Centaurus, our conclusions re my training experience differ (#891, 896).
The instructor turned out to be a good guy and a competent operator, although slightly reserved; a good lesson in not judging people on reputation.
Your view suggests that demonstrations precede repetitive and reinforcing training, which although this is a good starting point (effect of controls), training must diverge to in order to generate independent thinking (situation recognition) and the ability to transfer situation/action to similar, but not identical ones.
The demonstration and handling-skill reinforcing was complete – ‘how to land on a paved runway after an engine failure’. The training was in benign situations and followed set procedures – thus ‘success’; the next stage was to recognise situations where success was not assured, where detailed procedures did not apply, and thus alternative action was required. This is typical of military training which is perhaps based on a philosophy of ‘you never fight the war you planned for’.
Whereas a typical commercial aviation approach, with certificated aircraft operating in closely regulated situations, often biases training to ‘expected’ situations – within the scope of cert/reg – a bounded environment. This approach tends to prejudge expected situations, limiting the nature of threats, using predetermined checklists and standard scenarios (SOPs); - the general need is to understand a situation sufficiently to fit it to a procedure.
The problems in the choice of training to improve the ability to understand situations involve cost/effectiveness and the extent required for the anticipated threat – as bounded by cert/reg.
These differences are reflected in other posts; either by assuming specific situations and the need to provide detailed training, or a more flexible approach based on generic situation awareness training, avoiding prejudgment, and having a wide ranging knowledge base. The ideal is no doubt somewhere in between, but views can be biased by recent events.
The unexpected nature (components) of recent accidents has been a fundamental surprise to the industry – the assumptions in certification, regulation, and training were meant to avoid these.
Thus, is the problem a weakness in the process of cert/reg/trng, that the assumptions being made about human performance are optimistic, or that the situations being encountered no longer match expectations. Or perhaps the operational environment is now too complex for a regulated approach which may be overly dependent on human performance.
An analogy is like trying to kill a fly on a wall – either a wide angle shot-gun hoping to hit everything, or a well-aimed rifle for precision. These are extremes, neither assuring success and thus require compromise, but there are also other parameters – the size of the wall and the robustness of the fly (the environment and threat). The industry needs to consider what adaptations are required for these, and who is best placed to adapt - CEOs, design and certification, regulators, operators, or individuals at the sharp-end?
Everyone within their capability.