ADVANCED PILOT TAKING YOUR TICKET TO NEW FLIGHT LEVELS INSTRUCTOR WHEN IT REALLY MATTERS The evolution of scenario-based flight training ยป By Paul A. Craig EVEN THOUGH THIS NEW PILOT HAD BEEN A GREAT STUDENT, WAS HE REALLY READY TO FACE THE "REAL WORLD"? I CAN STILL clearly remember a conversation with one of my first flight students (1980). He was a good student who went through his private pilot training and passed his practical tests with relative ease. On the day he became a private pilot, I asked him what he planned to do with his new certificate. "I am flying my family to Disney World," he proudly reported. That gave me a serious pause. To fly from our airport in Tennessee to central Florida, this newly minted private pilot would face challenges that were never really addressed in our training syllabus. Even though this new pilot had been a great student, was he really ready to face the "real world"? I started asking the question: In addition to basic pilot skills, could we also teach how to deal with the pressures that appear so often in accident reports? You never experience "getthere-itis" on a Saturday afternoon flight lesson with your CFI. But you do feel that pressure when you have a prepaid, non-refundable vacation planned for the family. That concept of teaching pilots in a way that would better prepare them for what they could ultimately face became fascinating to me. Through research I've learned that scenarios do not replace basic piloting skills (some call this stick-and-rudder skills). No matter what else happens, pilots must always be able to land FEBRUARY 2015 FLIGHT TRAINING / 47