In an eariler post I mentioned that there was a program being sponsored by the United Kingdom's Royal Aeronautical Society in London that might wind up dealing with pilot training issues on a global basis. Here is an excerpt from that Society's announcement:
The Annual Royal Aeronautical Society International Flight Crew Training Conference is well established and highly successful. The 2011 Conference aims to seek solutions on how best to consider flight crew training standards from an international perspective. It will be held at the Headquarters of the Royal Aeronautical Society in London on Wednesday 28 and Thursday 29 September 2011.
Safety data indicates that there remain pressing issues in flight crew training. Further improvements are needed, especially in airmanship, air traffic management and situational awareness, upset recovery, and human factors. Issues arise on whether syllabuses mirror best practice, include new tasks and procedures, and exclude exercises no longer relevant. The Conference will address these issues and examine the latest thinking on competency-based training and recurrent training. Moreover, whilst the different operational and training needs of the rotary wing community need to be addressed separately, the Conference will examine the fundamental aspects that bear equally on rotary and fixed wing operations and certain initiatives currently under way. The Conference will address improvements in national and international training programmes and, with wide variations in training syllabuses, whether more harmonisation in training and evaluation standards and processes might be beneficial, whether some form of global resource for the flight crew training community might be helpful, and the constraints in achieving such goals.
This wide-ranging Conference will examine these challenges from the perspectives of fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft operators, makers and users of training systems, training providers, researchers, and regulators. The papers, some of which will be novel and contentious, will be presented by leading experts, and some 120 delegates are expected from around the world. The very broad agenda seeks both to ensure that appropriate work is taken forward and also to determine how the Royal Aeronautical Society might best facilitate progress. With that aim, the Conference will include parallel breakout sessions for a full exchange of views by all stakeholders, and will conclude with an open forum where delegates will be able to table proposals for taking forward this important work. Regardless of your role, this Conference will provide a unique opportunity to become involved, discuss the issues and influence the work required to resolve them.