Every version of Form 420, including the current one, is poorly drafted. None has ever been properly proofread or ‘user tested’ in context prior to it being inflicted on applicant guinea pigs and their instructors along the way. More importantly, every version of the form has been insufficiently informed by people with specialist expertise in the subject matter of ADHD and ASD (though it appears that, around 8 years in, someone with expertise provided input – Tony Hochberg in October 2021 – resulting in ASD being disappeared from the heading of the Form ((but not from the Purpose statement, because no one properly proof read the Form…) and now it’s being “reviewed” by “experts”). Nor has any version been sufficiently informed by people with specialist expertise in the instruction of pilots. Assuming it is medically efficacious for the content of a questionnaire filled out by an instructor to be taken into account by dabblers in Avmed in the first place – a very big assumption - there should only be one ‘Out of aircraft’ question and there should only be one ‘In aircraft’ question. The present circumstances are just a manifestation of CASA Avmed’s carefree arrogance which started with Navathe.
(Let’s think about what happened – say – 20 years ago, before ADHD became a ‘big thing’. According to ABC’s Health Report as recently as Monday this week, a few percent of the population has ADHD. I don’t recall the exact percentage, but it’s not important for present purposes. What’s important for present purposes is that people with the group of behaviours now given the description “ADHD” were around e.g. 20 years ago. Why wasn’t it raining aluminium e.g. 20 years ago because these people weren’t being caught by self-described thought leaders with delusions of grandeur in Avmed? Answer: Because a person with even a few of the behaviours described in the questionnaire would not be able to pass the theory and practical examinations to get and maintain the qualification anyway. That remains true today.)