Independant Instructing, CASA and the USA

[no_one]

In the USA there are two ways that a Pilot can receive training, commonly called Part 61 and part 141. Under part 141 a school needs to have a "pilot school certificate" and have a structured curriculum. Compared to the other method, part 141 allows a student to have less flight experience to gain a licence.

Under part 61 any instructor can give them training for a person to get a PPL. They don't need to operate as part of a school. They can operate in the students aircraft, their own or a third parties. There is no AOC, no Chief Pilot and no formal curriculum however the instructor must be satisfied that the student has received instruction in all the parts listed in the regulations. When the student has the skills and the hours they are recommended for the flight test with an independent examiner, who may be employed by the FAA or work on their own. There are a limited number of examiners and they are busy. This is one way that the FAA is able to maintain consistency as they only have to keep a relatively small number of examiners aligned. Many small flight schools in the USA operate this way as there is minimal setup costs.

Why can't we have the independant instructing of the FAA Part 61 here in Australia? It would simplify the record keeping, auditing and management of flight training allowing resources that are, at the moment wasted, to be focused more towards actual training. This would lead to reduced cost and potentially more students and a larger more vibrant industry.

It would improve safety in a number of ways. For an aircraft owner at times in Australia it is hard to get an instructor that will fly in their type. By not having to operate within the framework of a school environment with the associated overhead, many US instructors are happy to teach specific advanced skills. It would simplify doing a BFR for many of the homebuilt types. In the USA many EAA chapters have members who are instructors who are willing to do BFRs for other members for a nominal fee. It would also allow for a higher level of standardisation as the number of examiners could be reduced and levels of assessment made consistent across regions and flight schools.

What roadblocks are standing in the way of implementing this here in Australia?

[Aussie Bob]

No one, thanks for the post. I agree with everything you say and all I can suggest is that politicians should become involved. I don't know how else this will ever be implemented although if memory serves me correctly this is part of project Eureka from AOPA.

Non RAA flying schools are a dying breed and I often suspect that CASA would like all new private pilots either learning and flying RAA or not at all. If this was implemented it would make an instructor rating a great prospect. From my point of view all I want to do is be able to do conversion training from RAA to GA, provide training as required when flight reviews are conducted and the applicant is lacking some skills and be able to add a navigation endorsement to a Recreational Pilots License but under the current system I can't even do this. I have just watched a private pilot sell his lovely 152 and move to RAA because of a lack of a GA instructor. I could have trained him and there are others in the same boat.

[poteroo]

Agree. It was originally mooted that 'our' Part 61 would have provision for the US non AOC instruction model. Methinks that current AOC, (now Part 141 and 142)holders got to CASA, who made another 'commercial' decision to manage the industry. All this has done is allow school owners to push prices for instruction-in-own-aircraft charges higher because individual instructors are effectively locked out of the market save for a few minor fields such as general competency training, activity endos such as formation and aeros, plus design features endos such as tailwheel, csu. AFR's are excluded - yet these are the very item that many pilots have to travel in to a city location, (at great expense), to complete.

[alphacentauri]

Great idea and something I've often thought about. Seems to me this kind of thing might, heaven forbid, encourage and promote aviation activities.

Which is exactly why CASA wont go for it. You probably just made some old FOI choke on his dinner!

Jokes aside, it would actually encourage me (and others) to think about becoming an instructor. Its the current system that is keeping me out of it.

Alpha

[Arm out the window]

Good idea I reckon, and really when it comes down to it, isn't this exactly what all this competency based training is all about - it doesn't really matter what the means of getting there is as long as you fulfil the minimum requirements for hours etc and you can fly and operate to the appropriate standards.

I would push for it.

[Dick Smith]

I attempted to copy the US system when I was chairman but the change was resisted by those schools who had spent all the money getting an AOC.

So often it is vested interests in our industry that stop cost reductions which will get more people flying.

[Arm out the window]

So the schools had the power to stop it, did they? Funny how they can't stop Parts 141 and 142 now.

[Ultralights]

probably because there are a lot less schools now

[no_one]

Have a read of this article. While I admire the lateral thinking I am dismayed that it is necessary.

http://www.australianflying.com.au/news/innovative-idea-aims-to-save-flying-school-costs

[27/09]

New Zealand pretty well does it the FAA Part 61 way. Makes sense.

[actus reus]

Dick,
You are right about the intentions. Part 141 / 142 differs from the US same numbered parts but the idea was that 141 (simple flying training) would not need an AOC, nor would a Grade One instructor need to instruct in association with an AOC holder.
First point: the biggest outcry against this came from flying school operators who had purchased an AOC; plus their lament that they would lose all their Grade One instructors!
Almost total opposition to the proposal.
Second point: the alignment of the DVFR syllabus with the RAAus syllabus and the removal of the need for a Student Pilot Licence was to allow someone to walk into a GA school or go to an individual instructor and be able to start flying immediately (not an Intro flight; real flying training).
Again, who objected?
Flying schools.
The data is there for someone who wants to look.
Same, same Cessna SIDs. BIG complaints that that numb nut Truss listened to from many quarters, particularly Horsham, about 'not needed', 'ridiculous as it is not mandatory in the USA', etc, etc; what do we see now?
Support for CASA's action.
Go figure: AMROBA and others; just bull...t.

[Clare Prop]

IF a flying school has had all the costs and hassle of compliance and then it is proposed that it was all unnecessary and anyone can do it without all that hassle (and obviously undercut them) then of course there was opposition to it, when people have invested so much. For much the same reasons as taxi drivers object to Uber.

Not all flying schools are a dying breed, and I disagree that vested interests are a bad thing that should be dismissed as just an annoying obstruction, but RA has certainly made things a lot harder.

[Jabawocky]

I attempted to copy the US system when I was chairman but the change was resisted by those schools who had spent all the money getting an AOC.

So often it is vested interests in our industry that stop cost reductions which will get more people flying.

Clare Prop :D Exactly

I am wanting to take on a different industry and business, problem is, too much gubbermint. I would need my head read. In order to do it I would need to be not a fit and proper person, yet that is demanded of the task.

Cost of compliance is killing so much Australian industry, my grandkids (not here yet) will be in a lot of strife.

Taxi licences V Uber is a classic example. Yet Fishing licences get bought back by the government due to pressure from extremist green groups. Go figure.:ugh:

[no_one]

While I can understand that schools that had invested a lot of money in setting up a formal system would be resistant to a less onerous system they need to understand that if there are no students everyone loses.

It is also important to remember under the US system schools that have an AOC and a formal curriculum can offer reduced minimum flight times for the issue of a licence.

If a more relaxed system lead to more students then the established schools would likely see more activity as some of those students go on to things like advanced ratings or IFR. If ever there was a example of grow the pie (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grow_the_Pie_(phrase)) then this is it.

[Clare Prop]

A less onerous system would be better for all but when RA Aus were allowed to increase their maximum weight and compete directly with the GA schools at capital city airports it shrunk the already shrinking pie, so your "grow the pie" idea is not applicable here. All that has happened is that the industry has been devalued.

Thanks for your patronage, I'm glad I now know what I need to understand and what I have to remember. What is this, a year ten economics assignment?

Perhaps if you own a house and then someone comes along and says "anyone can build a house and no approvals required, just do what you want" what would happen to the values of the houses that were build with all the onerous building and council regulations? Don't you think the people who have worked all their lives to pay off a mortgage would be a little but peeved? That doesn't make them bad or greedy people.

[Aussie Bob]

I hear what you are saying Clare. However, there is always a however .....
I think most students would prefer a school. The remaining schools are mostly getting HECS funding and industries come and go, times change, farriers, blacksmiths and coachmakers have come and gone too.

[Ozgrade3]

The very idea that somone could instruct outside the confines of a school with an AOC and Ops manual would have CASA apoplectic.

You simply can't instruct without a multi thousand page Ops Manual or student training folders that make the Yellow Pages look like a single page extract. What CASA be ale to give you an NCN for if you don't have these. I kid you not, I was asked why I wrote, "Recomend for CPL Test" instead of the correct "Recomended for CPL Test".

My god, it would make CASA actually go outside and look at what is going on in the circuit.

Does anyone in CASA actually still fly a plane?

[Clare Prop]

I would have loved to have done freelance instructing like this but the option wasn't open then, to do it I had to jump through all the hoops to get my own AOC.

Aussie bob, very few elite schools get the FEE HELP funding, and most of them still seem to run into financial strife. There are still plenty of schools operating as viable small businesses, the ones that didn't adapt to being cut off at the knees by the RA lot are long gone

[Arm out the window]

The thing with freelance instructing is, you still need pretty much all the things a Part 141 school would need when it comes down to it - aircraft, maintenance, fuel, premises, training aids, record keeping, instructor rating renewals, so bar an AOC and some manuals you wouldn't really have to go that much further to get a Part 141 approval, would you?

If you're teaching someone in their own aircraft, different story, but flying schools can do that too. I reckon you could set up a small Part 141 school for not much more than you would have to fork out to do independent instructing, or perhaps I'm deluding myself.

[Clare Prop]

Yes, you can.

[vh-foobar]

A compromise solution would not be hard...

i.e. all training towards a license, or rating be done with a school or an organisation with an AOC, everything else with a grade two instructor or better (or some sensible variation) etc.

Instead you have a charade where an instructor can provide a 'review', but can't provide instruction without a school...

[roundsounds]

ICAO Annex 1 states the holder of a flight instructor rating is authorised to train pilots, full stop. The whole 141/142 stuff is about allowing a reduction in the hours required to gain a licence of a particular type (PPL or CPL). CASA has decided to be more restrictive than ICAO SARPS for whatever reason. The industry needs to call them on why and justify the difference.

[Arm out the window]

It's reasonable to expect an instructor of any kind to have an appropriate syllabus, record keeping, and equipment to do the job.

If you're setting up in business to train pilots then it's fair enough to have to prove you can do the job properly. That to me justifies the requirement for an approval process, and with a ready-made Part 141 ops manual available from CASA now https://www.casa.gov.au/files/samplepart141operationsmanualv10march2016docx
and considering you're going to need the same sorts of equipment and resources to instruct either independently or as a Part 141 approved operator, it doesn't seem like such a big problem to go through that process.

[Tinstaafl]

US Part 61 instruction does not have an approved syllabus. Instructors can teach whatever they want. *However* the students are tested against a list of required items in the Practical Test Standard (1 of 'a', any 2 of 'b', 'c', 'd', & 'e' etc). The FAA tracks each Part 61 Instructor's test recommendation for a minimum pass rate. Failure for an instructor to achieve the required pass rate results in a review of competency to hold the instructor rating. Pass rate includes recommendations to sit theory exams too. I don't know any instructor who would recommend someone for a test who wasn't likely to pass. The instructor's own certificate is at risk.

Similarly, an instructor is held accountable for sending students solo.

Separate training records are not required (although there are some records that an instructor must keep for various endorsements). Each student's log book is the training record. Every instructional entry must be signed by the instructor involved - or it doesn't count towards training times.

[Arm out the window]

Every instructional entry must be signed by the instructor involved - or it doesn't count towards training times. Good idea, that would certainly cut down on duplicated admin.

Seems kind of hands-off for the supposedly litigious American society, though - if a student crashes on a solo, a log book record with just 'circuits' or 'stalling' seems like a set up for a 'You told me to do it that way' vs. 'That's not how I taught you to do it' scenario.

[Clare Prop]

Yes the training records are important "evidence" in the unfortunate event of a mishap.

A freelance instructor would need all that, plus some good public liability insurance. (Something the many sham contractors don't have even if they are working through an AOC...which is the thing that makes the contracting a sham!)

[no_one]

So the reasons we have so far for not implementing independant instructing are:

1 The established commercial operators would be financially disadvantaged because they have spent time and effort establishing their operating systems.
2. Independant instructing wouldn't require the same level of keeping of student records to appropriation blame when an accident has occurred.

These seem kind of weak arguments. In the USA a commercial operator (under part 141) is able to provide integrated training and therefore the student can be issued a license in a reduced number of hours. For many students aiming for the airlines this is still a benefit and so they go to that way.

If the instructor keeping notes in their logbook is enough record keeping for training in the USA why do we need more paperwork here? Does it make us safer?

[poteroo]

CASA have always claimed that they are not making decisions based on economics, ie, that it's safety only. Yet over the years they have made decisions on granting of AOC's that are clearly influenced by the protests of any incumbents. It's been happening since the early 60's.

I can see value in Part 61 'allowing' for independent instructors to train pilots for design feature and flight activity endorsements outside of a Part 141 school, provided they are experienced and comply with record keeping etc. By 'experienced' I'd be thinking at least Grade 1, and with substantial flight experience in that activity - say, 100+ hrs of time in each - none of this piddly 'go out and instruct immediately after your own endo' that has been the case under the CAR's.

But where Part 61 has failed the average PPL, (IMHO), is that that pilot cannot do their AFR with a locally based independent instructor. Well, that how I read it in 61.1120. Often, country pilots have to travel some distance to obtain their AFR from a 141 school - when, often, there is the option to do it locally, (but with an independent instructor). This is even more galling for the pilot if they own a notably difficult to fly taildragger or a very high performance type, on which they often have to effectively 'train' their AFR instructor at the 141 school. (C170/180/185 come to mind).

It really wouldn't be any skin off the 141 schools' noses for CASA to allow AFR's to be done by experienced G1's out in the regions. It's not as though AFR's are a major source of income for most schools.

And, the pilot would be receiving good value in their review without all the travel costs.

And, we could then 'instruct' during the AFR - instead of the farcical situation of doing the review on flight #1, then going back out to do the remedial instruction on flight #2.

This isn't much to ask CASA to change. Yes, a complete transplant of the NZ or US Part 61 would be good - but the air in Australia is quite different to elsewhere......isn't it? Maybe just in Canberra, where it seems chronic hypoxia is determining the content of the CASR rewrites.

happy days,

[Aussie Bob]

It really wouldn't be any skin off the 141 schools' noses for CASA to allow AFR's to be done by experienced G1's out in the regions. It's not as though AFR's are a major source of income for most schools.


Part 61 does allow this.

I can see value in Part 61 'allowing' for independent instructors to train pilots for design feature and flight activity endorsements outside of a Part 141 school

Yes, a design feature endorsement, especially a tail wheel or float gear endo requires a lot of instruction, end of story, not possible without instruction. So I can do ths as an independent, but I can't brush up an AFR student on forced landings? Who writes this ****e? Words fail me. Perhaps these idiots should define instruction. IMHO, merely speaking (wich is all that is often required) is not instruction. Debriefing afterwards? Some would even call this instruction. Fortunately I don't.

[weloveseaplanes]

Do pilots write the rules or ground-thumpers?

[Arm out the window]

Lawyers .

[Sandy Reith]

As one who ran, for many years, my own flying school as airport and aircraft owner, general cleaner, manager, CFI, also CP for charter and an RPT run, the sole reality for CASA's AOC regime is fee gouging, egotistical control and a continual bureaucratic make work program.
Its true that the independent instructor concept was not popular due to the vested interests of flying schools. That myopic view is I think is nearly extinct because the whole industry is dying under the stifling and crushing burden of our out of control regulator. To grow the pie, plain as the nose on your face, independent instructors are a must, training is the progenitor of all GA activity. Some 70% of all US pilots are trained outside of the equivalent AOC system. With our low population thinly spread out across country where GA is perhaps most useful, the expensive and inefficient AOC system is simply not affordable, not appropriate and therefore not fit for purpose. No substantial change will occur unless and until Parliament takes action, so it behoves us all to get behind any effort for reform.

[thorn bird]

Wren,
hear bloody hear!!

[Sandy Reith]

CASA have always claimed that they are not making decisions based on economics, ie, that it's safety only. Yet over the years they have made decisions on granting of AOC's that are clearly influenced by the protests of any incumbents. It's been happening since the early 60's.

I can see value in Part 61 'allowing' for independent instructors to train pilots for design feature and flight activity endorsements outside of a Part 141 school, provided they are experienced and comply with record keeping etc. By 'experienced' I'd be thinking at least Grade 1, and with substantial flight experience in that activity - say, 100+ hrs of time in each - none of this piddly 'go out and instruct immediately after your own endo' that has been the case under the CAR's.

But where Part 61 has failed the average PPL, (IMHO), is that that pilot cannot do their AFR with a locally based independent instructor. Well, that how I read it in 61.1120. Often, country pilots have to travel some distance to obtain their AFR from a 141 school - when, often, there is the option to do it locally, (but with an independent instructor). This is even more galling for the pilot if they own a notably difficult to fly taildragger or a very high performance type, on which they often have to effectively 'train' their AFR instructor at the 141 school. (C170/180/185 come to mind).

It really wouldn't be any skin off the 141 schools' noses for CASA to allow AFR's to be done by experienced G1's out in the regions. It's not as though AFR's are a major source of income for most schools.

And, the pilot would be receiving good value in their review without all the travel costs.

And, we could then 'instruct' during the AFR - instead of the farcical situation of doing the review on flight #1, then going back out to do the remedial instruction on flight #2.

This isn't much to ask CASA to change. Yes, a complete transplant of the NZ or US Part 61 would be good - but the air in Australia is quite different to elsewhere......isn't it? Maybe just in Canberra, where it seems chronic hypoxia is determining the content of the CASR rewrites.

happy days,

We suffer from the one great mistake of the founders, Canberra. Probably the most bureaucratic, stratified, socialist and souless capital city in the first world. Just like Brazil who did the same making a capital out of nothing, look at their misery. Except our capital was a good sheep station producing fine wool instead of nation destroying wooly thinking. Bureacratalia is the result and more people voting for a living than working is the result.

[aroa]

If someone qualified as an Instructor wishes hang up a shingle at a small airfield giving 'instruction' then surely that is their right to take the plunge into a small business.
A QFI is an Instructor is an Instructor...No ?

And market forces, word of mouth and the successful passing of flight tests by his/her students will ensure the viability of the business.

Its called free enterprise and capitalism.If the job is not done properly, no more students, no continuing business. Remove shingle. Simple really.

But for Cantberra and (Non) Aviation House..home of control freaks, 'we know best'ers and the of haters of entrepreneurs, such an idea would be so unsafe as to litter the country with broken bodies and aircraft.

After all their MO is to be the sole arbiter of "safety" and boy, hasnt that cost the taxpayer and the industry dearly. Mega millions and still wasting.....

CAsA is a gigantic con job. A massive fraud.
It should be

[aroa]

dealt with, and closed down for deceptive and misleading conduct.

And replaced with the FARs etc to give Oz aviation the freedom to prosper it deserves

[Sandy Reith]

Aussie Bob, in the US some independent instructors do get together and create 'flying schools'. They can have premises, employ a secretary and so on, much like an AOC type school.
In other words sensible arrangements to suit the market. No doubt the same would apply here, but also the flexibility for an instructor to go bush and teach where the need exists

[Aussie Bob]

Hey Sandy, good to see you here, you probabaly dont remember me but you used to bring backpackers throug my flying school. I also remember Mr. Mustachio the Wren.