I recently accepted a position with Polk State College in Winter Haven, FL. I am the first aerospace program director for their newly created professional pilot program. You've probably never heard of Polk State; I hadn't either. But I was unable to resist the opportunity to actually do exactly what I've been preaching about for the last five years - reinvent pilot training. I'm not talking about fixing pilot training. I'm talking about throwing the current training system away and starting over from scratch. And that's exactly what this new collegiate training program is doing. From the college curriculum to the training students will actually receive in the airplane, everything is different. It has to be.
Spend five minutes reading NTSB accident reports for GA aircraft accidents. You'll see exactly what the problem is - poor basic piloting skills coupled with poor or non-existent decision making skills. Over 75% of GA accidents are attributed to pilot error. Our fatal accident rate has flat-lined over the last decade, and our pilot population is shrinking at a terrifying rate. Doom and gloom? Maybe, but it's also statistical fact.
With that part out of the way, let's talk about how we're going to fix it - and by "we" I mean the reformist charge led by the completely revolutionary program at Polk State College! The pre-WWII training model is gone, trashed. From day 1, students learn human factors concepts and practical real-world flying skills, not just "this is lift" and turns around a point. Graduates from this program will be trained to current ICAO training standards, not the antiquated standards that the FAA continues to hold onto, despite numerous recent updates to the Practical Test Standards for various certificates (including flight instructor). Graduates will find FAA practical tests easy by comparison because they will have been trained to think, not just to fly. A completely new view on the use of simulation for initial pilot training will be the tipping point that creates a well-trained pilot at a fraction of what it currently costs.
A few people here and there are doing it right, but that's not good enough. As an industry, we have to acknowledge that our current approach to pilot training is a missed approach. Let's go around, reconfigure the plane, and try it again. That's what we're doing at Polk State. We enroll our first students in January, and I am excited to see the results. I'm equally excited to be working with industry so we can stimulate widespread buy-in to this new training paradigm. Everything we learn will be freely available to anyone who agrees that pilot training can and should be conducted in a better way.
Stay tuned aviation. Changes are on the wind!
With that part out of the way, let's talk about how we're going to fix it - and by "we" I mean the reformist charge led by the completely revolutionary program at Polk State College! The pre-WWII training model is gone, trashed. From day 1, students learn human factors concepts and practical real-world flying skills, not just "this is lift" and turns around a point. Graduates from this program will be trained to current ICAO training standards, not the antiquated standards that the FAA continues to hold onto, despite numerous recent updates to the Practical Test Standards for various certificates (including flight instructor). Graduates will find FAA practical tests easy by comparison because they will have been trained to think, not just to fly. A completely new view on the use of simulation for initial pilot training will be the tipping point that creates a well-trained pilot at a fraction of what it currently costs.
A few people here and there are doing it right, but that's not good enough. As an industry, we have to acknowledge that our current approach to pilot training is a missed approach. Let's go around, reconfigure the plane, and try it again. That's what we're doing at Polk State. We enroll our first students in January, and I am excited to see the results. I'm equally excited to be working with industry so we can stimulate widespread buy-in to this new training paradigm. Everything we learn will be freely available to anyone who agrees that pilot training can and should be conducted in a better way.
Stay tuned aviation. Changes are on the wind!
