Welcome to IAFTP
There are as many ways to teach flying as there are good instructors. And, each of these good instructors has developed special ways to guide students toward becoming safe and competent pilots instead of simply accumulating hours to a minimum standard. Until now it has been too hard to share such personal techniques beyond the local flight line. Your active participation in the International Association of Flight Training Professionals will help to change this.
Take the first step and join our free monthly IAFTP UPDATE Mailing List to keep aware of new information that has been posted to our website.
Next, if you would like to participate in our discussions, become an IAFTP Guest. Click on REGISTER at the top right corner of this page. It’s FREE!
BECOME A FULL MEMBER FOR FREE! — Free IAFTP Full Individual Membership (a US$75 value) is extended for 2013 if you submit 5 training practices during January-December 2013.
New Training Practices
Click HERE to see a list of the 25 most recent training practices …
Have you contributed yet? Submit a personal training practice by using our online form and, as a result, you can earn a free 2013 Individual Membership in IAFTP (see Membership for details).
For more general information, visit About IAFTP on the pull-down Menu Bar.
Update 2013-05
May 1: This month we welcome our second corporate member from Tunisia. Last month, the Tunisian Airline Pilots Association became an Affiliate Member and this month the Airline Flight Academy (AFA) has become our first Flight Training Provider from Tunisia. AFA was founded in 1998 and in the last three years has experienced a rapid period of growth which includes heavy investment in both airplanes and simulators, plus a significant increase in staff with experience in all facets of professional aviation.
Our Training Article of the Month for May is “Landing Considerations, Part-1: SLOPE.” Not all runways are smooth, straight, and flat. A shocking reality, but there it is. Learn how to help your students cope with this possibility. This article comes from Canada.
A Word About Professionalism this month asks members for help defining what the “IAFTP Standards of Flight Training Professionalism” should be.
And, our May Question of the Month comes from Europe. It raises the question, “What do we want to do with training technology tomorrow?”
Sharing a Training Practice Has Earned IAFTP Members
Money and Global Recognition!
Thanks again to the generosity of the Saudi Aviation Flight Academy (SAFA), the IAFTP Advisory Committee has recognized the best training practices submitted by flight instructors EACH MONTH during the 6-month period between October 2012 and March 2013. The best submission each month received US$100, the first runner-up each month received US$75, and the 2nd runner-up each month received US$50 PLUS all received global recognition on the IAFTP website. AVweb also profiled both the winners and their employers to its more than 250,000 readers. To learn more about the instructors who were recognized, click HERE.
The most visited posts during April were:
- “What are the benefits and pitfalls of simulator use in primary flight training?”
- “Effective Briefing and Debriefing Techniques”
- “2012-0017-0043: Using FREE YouTube Videos to Enhance Ground Briefings”
Click HERE if you would like to see a list of the most recent comments on all discussions and training practices.
eCV News:
The current issue of Arabian Aerospace features an article about the SAFA eCV program on pp 132-133: “Passport plan to boost pilot security.” It begins with “Every time we enter an aircraft we have an expectation that the pilot is qualified and competent. Unfortunately, in an increasing number of cases, this is simply not the situation.” Read the article HERE.
Three recent papers provide more details about this year’s introduction of the IAFTP eCV. Copies of both are available here:
- Managing the Pilot Training Process to Help Ensure Pilot Competence
- Introducing unique and highly secure CVs at the Saudi Aviation Flight Academy
- In an increasingly globalised world how can we be sure that a pilot is who he/she says they are?
IAFTP is currently offering the opportunity to purchase a paid-up 10-year membership to a limited number of organizations to ensure their priority participation in our eCV program. This should be especially attractive to those Flight Training Organizations that want to be among the first to issue the IAFTP eCV to their students. Details are on the IAFTP electronicCV (eCV) page.
Saudi Aviation Flight Academy (SAFA) and Diamond Aircraft are the first two organizations to purchase this special paid-up 10-year membership, indicating their long-term support of IAFTP and its goals.
Additional details about the IAFTP eCV are provided in the recent patent application. Read more HERE.
Training Article of the Month
Landing Considerations, Part-1: SLOPE
Not all runways are smooth, straight, and flat. A shocking reality, but there it is. As more and more pilots get their training at larger, controlled, paved airports, fewer and fewer new pilots have had experience dealing with some of the more challenging aspects of working out of aerodromes that present a different, more irregular environment. Even some seasoned pilots experience difficulties when facing a new airport with a runway of a different size or slope than the ones with which they are familiar. [Read More]
A Word About Professionalism
IAFTP Standards of Flight Training Professionalism
IAFTP is an international professional association and we would like to see all organizations involved in pilot training join us in a collective effort to help improve global pilot training. However, each organization that does so must meet certain basic criteria. In addition, they shall agree to uphold IAFTP’s Standards of Flight Training Professionalism. What does this mean? Read more HERE.
Question of the Month
What do we want to do with training technology tomorrow?
The last decade has seen an astonishing development in technology, especially the IT sector. It is therefore obvious that airline training will, and has followed this development, and we have seen a great number of improvements. Whilst ten years ago, PowerPoint CBT was state-of-the-art, it would now look obsolete. Part task trainers, FMS trainers, even whole cockpits can now be squeezed into a PC. Maintenance training has changed dramatically, and the maintenance simulators and virtual aircraft have now become the new norm. But what more can we do with the technology we have? How can we individualize training? And where do we want to go? What do we want to do with the technology of tomorrow? Read more HERE.
ASRS CALLBACK
Weather and Aeronautical Information Services Data Link Issues
May 17: In cooperation with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) initiated a study of meteorological (MET) and aeronautical information services (AIS) received via data link. The purpose of the study was to analyze information from users of data link technologies as reported in ASRS incident reports. Qualitative assessments of available records provided valuable insight on data link user interface and actual cockpit experiences related to data link weather or AIS information. The preliminary findings in the Study included:
- The incident reports within the study group were almost • equally divided between air carrier operations and general aviation
- The majority of reporters’ comments regarding MET • data link usage were positive and indicated that the technology was a valued tool in the mitigation of adverse weather encounters
- The problems most often cited in regard to MET data • link information were related to the timeliness of the data
This ASRS report includes excerpts that were taken from the data set that was used for the Meteorological and Aeronautical Information Services Data Link Study. [Read the Article Here].
For previous issues of ASRS CALLBACK, Click HERE
New Training Practices
Click HERE to see a list of the 25 most recent training practices that have been submitted for all training categories with the most recent at the top.
Have you contributed yet? Submit a personal training practice by using our online form and, as a result, you can earn a free 2012 Individual Membership in IAFTP (see Membership for details).
Are you an IAFTP member? If so, visit the Members-Only Training Practices Database to review and rate the training practices that have already been submitted.
For some ideas about how a flight training organization might use the IAFTP Training Practices Database during local instructor training, click HERE.
Our Heritage
It is also important for those of us teaching the next generation of pilots to encourage each of them to learn about and remember those who have travelled this same path. Pilots have flown airplanes for more than 100 years in all kinds of environments with far less equipment than is currently listed in today’s typical minimum equipment list. How did they do it? Each month, Dr. John Wise, a visiting professor at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University and widely recognized for his research in aviation human factors, will take us on a journey back to those early days of aviation.
This month Dr. Wise tells about an instructor who didn’t ask –
The following is a true story – well, as true as any story told by one pilot to another pilot might be. In addition the story was told to me by the person in the story – while sipping a glass of wine. The storyteller was a retired 747 Captain who spent his career at Pan American World Airways (Pan Am).
The events described occurred shortly before the United States became officially involved in World War II. The storyteller had just graduated from veterinary school in 1939. With the war in Europe going full force, the US military was trying to create a stockpile of pilots just in case. The storyteller had been convinced by an Army recruiter that learning to fly would be a valuable thing to do. So immediately after graduation he went down south and enrolled in one of the civilian pilot training programs. Upon graduation, all the students were released to civilian life to be ready to be called up, if and when the US became involved in WWII.
On the day of graduation, the newly minted pilots were met by a raft of recruiters trying to sign them up for the new airlines that were popping up around the country. After some fact finding, the storyteller decided to give Pan Am a try and signed up with their recruiter. He was told to go to a particular hotel in Miami, Florida, where he would be met by a Pan Am instructor pilot on a certain day and time.
He followed the instructions and at the appointed date and time he and about 6 or 7 other newly minted pilots were met in the lobby by a Pan Am representative who told them to get into the taxis outside the hotel which would take them to the Pan Am dock in the Miami area where they would meet their instructor pilot.
Shortly after arriving at the dock, they were met by a gruffly old instructor who hollered at them to get their lazy, #n&*, bodies into the flying boat tied to the dock. When my friend’s dad came on board the instructor told him to get his #%@ into the pilot’s seat in the cockpit. He protested that he had never flown anything like this before. But the instructor just fired back a new string of profane language and kept asking him if he were a pilot or not. So my friend’s dad ceased his protests and said yes he had been trained, and entered the cockpit and sat in the left seat. With the guidance of the instructor, he got the engines started and taxied out and performed the takeoff.
Once in the practice area he went though some basic airmanship flying and after about 45 minutes the instructor told him to land in the ocean! Again my friend’s dad protested about his lack of skill, but following another stream of profanities from the instructor he crashed the flying boat into the water. The instructor then told him to get out of the seat & go back and send up the next student.
After the day’s flying was completed, the instructor talked to my friend’s dad and reminded him that when he was protesting, he continually asked if he were a pilot, and my friend’s dad said “yes.” He said the reason he continued to ask that question, was that several weeks earlier with a different set of newly minted pilots, the person he selected to fly the first training period was absolutely terrible. On landing he literally shook every piece of the flying boat and every bone in the instructor’s body. The instructor then flew into another long string of profanities, all leading to the final point that the student flew like someone who had never been in an aircraft. The student finally replied, that indeed he was not a pilot, but rather he was the taxi driver who brought the students to the dock!!
The moral of the story is that before you go fly with a new student, make sure you not only understand the mission objectives, but also that the person you are flying with has the appropriate prerequisites for the scheduled mission.
By the way my friend’s Dad had a life long airline career with Pan Am, starting in the beautiful old flying boats and retiring as a Boeing 747 captain. Now, there was a career that crossed a real piece of aviation history.
P.S. Note on the Pan Am menu below, it lists the Captain’s name, not the chef who prepared the meal!
For links to previous stories of our heritage, visit Our Heritage in the Members-Only section.
Why We Fly
Sometimes we get so involved with the “how” of training that we forget the “why.” At some point in each of our lives, flying became a personal passion. Something caused us to say, “I want to do that” and we did. Of course, we were coached along that path by people who were equally passionate about flying.
One example of such passion can be found in a blog earlier this year by David Learmount in which he received the following response to the question “Why fly?”
“As a 54 year old pilot flying big planes for a big company, I frequently ask myself why I am still doing it, and what the attraction is, especially at 3 am at 30 West over the Atlantic, plotting out a course to go around a nest of storms. A somewhat cynical response to myself, usually to atop the conversation in my head, is ‘It’s the money stupid!’ or ‘It’s all you know how to do you moron; you can’t even change a light bulb without plunging half of Virginia into darkness!’ And then I usually develop the thoughts, and allow myself to drift back to when I was a nipper growing up in Guernsey in the 60′s, and the most wonderful memories come flooding back.” [Read More]
Another opportunity to experience the global bond of the pilot community can be found in a new book published for the benefit of two British charities: Help for Heroes and the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund. Out of the Blue tells the sometimes scary and often funny world of flying in the Royal Air Force – as personally related by some of those who were there. This book appears in print thanks to the generosity of CAE and BAE Systems, and all proceeds will be shared between the two charities.
Each month to help us visually remember Why We Fly, this section features links to some special flying videos sent to IAFTP from around the world.
NEW this month
ILS/PRM Approach for Air Carriers
ILS/PRM Approach for General Aviation
For links to previous videos, visit Why We Fly in the Members-Only section.
Future Site Plans
Some areas of this site are still under construction which involves frequent updating. While the IAFTP Training Practices Database already facilitates the global sharing of pilot training practices and techniques between aviation training professionals, upcoming services will include a members-only forum to process content to be posted to SKYbrary (the IAFTP Members-Only Best Practices Forum) and the introduction of a special section supporting the pilot’s personal electronic CV. After your visit, if you would like to receive more information about IAFTP, please Contact Us
How can we be sure that a pilot is who he/she says they are? SPACE 2013
