Originally Posted by
john_tullamarine
when I took away his iPad he was totally and utterly lost
That's sad enough to be tragic. Much the same with the electronic calculator crowd who couldn't run a mental sum if their lives depended on it. I can only hope that more instructors (and examiners) do the same sort of thing as you did. It wouldn't take long for the message to get around the Industry.
Another one which saddens me is the steam driven whizz wheel. OK, pilots can use the electronic version. However, the examiner still requires a display of some sort of competence to pass the various pilot exams. Being involved with theory training, these days, I have seen so many who have utterly no idea of why they are doing what they thought they had learnt (parrot fashion) correctly. I even had one supposedly university level class in recent times where several of them complained vigorously and bitterly when I presented some basic math background as to why you did this and that with the wheel.
One can only wonder where it might end ?
One of the big problems is that piloting and university have no correlation. The practical maths required for piloting an aircraft is sub year 10 level, not advanced calculus or differential equations. I've found the average university student struggles with simple maths in the cranium without some form of calculator, meaning quick decisions such as a sudden shortening of track means a delayed reaction to how much simple VS is required for the new profile. Its all about quick decisions on averages not, accurate down to a decimal point. As for navigation, that is a long forgotten art, once a pilot passes their PPL/CPL they will probably never pick up a wiz wheel or paper chart again, meaning like year 6 level times tables its a rusting artifact in the rear lobes. If your aircraft doesn't have a moving map GPS glass cockpit, you will most likely be carrying an iPad that does. I'm thankful all my training was pre-GPS even IFR having to do all calculations reference position lines and times for descent planing. I still do the numbers in my head to verify the GPS is doing it's thing and look out the window and identify features as I go to keep me occupied, occasionally ATS will throw some track shortening at me that requires some huge maths problems like 3 or 5 times tables.