About Acellerated Courses for Private

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

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.


Correct as stated, but it is not unreasonable to make statistical inferences.
For example, assuming any reasonable (such as gaussian) distribution of pilot
abilities at flight check time, a higher =average= pilot quality will translate
into more passes and fewer fails. Assuming a similar distribution among pilots
who take accelerated vs standard training, the set of pilots with the highest
level of fails is likely to have a lower mean than the set of pilots with the
lowest level of fails.

I do grant that (and this is what I think you are getting at) one can correctly
infer nothing about the shape of the pilot distribution from the pass/fail
ratio, and even that given a distribution (such as gaussian) one can correctly
infer nothing about the sharpness of the peak from the pass/fail ratio, nor
about the ability of any individual pilot from his pass/fail result. But that
is not necessary to address the underlying issue.

Jose


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

Dudley Henriques wrote:

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.

Worse: it is a minimum standard sought at a single moment in time. There's
no guarantee that the same standard could be met by a pilot a day, a week,
or three weeks hence. That is, I believe, part of Jose's point/question.

- Andrew

Dudley Henriques wrote:



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

- Andrew

No.

My question was whether or not less comprehending pilots are less safe.
You're answering "no" to that question?

You also wrote (on 12 July):

To put it bluntly, I can't remember a situation where
I have checked out a new pilot coming out of an accelerated
course for Private Pilots where the performance level was
such that I felt no remedial work was required....not ONE case!!!!

What was the purpose behind this remedial work if it didn't improve safety?

- Andrew