PPL failures nearly 50%

[schloopy]

I mean I know its fun to blame Asians and immigrants and all that….but is there any empirical evidence to support that statement?

I don’t have any empirical evidence either but anecdotally, when i was instructing in AZ, so long as the English barrier wasn’t an issue, the Chinese students blew away their American counterparts for the most part. And I’m not sure where the assessment came from that they don’t want to be there either, that was absolutely not the case in my experience. These students have already gone through a ton to get to the point of US flight training, kids get weeded out in China.

 

[CoffeeIcePapers]

Wasn't there some poor dad that literally drove off a bridge to his death because the GPS was telling him to go there, and the bridge was broken for some reason? Carolinas I think.

Michael Scott was his name. He’s from Scranton, PA.

 

[Toobdrvr]

@Derg

I remember a kid on his first solo in a 172, I think he was on pattern number 2; traffic patterns on both sides of the runway, tower controlled. A dual crewed 172 called out the wrong traffic and was cleared to turn base, they unknowingly flew under the solo student who was on a longer final. Left main landing gear came through the dual planes windshield and smacked the CFI in the right seat in the forehead. Planes stuck together for a few seconds as their wings and props began ripping up the other airplane. Somehow they separated. Dual airplane made a forced landing 1 mile short of the runway and flipped over, no injuries. Solo kid managed to land his plane on the runway with a bent and bashed up wing and tears throughout the fuselage belly and a bent up prop and loss of engine power. He taxiied clear, shut down, and never flew again.

Best part of it:
RXX: “RXX is going down!, RXX is going down!”
ATC: “Uh, Roger RXX, you are cleared to land.“

Last I heard, the solo student was selling cars in SDL…

 

[form810]

Yikes. Not sure exact reasons why, but not a good look!

Me either!?! ...

Completely baffling and ineffable... Like, totally!

If this is true, the good news is "candidates" are finally failing at a rate that is at least somewhat more commensurate with their readiness for the checkride. We've now had at least a decade of blind guide dogs leading the blind.

Note to newbies: Don't step foot on a regional jet. Increasingly... use caution stepping onto a major.

Oh, snap... being an aviator is NOT about pushing buttons in the correct prescribed order?!? Damn. I learn something every day.

 

[Baronman]

Everybody is too busy instagramming themselves to pay attention to the actual flying

Career progression is....

E170 FO (1-2 Years) ----->> Legacy Widebody FO -------->>> GRAM STAR

"Id like to thank all the people that supported me along this journey."

 

[Beep]

10 years ago I was teaching intro geology at a flagship state university, so the students were largely in the top 20% of their classes. They were overall really bright, but good lord they sucked at reading maps. I don’t doubt that flight students are challenged in that regard now.

Are you saying they couldn’t find their ass, even if you held a map in front of them and let them search with both hands?

 

[NovemberEcho]

How are younger students with glass cockpits? I would think that would be any area where gaming and growing up with tech would be an advantage.

 

[L-16B]

I used to take pride in never having failed a checkride. As I’ve gotten older I’ve realized there’s many a good aviators that have failed and are damn fine aviators. And many that have never failed that should have.

 

[GypsyPilot]

How are younger students with glass cockpits? I would think that would be any area where gaming and growing up with tech would be an advantage.

Glass cockpits aren’t exactly challenging are they? I’ve never even heard of that being an issue, that’s kind of the whole point behind them.

 

[NovemberEcho]

Glass cockpits aren’t exactly challenging are they? I’ve never even heard of that being an issue, that’s kind of the whole point behind them.

I have no idea if they are or aren’t to a beginner, I’ve never used one

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

Glass cockpits aren’t exactly challenging are they? I’ve never even heard of that being an issue, that’s kind of the whole point behind them.

In the early 00s we had lots of problems with the guys transitioning from dials to glass. Seems crazy now, but it was a thing.

 

[Wardogg]

I mean I know its fun to blame Asians and immigrants and all that….but is there any empirical evidence to support that statement?

I don’t have any empirical evidence either but anecdotally, when i was instructing in AZ, so long as the English barrier wasn’t an issue, the Chinese students blew away their American counterparts for the most part. And I’m not sure where the assessment came from that they don’t want to be there either, that was absolutely not the case in my experience. These students have already gone through a ton to get to the point of US flight training, kids get weeded out in China.

 

[schloopy]

….Ok?

 

[schloopy]

How are younger students with glass cockpits? I would think that would be any area where gaming and growing up with tech would be an advantage.

They’re good. Definitely better than some of their older counterparts that I’ve seen. For ones that admit to playing games or flight simulators, They’re often off and running before I even finish giving the quick rundown.

 

[Boris Badenov]

Glass isn't all that tough even for old guys. However, I will say that they younger guys I've flown with were often really good with the FMS very *quickly*. There was definitely some carry-in there.

 

[MFT1Air]

“As a DPE, I can’t help but feel like too many flight training operations have transformed from a process of ‘training to meet or exceed a standard and happen to meet experience requirements along the way,’ to a ‘train to meet experience requirements, and hope they happen to meet training standards,’” he says.

This is pretty much the norm at Spirit, and also my experience at big box sim centers like CAE, FSI, etc.

Not disagreeing with any perceptions of what DPEs see in the course of their exams, but might we also think that maybe the "pass" standard for DPEs has changed? Just a perspective.

 

[GypsyPilot]

I have no idea if they are or aren’t to a beginner, I’ve never used one

I started off flying primary “steam gauges”, and didn’t fly glass until well into my professional pilot career. Glass is so much easier, it’s just no comparison.

To Todd’s point, we did have a few older guys at SkyWest that couldn’t make the jump from Brasilia to CRJ, but that was rare and those guys were pushing 60 years old over ten years ago.

But it’s not like flying glass and using computers is this “new fangled” thing anymore. I’m in my mid-40s, and we were using computers by first grade and almost always had a computer in the house. I was programming in BASIC and using modems before I was even in middle school.

If anything, the younger generations are now regressing in their understanding of technology because it just works so seamlessly:

The Smartphone Generation Needs Computer Help

Young people may be expert social-media and smartphone users, but many lack the digital skills they need for today’s jobs. How can we set them up for success?

www.theatlantic.com

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/11/16/todays-kids-may-be-digital-natives-new-study-shows-they-arent-close-being-computer-literate/

 

[GypsyPilot]

They’re good. Definitely better than some of their older counterparts that I’ve seen. For ones that admit to playing games or flight simulators, They’re often off and running before I even finish giving the quick rundown.

As far as students with flight sim experience, I found that to be a double edged sword as a CFI. Great for the IFR rating, often times terrible and riddled with bad habits for the PPL.

 

[Wardogg]

….Ok?

Still a foreigner. Canadian.

Speaking of language barriers...

 

[Boris Badenov]

Never gets old. NO OFF! O-F-F!