The Competent Instructor: Observing, Diagnosing and Developing Pilots in a Competency-Based World

Instructors and examiners are asked to assess competencies. Most of us were trained to assess manoeuvres. The regulations and the guidance set out what has to be done. They say far less about what it is like to do it: the briefing in which the competencies mean nothing to the trainee, the notes you cannot read in a dark simulator, the grade you are tempted to nudge up for morale. The Competent Instructor turns the framework into the work. It follows a single loop, from the first probe of what a pilot knows, through briefing, observation, grading and debrief, to a finding the next instructor can use. It shows where each step goes wrong, and what an experienced instructor does instead. What is inside A briefing method that links the task, the threat and error, and the competency, so the pilot knows what the session is for. How to observe and record behaviour, and to grade the behaviour without grading the person. Debriefs in which the pilot does the noticing, including after startle and surprise. Real accidents and line checks, read from the instructor's side of the table: what the instructor could have seen, said and planned. Instructing in the aeroplane, where your presence is the pressure and nature supplies the surprises. The instructor's own competencies, the loop on a single page, a glossary and a list of sources. Seven parts, one loop: the shift to competency-based training and the instructor who has to make it; the gap between what a pilot does and what was needed; turning the gap into a brief; seeing; assessing; the debrief; and the system around the instructor. Written for the classroom, the simulator and the aircraft by an airline training captain, examiner and Chief Flight Instructor. It is the companion to Flying Competent, which explains to the pilot how competencies and grades work. This book is for the person doing the assessing. For type rating and recurrent instructors, examiners, instructors in training and in flight, standards and training managers, and anyone developing instructors under a competency-based training and assessment (CBTA) or evidence-based training (EBT) programme. A practical guide to the craft of instructing, not a regulation, a course of training or a substitute for your operator's manuals. Your operator's procedures and your authority's rules always govern. No airline, manufacturer or operator material is used; accident discussions rest on published official reports.