The ultimate goal of aviation training is to continuously improve upon safety outcomes. Of course, the way we reach this goal and aim beyond it is based on individual perception. Everyone has an opinion.
Over the course of my career, I have been privileged to establish relationships and work collaboratively with many different organizations, companies, and people, all of whom have unique perspectives and opinions on how to improve training outcomes. What holds to be true is that every viewpoint is valuable. Through different walks of life and careers, identifying options to make training better leads to discussions on regulatory interpretation to ensure the intent is met.
For me, I come to this discussion with a diverse background ranging from former Director of Training, Boeing Chief Pilot and executive roles including my current role as CEO of MPS.
Given my heavy involvement with the European Aircrew Training Policy Group (ATPG), I was asked to provide a keynote address for EATS hosted by Halldale in Cascais, Portugal last year. I have since given a similar speech as a keynote address at WATS in Orlando, FL, USA earlier this month. During these speeches, I had the opportunity to share my own experiences and opinions. I indicated several issues which I feel are keeping pilot training from moving forward, taking advantage of technical and technological innovations, as well as regulatory restrictions. Many of the latter are not necessarily due to actual regulations themselves, but instead stem from misconceptions, lack of clarity or the mindset of “we have always done it this way.”
The above is the reason why I enjoy meeting with customers and their regulators, and why I participate in many regulatory panels; change cannot and will not be made unless we remove unnecessary hurdles, write clear and concise regulations and leave the delivery of the training to the actual experts. Regulations which are restrictive without any proven safety benefit should be eliminated, new regulations should be based on completion standards (output) rather than input-based (time, device specifications, content), and regulations should be able to be interpreted in a clear and consistent manner. Unfortunately, my “golden teaspoon” is still as far away from acceptance as it was 5 years ago.
We all (training organizations, Training Device Manufacturers (TDMs), Operators, Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and regulators) should strive for the best and safest means to train our personnel, whether those are pilots, air traffic controllers, cabin crew, maintenance technicians or any other safety-critical people. That training should prepare the staff to do their jobs safely and effectively, based on the desired competencies required for their profession. This in turn should be driven solely by those requirements and should not be driven by historical means of delivery, ease of auditing, artificial (protective) measures, or any other unproven manner.
Allowing training to take place this way would eliminate significant unnecessary cost and time, lead to better results and allow innovations to be used. In our business of aviation, technology improvements have brought us significant advantages in operational efficiency, fuel usage, noise reduction, improved navigational capabilities and so much more. It is now time for aviation training to take this next step as well!
Once my speech from WATS becomes available to share with our aviation community, it will be distributed amongst MPS social media channels. Please stay tuned.
