Instead, most of today’s flight instructors are recruited from the ranks of wannabe airline pilots who need to build logbook hours at somebody else’s  expense.    We see large commercial flight schools paying this years’ graduates $10/hour to teach next years’ incoming class of primary flight students.  Talk about the “blind leading the blind!” 

Up until the crashes of Continental 3407 and Comair 5191 at Lexington, Kentucky's Blue Grass Airport in August, 2006, we assumed that shortcomings in GA flight training were being rectified by the airlines before young, inexperienced pilots are permitted behind the controls of passenger-carrying airliners.  As recent airline accidents suggest, perhaps not. 

As for our 40 percent new student dropout rate, let’s count the cost.  Each lost pilot to the system can be measured in REAL dollars.  Stated in positive terms, by eliminating this 40% dropout rate, we could nearly double the new pilots entering the system each year.  With that comes a doubling of everything from new headset sales to new airplanes rolling out of the Cessna, Cirrus, Mooney, and Piper plants. 

Yes, my friends, the tipping point is near.  When it does occur, all we know and love about general aviation could come to an immediate end.  At a minimum, our GA factories will all close and what is left will be locked out of Class B, C, and D, and eventually E airspace.  When that happens, we can all close the hangar doors and buy a boat instead.  That’s a tipping point that's worth avoiding.

So how do we fix the problem?

For starters, we begin fixing the problem by redefining the rules pertaining to the training, appointing, and recertification of flight instructors.  Like A&P mechanics seeking to place “I A” (inspector authorization ) after their names, CFI candidates should have to log a minimum of three years of real world, in the system, experience following receipt of their commercial certificate to become eligible.  (There is no such experience requirement to become a CFI.)

Similarly, CFIs who are qualified to teach instruments (CFI-I) should have to log no fewer than 10 hours of instrument flight in actual instrument conditions (IMC) to be eligible.  (There is no such IMC experience requirement to become a CFII.)

Only 15 percent of all certificated flight instructors actually teach. The other 85 percent have never taught or haven't taught in years.  Imagine if that were the case with the guy who signed off your last aircraft annual!

Solution . . . in order to retain their CFI certificate, flight instructors should have to submit a minimum of three applications for pilot certificates (FAA  Form 8710) every two years.  CFIs failing to do this can elect to undergo CFI recertification in the same manner as their initial certification.  (There is no such requirement to remain qualified as a CFI.)

Next, we need to revamp the private pilot training curriculum and, as a minimum, replace the proverbial “practice area” with cross-country flights and aggressively incorporate FITS training throughout the revised private pilot curriculum.  Yes, we can instill thorough maneuvers training but as a component of cross-country flight.  The Practical Test Standards (PTS) should be modified accordingly.

What about the rest of us who are already pilots?  Just because we carry a pilot certificate and a current medical in in our pockets, does that make us safe to fly? Airline crews undergo several days of mandatory recurrent training every 6 to 12 months.  We GA pilots, on the other hand, are required to log a minimum of 1 hour of ground and 1 hour of flight training every 24 months.  Perhaps we, too, need to increase the frequency of mandatory recurrent training.

We can debate the details of these solutions and there are certainly other steps that can be taken.  And we'll have to endure substantial opposition from AOPA and EAA who traditionally roadblock any proposed regulatory changes that impose “hardship” on their members prior to proving efficacy.  Let’s not forget, however, whose “hardship” we’re trying to prevent!

So what would be the result?

By changing how pilots are trained and who trains them in the ways described herein would produce two simultaneous results.  The first would be a measurable reduction in the number of fatal accidents attributable to pilot error.  Better trained pilots simply make fewer mistakes.  The major air carriers have proved that with their near perfect safety record. 

Sure, skeptics will insist we "prove" this outcome before changing the system.  Unfortunately, the only way to prove it is to do it.  Remember, the tipping point is near.

The second outcome would be the infusion of some 15,000 or 20,000 additional new GA pilots into the system each year.  By eliminating the frustrations and irritants of learning to fly through inept instruction, bad flight school practices, and antiquated flight training curricula, most flight students would actually finish their training and receive their pilot certificates.  They would then go out and tell their friends about it and maybe even purchase a new airplane.  Imagine . . . .

In reality, neither of these two outcomes is likely to result without the tipping point actually occurring.  There is simply too much vested interest in the status quo, too much resistance to change and, frankly, too much head in the sand kind of thinking by our industry leaders. 

We do not have to look much beyond the current Wall Street crisis and the resultant global economic meltdown to see what I mean.  Yep, there is a couple of pending GA tipping points in our future.  Unless we do something about them, our GA world could come crashing down.