Right seat: Move up with care

New students must be the most risky, right? What could be worse than someone with no experience hurtling toward the ground for that first landing? As it turns out, advanced training is worse. Much worse.

There are 40 percent more accidents—and more than twice as many fatalities—in advanced dual training than primary dual training. Interestingly, the distribution of accidents among takeoff, landing, maneuvering, and other causes is virtually the same in both primary and advanced training. In both cases, takeoffs, landings, and go-arounds accounted for about half of all accidents. Don’t make the mistaken assumption that all this risky advanced training must be in pursuit of an instrument rating or commercial certificate. Fewer than 40 percent of advanced training accidents occurred during training for a certificate or rating. In other words, pilots are flubbing their flight reviews, instrument proficiency checks, and aircraft transition training.

It defies logic that a certificated pilot with an instructor in a more capable airplane would be less safe than an instructor and a new student in a training airplane. That’s like saying a teenage driver is safer in a Toyota Corolla than his dad is in a Ford F-150.

Specialized aircraft call for specialized training. Despite the head-scratching nature of the problem, there are some good reasons why the accident record slants down toward advanced training. Instructors who fly with new students are constantly on guard. Our training tells us that things could go bonkers at any point, and that the student is under our care. Most instructors take that responsibility very seriously.

Contrast that with a transitioning or upgrading pilot. There is a level of mutual respect paid to the student that says she is certificated and capable of flying without supervision. Most instructors believe their role during transition training to be that of educator, not guardian. The effect is usually a laid-back environment where the instructor enjoys the view while offering tips.

Another cause is almost certainly the instructor’s lack of expertise and experience in the transitioning airplane. Imagine an instructor’s day at the flight school. She may have four lessons booked, starting with her primary student in the Cessna 172 in the morning and then moving straight to a Beechcraft Bonanza checkout around lunch. Then it’s back to the Skyhawk for more primary training.

The instructor is checked out in the Bonanza, but that was probably an hour flight with another instructor at the school. To pile on the factors, the mid-day lesson flight is seen as a bit of a break from the intensity of training her primary students. When her guard is down, the Bonanza student is left on his own to make mistakes.

Thankfully the industry is changing, and there is a recognition that specialized aircraft call for specialized training. Cirrus has been a leader in this area. The company certifies instructors with its factory training program, and then offers a standardized training curriculum the instructor can apply in the field. For instructors who have long struggled with a proper transition syllabus (guilty as charged), this is a huge gift. It’s also a significant contributor to Cirrus’ plummeting accident record in recent years.

This month we explore the Cirrus and what makes it such a good case for transition training. Jill W. Tallman’s story, “Moving Up,” begins on page 36.

Just because we’ve always done transition checkouts with a quick hour around the pattern doesn’t mean we have to continue doing things the same way. With standardized training, an effective syllabus, and experienced instructors, we can improve the experience—and the accident record.