Flight Training

Lawyers & Engineers: The Evitable Redefinition of Flight Training

June 28, 2021 by Scott Spangler

The immediate and long-term consequences of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruling on Warbird Adventures, Inc., et. al. v. FAA, which redefined the educational mission of flight training as the “carriage of persons for compensation or hire,” should not have surprised anyone.

There is not one aspect of life and culture in the United States that is not ruled, litigated, and defined by our national legal system. We are a nation overpopulated with lawyers, whose numbers have increased 15 percent since 2008, says the American Bar Association, giving us 1,338,678 licensed active attorneys (in 2018). And most of us know that most of our elected officials are also lawyers and how almost every aspect of our lives, even our health, has become rabidly politicized.

Lawyers serve a purpose in society, but they pursue their occupation with a mindset antipodal to engineers. Like scientists, engineers look at the data and test their designs to achieve the best solution for a given problem. In short, they strive for what is right or appropriate to the given challenge.

Lawyers, on the other hand, work in a world where there are at least two sides to every situation, and it is their job to pause all action while they argue their side of the case at hand. In short, what matters most is whose point of view is right based on the evidence they present to support their argument. The goal is to win the argument, not solve (or prevent) the given problem or challenge.

Almost any evening on TV, you can watch lawyers design and assemble their cases specifically for their courtroom audience. In the Warbird Adventure case, that was the judges at the Court of Appeals. The judges are lawyers, so the FAA’s representatives presented their case in terms their peers would understand, paying for flight training is nothing more than buying an airplane ride.

Had engineers decided this case, the outcome would surely been different. People who buy an airplane ride do not undertake a premeditated, defined program of education, the acquisition of new knowledge and skills. They show up, climb in, and strap in. Engineers would also see the logic in acquiring this knowledge and skill in a flying machine as close to the one the pilot plans to fly upon completion of his or her training.

But engineers did not decide the case, lawyers did. And judging by the relentlessly expanding trend in our American society, where the first response to not getting our way is to sue (if not shoot first, then argue), we can assume that the Warbird Adventure definition of “flight training” will be coming soon to a traditional flight school near you. Even more interesting will be the consequences in aviation’s accident rates, but an increase in them means more work for attorneys.

If you enjoyed this story, why not SUBSCRIBE to JetWhine, if you haven’t already, and please share it with anyone who might find it interesting. — Scott Spangler, Editor

Why Student Pilots Shouldn’t Carry Passengers

February 3, 2021 by Robert Mark

Good pilots become better pilots with experience. One of an aviator’s top hurdles on the way to gaining the best experience is becoming a practical risk manager. When does a flight make sense considering the fuel available, the cargo, the weather, the time element and a few other concerns? And when is a flight a bad risk for many of the same reasons, or to put it more bluntly, when do some flights simply represent a stupid risk?

Like the advice most parents offer their teenagers about late-hour adventures, especially when they’re behind the wheel of a vehicle, nothing good ever seems to happen in the middle of the night. Sadly, that applies to flying too as the NTSB explained in a recent preliminary report of an accident that occurred on December 16, 2020, near Bossier City, Louisiana.

The pilot of a PA-28 — N55168 — departed Shreveport Downtown Airport (DTN), Louisiana at 4:17 am when the local weather was reported as a 600-foot overcast and 10 miles visibility making the airport IFR. The pilot, however, was not instrument rated. Per the NOTAM, Downtown Tower was also not staffed at the time the aircraft departed. The airplane crashed about 20 minutes later at 4:35 am claiming the life of the pilot and the single passenger on board. The preliminary report offers a couple of insights into what might have been going on in the pilot’s mind that morning.

But this strange early-morning adventure turned reckless when the report noted pilot possessed only a student pilot certificate at the time of the accident. Student pilots are, of course, prohibited from carrying passengers at any time. So, what in the world spurred this aviator on to make a flight when so many issues were already conspiring against him and his passenger?

An airport security video and records show that DTN’s pilot-controlled lighting (PCL) was activated at 0412 and an airplane departed Runway 14 at 0417 squawking a VFR 1200 code. Nearby Shreveport TRACON (SHV) controllers saw the target appear on their radar at 0418.

The Piper flew an irregular flight path headed east after takeoff, but the airplane seemed to pause to maneuver over Barksdale Air Force Base (BAD) for most of the remaining time it was airborne, perhaps for a little sightseeing excursion? The area around the Air Force Base is dotted with obstacles that reach between 500 and 800 feet AGL. A low cloud deck with 10 miles of visibility would at least have helped the pilot see some of these obstacles if they were looking. An SHV approach controller called the air base control tower to let them know the Piper was flying overhead between 600 and 1,800 feet MSL. Believing the airplane might be experiencing an emergency of some kind, the Barksdale controller cranked up the base’s runway lights to full brightness and tried unsuccessfully to contact the pilot by radio.

Late in the flight, radar showed the airplane in a left descending turn before all data ended at 0439. The airplane impacted a remote, wooded terrain on the air base’s property during which the left wing completely separated from the fuselage and the right wing partially so. Most of the airplane was crushed during impact which meant the two people aboard must have died instantly.

When the NTSB reviewed the CFI’s records related to the student pilot, they showed the instructor had endorsed the student about a month before the accident to fly locally in the DTN traffic pattern, but only with the instructor’s express approval before each flight. The instructor also emphasized to the pilot that they were never allowed to carry passengers. The student pilot never contacted the instructor before the December 16 flight. This first NTSB report did not indicate any conversations the instructor might have had with the NTSB about this student’s state of mind.

Are you a Jetwhine subscriber?

A Barely Successful Go Around

January 4, 2021 by Robert Mark

If you’ve already earned a Private Pilot certificate — a PPL they call it in some other parts of the world — you’ll probably remember those final words of encouragement from the government official who oversaw the checkride … “Remember, you now have a license to learn.”

That’s instructor lingo for, “No one has enough time to teach you absolutely everything you’d need to know in order to become a safe pilot.” All any instructor can really offer is solid training in line with the airman certification standards and as much extra personal wisdom as possible before they kick you out of the nest. The check pilot’s job is to within an hour or two get a glimpse of your knowledge about what makes an airplane fly — or prevents it — and that you seem to exercise relatively decent judgment. But sometimes, the barest minimum of training is called that for a really good reason.

When I was a newly minted private pilot with maybe 80 hours under my belt, I proved to myself one warm, sticky July afternoon that my practical flying education definitely had a few major gaps. The final few months of my private pilot training took place in an old, burgundy-painted Cessna 150 at Sky Harbor Airport. No, not the one in Phoenix, but a now bulldozed little field of the same name (OBK) just north of Chicago with a single 2,430-foot north-south runway. The field elevation was 680 feet and a graveyard stood ominously just off the south end of the airport, as a warning I often thought, not to swoop too low on final when landing north.

If you haven’t tried one yet, some 22,000 150’s were produced by Cessna in cookie-cutter fashion until they introduced the updated 152 in the late 1970s. The original 150 was powered by a 100 hp Continental O-200 motor that was just enough to lift two people airborne with a couple of hours of gas. Luckily for me, as a solo bird, it climbed OK, even in the summer.

One quirk that would become important that July day was the 150’s barn door-like flap system. When commanded, they’d drop to 40 degrees which made the airplane fall like a brick if the pilot pulled the throttle to idle about the same time. For retraction, the spring-loaded switch would bring all the flaps up in a few seconds if the pilot didn’t pay attention. I vowed never to let that get me.

After an hour or so of counting sailboats in Lake Michigan near the Loop that day and surveying areas north toward Waukegan (UGN) I realized it was time to head back and give my pal Tim a crack at the airplane for a few hours. The tollway extension to I-94 ran just north of the airport and was pretty easy to pick out from the lakeshore, as was the big yellow office building then used by Walgreens as a corporate HQ. Sky Harbor sat just south of Walgreens so making my way to a left downwind was a snap for a newly licensed guy such as myself.

Before you head off to read the ending to this tale, please check whether you’re a Jetwhine subscriber. If not, sign up on our home page so you don’t miss a single story about the inner workings of the aviation industry.

Nouns of Knowledge

July 13, 2020 by Scott Spangler

Semantically, Students and Learners Are Not Synonymous

The AOPA online headline about the 2020 update of the Aviation Instructor’s Handbook immediately captured my attention because — What’s Behind the FAA’s Switch from Student to Learner? — signaled an inversion of educational intent.

Looking for an answer, the author, Dan Namowitz, asked Chris Cooper, AOPA’s director of regulatory affairs who’s on the FAA work group that focuses on training and testing initiatives.

The FAA changed its nouns to address a socially self-inflicted problem that contributes to diminished learning—status. “The change from student to learner started several years ago in an industry working group,” Cooper said. “Industry wanted to get away from using the word “student’ because traditionally we think of student as in “student pilot’ or a beginning student pilot/mechanic.”

After two years of debate, which included options that included “pilot-in-training,” the FAA went with a term some school systems and institutions of higher learning use for their enrollees—”learner”—an academic buzzword that implies “the concept of lifelong learning.” In addition, Cooper said the new nouns would appear in other handbooks as the FAA updates them.

Becoming knowledgeable and proficient in any aviation arena is a daunting enough challenge without complicating it with a new lexicon that replaces long established words that communicates their meaning clearly, concisely, and simply.

In the Fifth Edition of Webster’s New World College Dictionary, the transitive form, to “learn” is “to get knowledge of (a subject) or skill in (an art, trade, etc.) by study, experience, instruction, etc.” In other words, it is the action employed by the noun, student, who is “a person who studies, or investigates” something.

The implied status of the word student is a consequence of individual semantics. To me, student is a badge of honor that one must earn by every day effort. It defines those who are so curious about a given topic that they will pursue every scrap of information, no matter how tangentially related. Like ingredients of knowledge, they all go into their cranial pantry, ready to use in a recipe for a new idea. A teacher takes the next step. The best teachers are students who share what they have learned with those who share a similar curiosity.

But that is not how education has worked in America for the past 30 odd years, when test results became more important than one generation imparting its acquired knowledge to the next generation. This testing transformation turned classroom teachers into presenters who had 180 days to prepare their charges to take the test that would satisfy the demands of their overseeing bureaucrats and elected officials.

This leaves no time to present anything more than the information needed to take the test. If a member of the class has a question related to the subject being presented, there’s no time for a curiosity-satisfying educational tangent (unless you were, like me, a substitute teacher). The goal for those enrolled is consume and regurgitate a prescribed compendium of skills and facts to pass the tests associated with that list. Aviation is no different.

Another consequence this fire hose education philosophy of rote learning of the facts, figures, and skills needed to pass a test is that “learners” are conditioned to automatically accept and believe what those in a position of authority tell them. As with educational tangents, there is no time for critical thinking and the questions its generates. [This may be one reason politicians pursue testing as a primary measurement, because people are easier to lead (and deceive) when they only believe what someone they hold as trustworthy tells them something.]

Oddly, it surprised me that Chapter 2: Human Behavior of the 2020 instructor’s handbook accurately described today’s “adult learners,” who are products of the American education system as goal-oriented 30-somethings with short attention spans and the desire for immediate gratification.

The FAA didn’t use those words, but the handbook described learners primarily interested in the skills, facts, and figures they need to pass a test than acquiring knowledge, and understanding how to use it. The first two paragraphs of Chapter 3: The Learning Process describes the hypothetical first flight of a learner who focuses on performing the demonstrated skill step-by-step. Later in training, if the instructor asks this learner “a question or to perform two tasks as once,” the learner loses their place and must restart from the beginning.

Under the subhead The Check Ride, the next two paragraphs say this learner has become “a different person.” The learner “does not simply reiterate facts—she applies her knowledge to solve the problems” the instructor presents. This foreshadows the forthcoming discussion that includes the basic levels of learning — Rote, Understanding, Application, and Correlation — 15 pages later.

What this educational theory presentation does address is whether the curriculum prescribes “problems” at certain points of training (Lesson four, engine failure), or whether the instructor has the ability to recognize a potential problem (say, flying a very wide traffic pattern) and the instructional freedom to safely create a learning experience that addresses it (like an engine failure)?

This situation is not new; rote learning has always been the Achilles heel of aviation education. The problem remains the same; only the words that define the participants have changed.

Regardless of the semantic terms, the Boeing 737 Max debacle is the perfect example of difference between students and learners. The consensus of what I’ve read about this sad situation says that learners accepted what the manufacturer and training center instructors told them about this airplane and its systems. To date, I haven’t heard of any student, driven by curiosity, to invest the time and effort to dig into the technical details before the loss of life brought it to everyone’s attention. And this is, perhaps, the prime example of why aviation needs more students than learners. — Scott Spangler, Editor

Plane Guys: Love & Respect of Aviation

June 3, 2019 by Scott Spangler

There’s no denying that general aviation is enduring an uncertain transition from its rose-colored past to a foggy future. What worked yesterday, when aviation was more widely embraced by the offspring of those alive when Lindbergh flew the Atlantic (i.e. Baby Boomers) doesn’t hold sway with their offspring and their grandchildren, for whom a growing number wonder if they even need a driver’s license. The Plane Guys Aviation at Wisconsin’s Waupaca Municipal Airport (PCZ) is finding their way by combining old and new with a realistic love and respect for aviation.

“For the love and respect of aviation” is how Plane Guys, a family business established in 2006, begins its mission statement. Straightforward and succinct, Beth Andersen said the goal is to “keep a roof over our heads and food on the table.” Beyond that, “I want people flying whether it is with my company or if I can connect with the person they need to do what they want to do, that’s the most important thing.”

Instinctively, Beth has been working to make the airport a more integrated member of the community beyond its aeronautical contributions. “When I took over in 2016, I brought EAA Chapter 444 here, and it’s been super! They do a lot of Young Eagles flights. Then there’s the Lions Club; they are holding a pancake breakfast here this Saturday. And this year we’re hosting the Humane Center [located on the other side of the airport, she said, pointing]. We’re trying to bring more events to the airport to make it a social center so nonairport users can visit it.”

Unknowingly, she was channeling Duane Cole, who in the 1990s told me that creating a social connection with the community was the key to his successful management of small Illinois airports after World War II. Plane Guys has managed the airport since 2008, and since then they have worked to “make it not a scary place, not like bigger airports” with their 10-foot-tall chain link fences and TSA agents. “When you walk in here, hey, it’s like home. We have a couple of people come in here to do their homework, adults who’ve gone back go schools and need to get away from the kids for awhile.” And just like home, Andersen wants everyone to clean up after themselves.

Originally from Racine, the Andersens established Plane Guys Aviation in 2006, when the patriarch, Pete, a longtime pilot, retired from his day job and wanted to start an aviation company. It would be at Waupaca because Pete fell in love with the airport years before, Beth said, and in 2008 the company won the contract to manage the airport when the previous manager moved on. The Andersens are not the only ones who love Waupaca; its 19 privately owned hangars and eight rental T-hangars are full.

“It’s been quite a journey,” Beth said, and there is no implication of gender or anything else in the company’s name. “We were throwing around names, and dad said, What about Plane Guys? When you meet a group of people, you ask Hey, guys, how’s it going?” So when it comes to aviation, you want to go see the Plane Guys at the Waupaca Airport.

Training sport pilots, selling light sport aircraft, and renting aircraft were all part of the plan when the Andersens started the company. “We’ve been going to EAA [AirVenture Oshkosh] since I was potty trained,” said Beth. In 2006 they went airplane shopping. “Prices for new LSAs ranged from $60,000 to more than twice that,” said Beth. By shopping at the lower end of the spectrum, “we could have affordable rental fees, less than the $150 an hour you often see at airports for tired, middle-aged airplanes.”

They started with the Allegro 2000, Beth’s winged classroom. The RANS S7 replaced it, and a Van’s Aircraft RV-12 joined it in 2015. As a dealer for both manufacturers, “our airplanes are always for sale, which some website visitors find disconcerting,” Beth said. “If a student falls in love with the airplane, we’ll happily sell it, and replace it with a newer airplane.”

Around the time the RV joined the Plane Guys family, doctors found cancer in its patriarch. He beat it in early 2016, but related complications ended his life early that year. With the diagnosis, Beth came to work at the airport full time, and took over everything after his death (“Mom is the other owner, and she does all the books”). Learning on the job, “it’s been quite a journey,” and learning about selling airplanes is on the to-do list. Until then, she connects the interested parties with the manufacturers.

Over the years, Plane Guys has been blessed with quite a few students, and most of them fly the RV-12—”We put 300 hours a year on it,” Beth said. “We have a few students learning to fly in the RANS, but most of its pilots are earning tailwheel transitions. What’s been interesting is since Basic Med went through, we do more private pilots than sport pilots. When we started it was mostly sport pilot, new people coming into aviation, not private pilots stepping down.”

The planes are equipped to train both sport and private pilots, and the two instructors, on average, serve a half-dozen students at any given time. Located on the airport, Richard Merkley is also an airframe and powerplant mechanic with inspection authorization. Dennis Carew is an instructor who lives in Appleton. “Some people call and ask if they can learn to fly in their airplane,” Beth said. “I connect them with the instructors so they can work it out directly.”

Scrolling through the Followed Dreams, which announces student achievement on the Plane Guys website, reveals a diverse population of new pilots. “Many of them are people my age,” Beth said, “mid-40s, kids out of the house, and they find new airplanes with glass cockpits, and the price is right to make the dream a reality. We also have a number of students who are college-bound high school students” with their sights set on an aviation career. And then there are the homebuilders looking for transition training and time in type to make their insurance companies happy.

Once students earn their tickets, they join the Plane Guys family of renters, and if the preflight conversation I witnessed is typical, it is another example of a mutual love and respect for aviation, and the people that give it life. — Scott Spangler

« Previous Page