculum students with a delayed flight test I don't know)

Anybody with actual datapoints here?

Jose


--
(for Email, make the obvious changes in my address)

"Teacherjh" wrote in message
...
Suppose that the flight test were conducted three weeks after the last
flight
the student actually took. Comparing the accelerated students with
the
standard curriculum students, which do you think would be more likely
to pass
this delayed flight test?

My feeling (just that) is that the standard curriculum students would
be in a
better position, since their knowledge, gained over a long time, will
probably
remain a long time. The accelerated students, it would seem to me,
would be
more likely to have forgotten stuff over the three weeks they were not
flying.

OTOH, it might be that those three ("inactive") weeks would provide
enough time
for the information to gell, and the accelerated students would do
better than
they would have earlier. (whether this would be better than the
normal
curriculum students with a delayed flight test I don't know)

Anybody with actual datapoints here?

Jose

The mistake a lot of the people in this thread seem to be making is that
zeroing in on the flight test and trying to use the results of the
flight test to establish an ACTUAL quality level for the pilot at that
point in time doesn't equate. All the flight test does is establish that
the pilot being tested has met a MINIMUM STANDARD.
You can get a pass/fail ratio for accelerated training opposed to other
forms of training at the test point, but getting a handle on the ACTUAL
QUALITY or the high end comprehension and performance levels of a
specific pilot at that moment in time is another matter; much more
difficult to determine, since the upper levels of a pilot's performance
capabilities are by definition, NOT required, nor are they even tested
by the examiner giving the flight test.
To establish these parameters, an entirely different type of flight
check is necessary; an actual limiting parameter flight check. This is a
highly specialized flight check.
Dudley Henriques
International Fighter Pilots Fellowship
Commercial Pilot/ CFI Retired
For personal email, please replace
the z's with e's.
dhenriquesATzarthlinkDOTnzt