My overall impression is that most TRI's have not had the benefit of a course that helps them to help the candidate learn to instrument fly properly and to a certain extent we lack the tools to do that as well. The fact that it's necessary to resort to 'Post-It' notes stuck on bits of the PFD in order to teach students how to prioritise the data collection at different stages of flight and in different manoeuvres reinforces that notion.
When I learnt to fly as a newbie in the sixties - the LATE sixties I hasten to add - the teaching techniques were so rough and ready it was tantamount to being given an aircraft and a safety pilot whilst you taught yourself how to do it.
Things then became more scientific and we all benefitted from a more structured approach with patches of duct tape used instead of the post it notes of today.
If the TRI's are going to be in the front line of those tutoring newbies when they first encounter flat screen technology then we need to equip the TRIs with some skills beforehand - Ah! what's that you say? Not required in the regs!! Bugger! another hole in the Swiss cheese. It can join the fact that sim instructors are not required to learn how to teach in a sim, just to know what the buttons do and how to climb down the escape ladder. Looking more like a lump of stale Emmental every day.
I retire next month but will make myself available to anyone interested in making our instructor corps as good as they are able, rather than just (barely) good enough.**
**This comment is directed at the extensive population of TRIs that have been elbowed into running sim training sessions for their company but never given the tuition or practice or mentoring to get them up to a standard whereby they are fluent, confident and above all competent. Every time I climb in the box and find it in a mess after a 'dry' training session I really do wonder what had gone on in there and whether any real value was achieved from the time and money spent.
G.
