FlightCom – August 2019

5 FlightCom Magazine

I

have droned on about correct

selection and aptitude testing for a

while, and although that’s a critical

aspect of any pilot development

programme, it is simply a starting

point. After the paperwork of

course, and getting the sponsors

to pony up some cash. And then

trying to determine if Junior is actually

interested in flying...

I digress. Our traditional training

methods, currently alive and well, have

specified minimum hours to achieve a

licence as opposed to competency. We have

all learned the ’soft’ skills through osmosis

by being exposed long term to various

forms of aviation, whether it be ab-initio

flight instruction as a green-horn Grade 3

instructor, charter operations or airline. The

latter is where we suddenly find ourselves

actually being assessed on these skills,

and in some situations, are found seriously

wanting.

This was one of the issues considered

when ICAO re-invented the training wheel

in the early 2000s, and one of the pillars

of the new programme was defining what

competencies a ‘good’ pilot should display.

I have it on good authority that some

heavyweight behavioural researchers are

less than impressed with this particular set

of definitions, but at least it is a place to

start.

I have changed the order of these

competencies from the ICAO document,

but in a nutshell, this is what we should be

considering during training and assessing,

specifically from Day One of any aspiring

pilot’s training course:

1. Application of Procedures


2. Aircraft Flight Path Management
   
   
   • Manual
     3. Aircraft Flight Path Management –
     Automation
     4. Knowledge
     
     
     1. Communication
     
     
     2. Leadership and Teamwork
     
     
     3. Situational Awareness
     
     
     4. Problem Solving and Decision
        Making
     
     
     5. Workload Management
        I have specifically listed these nine
        competencies in two groups. The first four
        are ‘hard skills’, which are relatively easy to
        teach and assess, while the last five are ‘soft’
        skills, which are, in some cases, impossible
        to teach and very often difficult to assess
        o bj e c t ively.
        Essentially, the first four are where we
        have been since the Wright Brothers, and
        unfortunately, where our current legislation
        and training methodology still are.
     
     
     
     
   
   
   
   

Online forums, by nature, are best taken with a pinch of salt. However, one line

that struck a chord with me was about the pilot shortage debate. It went along

the lines of ‘Is the pilot shortage real? No - it’s a shortage of real pilots.’

COMPETENCY

IS THE

CORE

The Tenerife disaster was the real start of the soft art

of communication training for airline crews.