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Judgement Instructing

Most judgement training programs start with a Pilot completing a questionnaire that gives some measure of the way one might make poor decisions. It is worthwhile to complete such a self-assessment quiz, and review how such hazardous thoughts may lead to unsafe instructing practices. For instance, the tendency by an instructor to show the student ‘what real flying is all about’ (Macho) by performing a low pass, rarely is useful in flight training. Further, while instructors may feel that they are ‘invulnerable’, most students do not hold the same opinion and don’t learn very much if they are constantly allowed to fly until they ‘hang themselves’. Now these are certainly extreme examples of instructors having hazardous thoughts but I am certain that we have all seen them to some degree. Most instructors have done something stupid while instructing at one time or another. As an exercise it might be worthwhile for them to look back on those situations and see if they could pinpoint just which hazardous thoughts led up to those poor judgements. Good judgement for the instructor, as for other pilots really is about setting and abiding by limits to our actions and those of our students, based upon our knowledge of the current environment.