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Old 6th Dec 2020, 16:56
  #31 (permalink)  
Big Pistons Forever
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Canada
Age: 63
Posts: 5,209
Received 134 Likes on 61 Posts
As an aerobatic instructor I usually teach a 10-15 hour introductory aerobatic course. However occasionally I get pilots asking for UPRT. My response is to suggest they do the full aerobatic course as by the end of it, it won't matter to them if the airplane is pointed straight up, straight down inverted whatever, they will have the skills to recover.

I still ended up doing a few just upset training events, most before UPRT became a thing, but what I taught was pretty much in line with UPRT SOP's as they are the logical actions. However 2 things that I think does not get enough attention in todays UPRT SOP are

1) The surprise element. UPRT by definition is an unplanned and unexpected event. Looking at the syllabuses of a few UPRT training providers it appears to be to be very "canned " training. This is great if you are teaching the go-around in an A320 but, I believe, is a disservice to the UPRT student. There needs to be "test" at the end of he formal training which IMO should involved random instructor led departures from controlled flight, that is undesired aircraft states, followed by successful recoveries by the student. Instead I see a tick the box maneuver set for exactly 3.0 hrs and then the rubber stamp, UPRT done !

2) One of my early UPRT students ended up chatting with me one sunny day about a year after the course and I suggested that we go up and do a quick flight to see how much he remembered from my training. The short answer was zero. He froze on the first maneuver ( inverted after a simulated wake turbulence encounter ) and I had to take over to save the aircraft. So IMO UPRT training is fine but unless there is regular recurrent training it will provide a false sense of security to pilots and operators.
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