Issue-89_00117_o1cumj

GA vs Military Flying Training

General Aviation and Military Flying Training Philosophies – Are There Fundamental Differences?

Several years were to pass between my last flight in the Navy and my first flight with an aero club, but it didn’t take me too long to reach the conclusion that the only similarity between the two was that you pushed the stick the same way!

There are differences in the manner with which GA and military institutions train pilots. The strict and disciplined style of military training contrasts with the more relaxed and arguably more lax methods of GA. The author argues that there is a need for GA flying training to be more structured.

It would not be an overstatement to say that I experienced a marked culture shock in transitioning from the highly disciplined world of military flying to the as I then perceived it, laid back atmosphere of club flying.

The passage of time has served to lessen the effect and I have come to appreciate and understand that if you attempted to run club flying on the same basis as military flying it would be a toss up whether you went broke first or folded as the result of an understandable mutiny! My problem was that having been a qualified flying instruc- tor (QFI), instrumentrating examiner (IRE) and an Air Warfare Instructor (AWI), I was used to an exact and precise world where every “T” was crossed and every “I” was dotted, and heaven help anyone who failed to operate in accordance with standard operating procedures (SOPs).

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