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Old 22nd Feb 2005, 13:50
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Flingwing207
 
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Denver, CO and the GOM
Age: 63
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I suspect one of the reasons, if not the primary reason, none of this is taught is because the instructors don't know it. Brand new CFIs are mostly clueless about this stuff, and unless they know it, they can't teach it. The blind are generally being led by the blind.

Another reason is that it is impossible to teach everything, because no one knows everything. The pilot will be taught what he needs to know for the job.
Perhaps the reason we "blind" CFIs don't teach folks how to place an air-conditioner onto a 50-story building is because that's not our job. Our job is to give pilots a basic skill-set and knowledge base. We are teaching them how to fly a helicopter, how to navigate, how to deal with weather, emergencies, ATC, airports and so on. We are training them in the only aircraft that they can afford to train in - a 2-place piston helicopter.

The guy I turn loose on the world with a commercial-helicopter rating will have zero experience finding an oil rig with a watch and a compass, but he will have training and experience in dead reckoning. He won't have made a 0/0 whiteout landing on a 10,000' pinnacle, but he will know how to make a steep approach to the ground, and when to do it. About the only real "job" training they get from me is at the CFI level, because that is the job they will have for the next year or two (or three). Why train somebody to hover next to a power line when they may well never do it?

My students will (most likely) never have started a turbine helicopter - there's a good chance they have never been in a turbine helicopter. They also will not be in a turbine for the next 800 hours.

If operators were having problems with us "blind" pilots, they'd do something about it. However, I've had some interesting chats with a few operators, and for most "entry level" jobs, they actually prefer the CFII who's been going around the pattern and teaching students to fly XC and the bazillionth GPS-A approach. Why? Because these folks usually have the basic skills very well honed, but have no prior habits/training/whatever to inhibit the training they need to do the job for which they are being hired.

In an ideal world, major operators would have their own academies to assure a pipeline of pilots trained to the specific needs of that job. The IPs would be experienced pilots rotated out of operational positions to teach one or two "classes" of new pilots, and they would maintain their level of pay while doing so. The new pilots would fly SIC for a few hundred hours, the PIC in less-demanding missions, then finally PIC wherever they were needed. Oh wait - I just invented military aviation! Of course even a pilot trained in such an environment will have difficulty in jobs outside his/her training. Putting someone who is used to flying an UH-60 into an AS350B full of tourists at 11,500'DA is no less challenging than putting someone in who has done 1,792 power-recovery autos in an R22.

I suggest that before you try to pin blame on the CFIs who are working hard to produce the best pilots we're allowed to (given the business models in place), that you look to the folks who created these business models. Those folks are your employers, gang - the PHI's and ERA's and Air Methods and so on. They don't always do what's best for aviation, pilots, or safety, until it affects the bottom line. You may see a valid need to change the system, now all you have to do is convince them. Meanwhile, I'll keep turning out the best "raw material" possible, because that's my job.
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