Well I've done another one - I wasn't counting but suspect that I had a few less attendees, which may if nothing else be down to them realising that they didn't actually have to pass anything related to it! I think I may have lost one or two to slumberland in the early part of the lecture (I was explaining how to derive flying limitations - let's be honest, I'd probably have dropped off in part of that too, it's not the most thrilling subject in aviation). However, I followed up with some reasonably sexy examples - recertifying a pre-WW2 biplane, and approving a canon on a new fighter - that definitely woke them all up.
I think that I've learned a lesson there - I can't avoid covering some theory, since without it the rest just doesn't make sense - but the sexy examples are definitely what get the students' attention. So, I think that I need to shift the emphasis slightly from theory to war-stories, and try and use examples (even, I suspect if I have to make them up a bit) with good pictures / video clips / etc. to hang the theory onto as far as I possibly can.
At the end, this time I got more questions (mostly related to the examples) and they didn't seem in such a hurry to escape as before, plus still no paper aeroplanes made out of the lecture notes
Anyhow, they've verbally asked me to come and do the same again next year - so they can't have been too dissapointed.
Not only that, but they gave me the privilege of christening their new full motion sim - that was fun
G