Mon Mar 02, 2015 12:38 pm
#1357068
Let's say that the powers that be in Cologne decide to put us lot in charge of a complete re-write of the PPL and CPL syllabi. What would we do?
I'll offer some starting thoughts:-
(1) Leave the basic handling stuff alone, it works fine.
(2) For both licences, expand the number of potentially examinable emergencies into systems failures, partial engine failures - a list that can be driven by AAIB reports. Significantly increase the amount of time spent on management of emergencies.
(3) Stop obsessing about accurate ded-reckoned map-and-stopwatch nav. Nav should be done by proper integration of all of the tools available to the pilot: including GPS. HOWEVER, in a reversal of the current situation, skill test diversions have to be flown with all the nav kit turned off, and entirely by ded-reckoning, and to a real airfield with a requirement for RT and a landing.
(Re: 2 and 3, on the CPL particularly - people coming off CPL courses are in the most part going to become either airline pilots - in which case a machine will do most of the precision nav and they really only earn their money when stuff is going wrong, or flying instructors - in which case they are seldom going very far, but will have the regular fun of students trying to kill them. Either way, emergencies are far more important than hand-flown nav.)
(4) NO terminology based questions in any TK exams. It's all to be about understanding the stuff that matters, and not about where the edge of a country's airspace is (it's marked on the map, who cares!), or what sort (name!) of gyro is in an AI. Similarly, PofF/Aerodynamics to be narrowed down to things that pilots actually need, not bored aeronautical engineers decided to inflict on them. Ditto HPL and physicians.
(5) The CPL flying syllabus to have spinning in it, and properly, not just a quick spin and recovery to tick a box; commercially qualified pilots should be confident to enter and recover a suitably qualified aeroplane from a spin. (No I wouldn't put it back in the PPL syllabus, I think that argument is done - but with EASA removing it from the FI syllabus, and many commercial pilots never having been instructors anyhow, it needs to be somewhere.)
(6) Make air law open book - you'd look stuff up in the real world after all, so why make people waste all that time memorising things that no sane human being would rely upon memory for.
(7) Pre-test PPL requirements to include having flown off both hard and grass runways, and been shown how to convert onto a new aircraft type.
Anybody care to develop, or disagree with, my arguments?
G
I'll offer some starting thoughts:-
(1) Leave the basic handling stuff alone, it works fine.
(2) For both licences, expand the number of potentially examinable emergencies into systems failures, partial engine failures - a list that can be driven by AAIB reports. Significantly increase the amount of time spent on management of emergencies.
(3) Stop obsessing about accurate ded-reckoned map-and-stopwatch nav. Nav should be done by proper integration of all of the tools available to the pilot: including GPS. HOWEVER, in a reversal of the current situation, skill test diversions have to be flown with all the nav kit turned off, and entirely by ded-reckoning, and to a real airfield with a requirement for RT and a landing.
(Re: 2 and 3, on the CPL particularly - people coming off CPL courses are in the most part going to become either airline pilots - in which case a machine will do most of the precision nav and they really only earn their money when stuff is going wrong, or flying instructors - in which case they are seldom going very far, but will have the regular fun of students trying to kill them. Either way, emergencies are far more important than hand-flown nav.)
(4) NO terminology based questions in any TK exams. It's all to be about understanding the stuff that matters, and not about where the edge of a country's airspace is (it's marked on the map, who cares!), or what sort (name!) of gyro is in an AI. Similarly, PofF/Aerodynamics to be narrowed down to things that pilots actually need, not bored aeronautical engineers decided to inflict on them. Ditto HPL and physicians.
(5) The CPL flying syllabus to have spinning in it, and properly, not just a quick spin and recovery to tick a box; commercially qualified pilots should be confident to enter and recover a suitably qualified aeroplane from a spin. (No I wouldn't put it back in the PPL syllabus, I think that argument is done - but with EASA removing it from the FI syllabus, and many commercial pilots never having been instructors anyhow, it needs to be somewhere.)
(6) Make air law open book - you'd look stuff up in the real world after all, so why make people waste all that time memorising things that no sane human being would rely upon memory for.
(7) Pre-test PPL requirements to include having flown off both hard and grass runways, and been shown how to convert onto a new aircraft type.
Anybody care to develop, or disagree with, my arguments?
G
Last edited by Genghis the Engineer on Mon Mar 02, 2015 12:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I am Spartacus, and so is my co-pilot.