The decline of instructor numbers

For the five financial years 2002 to 2007 there was a 52 per cent drop in the total number of instructors. In 2002 there were 5449 instructors.

That dropped to 2590 in 2007. In that period the number of grade 3 instructors went from 1942 to 685, a 65 per cent drop. Grade 2 instructors went from 1812 to 810, a drop of 55 per cent.

Grade 1 holders went from 1695 to 1095, a drop of 35 per cent.

The main reason that airlines have been employing large numbers of charter pilots and instructors is to try and ensure they have their necessary quota of pilots to fly the current fleet and those aircraft soon to be delivered.

The reduction in instructor numbers is mirrored in the reduced number of commercial pilots revealed in Right Hand Seat in the March issue of AA.

The loss of CFIs has seen several flying schools close or have difficulty maintaining operations as a direct result of that key person moving to an airline career.

A CFI has a number of masters: the school owner, the students who provide the income, and of course the regulator, CASA, with an ever expanding list of requirements and changes to the flight training industry. These three factors alone create pressures that often discourage grade 1 instructors from wanting to become a CFI and electing instead to remain a grade 1 or deputy CFI, with lesser job pressures and a pay packet not far removed from that of a CFI.

For a grade 1 instructor wanting to become a CFI, CASA requires that he has the appropriate flight hours as well as having 500 hours of commercial non-flight training experience plus 250 hours of instructor training experience. Given that a good multi-engined IFR charter pilot can earn around the same as a CFI there is not a lot of incentive for that pilot to go back into the flight training system. The end result is a lack of new CFI candidates.

The rapid movement of instructors through the training system is already showing up with subtle changes in airmanship. A few obvious examples noted include new radio calls commencing before the preceding call has been completed; aircraft position lights and strobe lights running from start up to shut down, even on days of strong sunlight; control surfaces not being secured at the end of a flight; and night training aircraft taxying with the landing light painting other aircraft, with no concern for the night vision of other pilots.

Those and other like items can be attributed to poor flight instruction, instruction that reflects the movement of experienced instructors out of the training system and leaving behind recently qualified instructors who have not been safety mentored due to the lack of those more experienced hands. And those are only a few of the more visible signs of airmanship changes.

The more serious events will end up with the ATSB.

A recent study noted that Australia needs to increase its instructor numbers by 15 per cent over the next five years in order to avoid a serious pilot shortage. But if one looks at the instructor numbers of 2590 at the end of the 2007 FY and then adds 15 per cent that only brings the numbers to 2778. That number is well below the total of 3255 for the preceding year. In short, the desired 15 per cent increase will not keep up with declining numbers.

With the demand for pilots by airlines, a lot of new commercial pilots are looking at by-passing instructing and going direct to charter before applying to the airlines. That lack of instructors will not only affect safety but will have a marked effect on the availability of instructors to staff current and future flight schools. o Contact Dave at flyer02@ optusnet. com. au