The event is scheduled for October 15-17 on the campus of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida.

“Last year’s summit was successful because of the strong technical program delivered by industry leaders and experts. This year will be the same,” said NAFI president Paul Preidecker. “But instead of addressing six themes as we did last year, this year we decided to bring more focus by supporting three very important ones: training the trainer, mentorship, and peer support, and pilot health and well-being.”

The event—which has the slogan, “Come to NAFI Summit, go home a better CFI”—is an opportunity for instructors of all levels and varying backgrounds to meet with their peers and discuss educational techniques, learner challenges, and opportunities to enhance their careers.

There will be 28 educational sessions during the two days. Among the topics to be discussed will be specific strategies instructors can use to “reach” their learners, as well as more technical topics such as the appropriate uses of autopilot during IFR and teaching emergency procedures in the most effective manner.

According to NAFI, there will be 21 exhibitors at the event, including Sporty’s Pilot Shop, King Schools, Avemco Insurance, and Redbird Flight Simulations. Several online training courses will be represented, as well as manufacturers of safety wearables, designed to enhance the educational experience.

Celebrity guests are also expected, and include keynote speakers Dr. Susan Northrup, FAA federal air surgeon, and Bruce Landsberg, Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association senior safety adviser and recently retired National Transportation Safety Board vice chairman.

Northrup will be discussing the FAA’s rulemaking committee report. Instructors are tasked with knowing the rules and where to look them up and teaching this practice to their learners.

Landsberg will focus on how instructors can best teach fundamental aviation concepts to their learners.

On the evening of October 16, a dinner will be highlighted by aviation educators and instructors John and Martha King. The Kings have more than 50 years experience as aviation instructors. 

Registration for NAFI Summit is $350 for nonmembers and $300 for NAFI members. Further discounts exist for Master CFIs and DPEs, as well as active military attendees.

There is also reduced pricing for flight schools that sign up as a group and bring at least three instructors or a maximum of 10 to the event.

Additional information, including how to register, may be found here.

The post NAFI Unveils Focus of Upcoming Summit appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

During the summit, I shared a table with David St. George, designated pilot examiner and executive director of the Society of Aviation and Flight Educators. St. George noted that most flight instructors teach for about a year before they move on. They often train through accelerated programs, where the goal is to meet the requirements and pass the check ride in as little time as possible. This “hurry-up-and-get-it-done” model is repeated by these instructors. Stereotypical behavior includes “check-the-box instruction,” where the flight is performed to meet the certificate requirements. Other behaviors include a minimum of ground time spent with the learner and pushing weather boundaries and learner fatigue levels to keep the Hobbs meter running.

The aviation community has been buzzing lately about a fatal accident in Kentucky in September that took the life of a 22-year-old instructor and an 18-year-old learner. The event gathered a lot of attention online because the CFI, who had a pronounced social media presence, chronicled the flight through Snapchat in a series of public remarks demeaning the learner. The CFI’s last post documented the line of thunderstorms they flew into that ultimately tore the aircraft to pieces.

According to the preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), on September 27, CFI Timothy McKellar Jr. and private pilot candidate Connor Quisenberry intended to fly a Piper PA-28-161 from Owensboro/Daviess County Regional Airport (KOWB) on a VFR flight plan to Bowling Green-Woodhurst Airport (KBWG). The Snapchat story begins with McKellar talking to the camera and shaking his head along with a caption disparaging the student. Then the camera angle reverses to show Quisenberry, flashlight and checklist in hand, performing the preflight inspection of the Warrior.

• READ MORE: Practice Crosswind Landings Whenever You Can

McKellar shows himself drumming his fingers on the outside of the airplane and expressing impatience with Quisenberry who “wanted to have a conversation” when McKellar wants to get the flight over with because he has to be up at 4:30 a.m. The time stamp of the Snapchat shows 8:39 p.m. as McKellar is heard saying, “C’mon.” They have a three-hour flight ahead.

McKellar’s comments, along with FlightAware’s capture of nine takeoffs and landings at the destination airport, seem to indicate this flight was intended to meet the night training requirement for the private certificate. The NTSB report did not indicate if either McKellar or Quisenberry obtained a weather briefing prior to the flight. A review of TAFs and METARs from the area shows a probability of convective activity, including warnings of lightning “in all quadrants.” Given this information, the decision to make the flight at all is puzzling.

According to social media posts, McKellar did most of his training at ATP, the largest accelerated training program in the U.S. He held CFI, CFII, and MEI certificates. Some graduates of accelerated programs may not know how to teach beyond the test because that’s how they were trained. They exhibit rote learning rather than understanding and application. Correlation—the level of learning that requires the learner to perform real-world tasks and exhibit in-depth knowledge—is often missing in these cases.

The Snapchat video continues showing the night takeoff and some moments in cruise flight. McKellar’s decision to record the takeoff—one of the critical moments of flight—also raised a few eyebrows among experienced instructors because that’s when things can go wrong quickly.

• READ MORE: When You Go Back to Flight School, Don’t Lose What You’ve Learned

At 22:15, approximately one hour after takeoff, McKellar posted an annotated weather image from a mobile-device-based aviation navigation tool. The image shows the airplane’s position northwest of Bowling Green, along with the planned route of flight back to KOWB. Radar imagery was also displayed in the image, marked with a circle around the flight track and nearby returns, and a comment from McKellar about the storms approaching like “pissed-off hornets.” The storms are approximately 15 miles away.

The NTSB report includes a screen grab of the post with attention called to the location of the approaching storms, airplane’s position (blue airplane icon), planned route of flight (magenta line), and depicted imagery with the storms circled in red on either side of the route line.

ATC warned of heavy to extreme precipitation to the aircraft’s 9 o’clock. ADS-B data showed that the airplane continued its northwesterly course, and FlightAware displayed some extreme altitude fluctuations. About two minutes later, McKellar requested an IFR clearance. ATC told them to head east. McKellar advised ATC that the airplane was “getting blown around like crazy.” The airplane’s flight track showed a turn to the northwest, followed by a right circling turn. The controller reiterated the heading of 090 degrees. McKellar replied that they were in “pretty extreme turbulence.”

There were no further comms. The last ADS-B position was recorded at 22:49 at an altitude of 2,200 feet. The wreckage, described by the NTSB as a “debris field,” was spread over 25 acres in a hilly, densely wooded area. The aircraft was torn in half with the forward fuselage, including the cockpit, engine, and right wing, located together in the most westerly portion of the debris field. The stabilator was torn chordwise just outboard of the hinges, with the right side located 1,500 feet away from the fuselage. The NTSB did not uncover any preaccident anomalies or malfunctions.

McKellar’s family has defended his actions, saying he was joking with the learner and that he demanded excellence from the pilots he flew with. CFIs are supposed to model professionalism for their learners. Posting on social media during a flight, especially demeaning your learner, is not demonstrating professionalism. Nor is recognizing approaching thunderstorms and flying into them.

All CFIs become frustrated with their learners from time to time, especially when they fail to meet expectations, but good CFIs focus on ways to help them improve. It may mean developing a different approach to the task or even suggesting a change of instructor. Shaming the learner on social media is not how to do it.

The Kentucky accident will likely become a lesson in hazardous attitudes (macho, invulnerability, etc.) and risk identification for future aviators. It is too bad that two families had to lose their sons for this.

At most colleges and trade schools, the instructors have spent years in the industry they are teaching. They often have decades of experience in the field before they step into the classroom. In the aviation world, it is backward. We expect someone with the least amount of experience, often approximately 300 hours, to teach the next generation of pilots.

The question now is how do we encourage more instructors to teach longer so they have a chance to build experience? More money is my first thought, but if the CFI doesn’t enjoy teaching, it will be the students who suffer.

One of the sobering messages from the NAFI Summit was if we continue to have the less experienced, less committed instructors training the bulk of future pilots, we can likely expect more accidents caused by failure to identify and mitigate risk in pursuit of hours.

This column first appeared in the December 2023/Issue 944 of FLYING’s print edition.

The post Who Is Teaching? Low Time and Social Media Make for a Bad Combo appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

I know I learned a few things.

There were about 200 attendees overall, with at least 150 sitting in on both days—a pretty good show for the first of anything. And considering that NAFI has about 7,000 paid members to draw from, it made for a great representative sample of the group.

DPE Panel

The sessions kicked off with a panel of highly experienced designated pilot examiners, including NAFI chair Karen Kalishek, Mary Schu, and Doug Stewart. While the broad topic—to discuss the state of check ride preparation and success—involved every instructor in the room, the conversation quickly zeroed in on the concerns that the panelists saw every day when working with applicants for pilot certification.

According to Schu, who is based in Oregon. there’s a lack of real cross-country solo time, especially for students coming from Part 141 programs. Instead of logging time as the sole occupant of the airplane—and having to make every decision, without the safety net of an instructor beside you—more and more pilots are showing up with “pilot doing duties as pilot in command.” To my ears, this sounds a lot like the classification of time under European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) regs as “supervised solo,” with the instructor still in the right seat but somehow remaining silent.

Really? That’s not how you learn to take responsibility as pilot in command.

The examination pass rate has dropped dramatically over the past five years—roughly and informally to 50 to 60 percent, according to Kalishek, a DPE based in Wisconsin. She is scheduling check rides for March 2024.

Stewart, based in New Hampshire, gave another handy insight—he requires candidates to submit their application via IACRA at least five days prior to the check ride. If things aren’t in order, he can schedule another applicant in their place.

Flight School as a Business

Another fascinating panel that reminded me of my days as the Cessna Pilot Center manager: Your Own Flight Instruction Business. Moderated by flight school owner George Allen, it included Aaron Dabney, Frank Gallagher, and Ned Parks. With roughly 2,000 training organizations in the U.S., there’s a lot of competition. However, by identifying a niche, you can make a successful go at it.

There are also other points to consider.

According to Gallagher, one of the key drivers of success is maintaining a high quality of employees and equipment. One detail that goes a long way? Train your instructors to wipe down the aircraft after the flight and service it like an owner, so that it looks like a clean car picked up from a rental agency.

Dabney, who specializes in CFI to tailwheel instruction, said, “Be able to say concisely what your mission is: How are you different?”

Parks cautioned that, when recruiting and retaining instructors, be wary of using 1099 contractors versus employees on a W-2. As he noted, some schools use 1099s “because it’s cheaper”—but the actual savings is so low, it’s not worth the hazard of running afoul of the contractor-versus-employee regulations in many states. “It is such a small amount of money [in the end],” he said.

The Magenta Guy and GA Type Ratings

One of the highlights for me came in getting to see FLYING contributor Les Abend take the stage with Gary Reeves in walking instructors through the GA Type Rating course they have developed.

Reeves built upon his presentation the day before (The Top 5 Mistakes Good Instructors Make Teaching GPS—I definitely learned a couple that I’ve been making) by walking through how the pair met and what unique steps they take to appeal to an airline pilot transitioning to GA—or flying light aircraft for the first time if they came from the military.

Is there a sneaky way in there to encourage those retired captains to become instructors? You bet. It’s a great idea.

Networking at a High Level

Overall, I came away impressed by the cadre of folks who attended the summit—not just because they were presenting, like Greg Feith, of the Flight Safety Detectives podcast and former senior NTSB accident investigator—but because they wanted to support the organization’s initial effort to raise the level of flight instruction in the U.S.

I was able to catch up and have long talks with executive-level colleagues from Sporty’s, Redbird Flight Simulations, and the FAA. John and Martha King, founders of King Schools, gave the dinner’s keynote with tips from their two books. I had an insurance question answered by a senior leader at Avemco. I made new connections with fellow instructors from the Flying Musicians Association and rekindled lasting friendships with folks from Ortega Aviation Services.

All in all, did I come away a better instructor? We’ll see soon, when I go up for my own flight review—thanks for the tips, Tom Turner!

The post Want To Be a Real Instructor? appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Would you believe that many airline pilots harbor trepidations about operating in the GA environment and have a great deal of respect for good flight instructors? Many of the worries or concerns stem from the fact that airline pilots have been away from the small airplane world long enough to have forgotten the basics or have been absent for years of changes.

Airspace rules have changed. Filing a flight plan has changed. Airplanes have changed. Retired airline pilots are now faced with how to maintain their IFR and VFR proficiency, selecting electronic chart subscriptions, choosing the appropriate medical certificate class, calculating weight and balance, and operating out of nontowered airports, etc. Guidance in selecting and purchasing the appropriate airplane for the desired mission is another topic worthy of mention.

• READ MORE: Webinar Aims to Help CFIs Help Airline Pilots Return to GA

With quality instruction, airline pilots can excel at the flying part, but they need guidance in other areas. And they need guidance in areas specific to their unique fears. Reviewing a  Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge is probably not beneficial. A rusty pilot’s course might be of assistance but may not address the topics that are most concerning.

With a record number of airline pilots retiring over the next few years, many with disposable income that has increased because of favorable salaries, some of these men and women will be considering reengaging with their roots. Empty nester pilots nearing retirement that have eliminated their financial obligations of a mortgage and their kids’ secondary education may also be entering the GA market. All of these folks need flight instructors who have insight to the airline pilot psyche.

Knowing that airline pilots are familiar with the nuances of professional training, the program is tongue-in-cheek dubbed the “GA type rating course.” Gary “GPS” Reeves, a 20-year veteran of specialized flight instruction, and the FAA 2019 Instructor of the Year has teamed up with Les Abend, a retired airline pilot and longtime contributing editor to FLYING.

The Airline Pilot GA type rating course is in the development stage and will involve a reference manual utilizing an entertaining and informative format that should maintain the attention of even the most-seasoned, long-haul airline pilot. Flight and ground instructors will be offered a free Airline Pilot GA type rating online course through Reeves’ website, www.pilotsafety.org

With the primary goal of adding safer pilots to general aviation, we would appreciate your assistance and participation in refining the course. How? It’s simple. Use this hyperlink: https://pilotsafety.org/ga-type-rating. If you’re an airline pilot, click on the two-minute “Airline Pilot Survey” button. The survey is a valuable assessment for course development.

And finally, all pilots can click on the button that links to registration for the NAFI Summit (National Association of Flight Instructors) Tuesday  through Thursday. The airline pilot GA type rating course introduction will be presented on Thursday, October 26, at 10 a.m. EDT. Reeves is offering a $30 discount through his website.

We have a great opportunity to welcome our airline pilots back into the GA world or perhaps greet them for the first time. They will be an asset to safety and  the GA economy. Let’s prepare our flight instructors with the best tools to assist these valued professionals.

The post GA Type Rating for Airline Pilots: Intro at the NAFI Summit appeared first on FLYING Magazine.