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| SAFE represents nearly 1,500 of the industry's top aviation educators in 49 states and nine foreign countries, including the majority of Master Instructors and numerous General Aviation Awards winners in all four awards categories. |
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Chair's Corner
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by David St. George, SAFE Chair
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David St George
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Thank you so much for your ongoing support of SAFE's mission of aviation excellence. We had our first national livestreaming "CFI Professionalism" webinar on July 12, in conjunction with the FAA Safety Team, featuring Rod Machado, Rich Still, Greg Brown and myself. If you missed it please view it on
YouTube.
Our collaboration with
Gold Seal Online Ground Schools has given us a powerful new channel to reach both existing members and new members. Our next livestream will be on August 22nd with Patty Wagstaff and Rich Stowell discussing strategies to avoid Loss of Control Inflight (LOC-I). This is the #1 killer of GA pilots and the NTSB "Most Wanted" improvement. Tune in and support this new SAFE initiative. Your support of SAFE makes continuing o
ur
programs possible. Thanks!
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AirVenture 2017: Amazing!
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SAFE had a record AirVenture show with 132 people attending the annual membership dinner at the terminal. Most of our generous sponsors attended, as did representatives from the FAA and industry. SAFE gained 40 new members and had 31 renewals during the show.
Our growth is critical for expanding SAFE's work to improve aviation safety. It finances our aviation safety outreaches, including the new national live-streaming webinar series called "CFI Professionalism." It also makes possible our advocacy work with the FAA and other Federal agencies so crucial to CFI interests. For the first time ever, SAFE will be attending the AOPA regional fly-ins this year.
At our dinner, Donna Wilt (right) received a well-deserved Lifetime Service Award recognizing her contributions to SAFE on the board of directors over the last eight years. Donna served as board chair and is also a current member of the Aviation Working Group (and our SAFE representative to that FAA advisory group) developing the new ACS.
Another long-time board member, Sherry Rossiter (left) is leaving the board this year after years of service. Sherry has carefully maintained and updated our By Laws, rewritten our manuals, and recruited board of directors candidates. She has guided our board as a veteran of many not-for-profit organizations and as a professional therapist/psychologist. Her assistance will be greatly missed.
Ken Wittekiend (center), DPE, MCFI and nationally sought speaker, is also "retiring" from our board this year. Ken re-invigorated our mentor program (which he will continue to supervise) and contributed greatly to our success in the last few years growing SAFE. Thanks and best of luck to all these "graduating" board members.
John Dorcey was recipient of the SAFE "Founders Award." John is a charter member of SAFE, and served on the board and also as interim executive director. John has been the indispensable leader at our Oshkosh show. He is the reason we have the terminal as our venue and arranges the catering for this event every year! He is also looking for a helper/successor in this role. Thank-you, both Donna and John.
We are very excited to have David Dempsey, (left) Charlie McDougal, (center) and Mike VIvion (right) joining our SAFE board. We appreciate their enthusiasm and enjoyed their company at the SAFE dinner at Oshkosh...onward and upward!
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SAFE 'CFI Professionalism' Series Launches
August Webinar To Feature Wagstaff, Stowell
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A series of free, live-streaming national SAFE professional development webinars to help CFIs improve their instructional skills is now underway. Called
"CFI Professionalism," the series is SAFE's latest outreach for improving aviation safety. The first webinar, live-streamed on July 12, featured top aviation educators
Rod Machado, Russ Still, David St. George and Greg Brown offering their best tips for instructors. That webinar was widely praised.
The next SAFE CFI Professionalism webinar, Strategies To Avoid Loss of Control. will be at 8 PM Eastern Time (0000Z) on August 22 and will host noted aerobatic instructors Patty Wagstaff and Rich Stowell. The two will offer their experiences in teaching students to avoid inflight loss of control, which is the leading fatal accident scenario in general aviation.
"SAFE's purpose is to create a safer aviation environment for everyone through increasing CFI professionalism," said David St. George, SAFE Chair. "These seminars are interactive, so instructors watching can ask questions during the session."
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Nearly 1,400 Top Av Educators On SAFE Facebook Page
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Devotees of the
SAFE Facebook page
have climbed steadily since the page was established in 2011, with 1,390 followers recorded in late July, 2017.
"Almost 1,400 followers isn't many by Facebook standards," said Kevin D Murphy, SAFE Communications Director, "But the SAFE Facebook page isn't a 'mass market' page for forwarding cute cat pictures. Rather, it's where you'll find other professional aviation educators, including many of the most experienced in the world. They discuss serious issues of professional flight instruction. Also, several DPEs regularly attend the site. It's quality, not quantity."
The Facebook page is only one of the outreach methods SAFE uses to promote instructor professionalism and aviation safety. Other efforts include an active Twitter account @safepilots and the
SAFE web site
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Demand For Pilots "Insatiable," Says University
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In yet another sign of a dawning golden era for flight instructors, two Utah universities are spending big bucks attempting to satisfy the demand for primary flight instruction.
"This is a very exciting time; airplane pilot demand is insatiable," said Mike Mower, executive director of Southern Utah University's (SUU) aviation program in a July article in the Salt Lake City Tribune. The school, located in Cedar City, spent about $3.8 million so far this year buying 10 new Cirrus airplanes.
Utah State University (USU), in the city of Logan, last year purchased an additional four "gently used" aircraft rather than a fleet of new aircraft, spending $806,000 to cope with the expected influx of some 400 aviation students. The addition brings their fleet to 19 aircraft, said Andreas Wesemann, the pilot program director.
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Resources Introduced For CFIs, BasicMed Returning Pilots
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Just six weeks into the FAA's new BasicMed program, more than 14,000 pilots are legally flying with just their driver's license as medical certification, according to Joe Kildea, Senior Director of Communications at AOPA. There are no statistics yet on how many of those are lapsed pilots returning to the active pilot ranks, but reports from the field indicate the number is substantial.
SAFE is suggesting that active CFIs may find
recurrency resources
using the FAA's new BasicMed program. "Effective communication works both ways," said Kevin D Murphy, SAFE Communications Director. "Just as a lapsed pilot may not know that Class B airspace is no longer called a Terminal Control Area, a marginally-active CFI may not know how TSA requirements have changed flight instruction since 2001."
Murphy suggested that AOPA's free
Rusty Pilots Resource Guide
can be an easy "catch up" method for both lapsed pilots and marginally active CFIs. Rules, practices and language that have changed in the past 20-30 years are identified and explained, including changes in airspace, charts, TFRs, radio communications, airport operations including new airport signs and markings, weather reports and forecasts and much more. There is a list of other resources for further study in the back of the 35-page PDF booklet. AOPA membership is not required to download the booklet. The organization also offers a free two-hour "
Rusty Pilot Seminars
" around the country.
Read more...
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All CFI Endorsements Updated In SAFE Toolkit
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One of the key features in SAFE's Toolkit, CFI endorsements, has been completely updated to conform to the latest FAA AC 61-65F. The SAFE Toolkit is one of the most popular electronic offerings in SAFE's efforts to increase professionalism in flight instruction.
"The updated endorsements are also color-coded with all the applicable FAR's hyperlinked," explained SAFE Chair David St. George. "The Toolkit also now has an Event Notifications feature you can turn on or off, which is particularly helpful for CFIs who want to stay totally in-the-know."
The SAFE Toolkit
works on both Apple and Android products and is downloadable free from both the iPhone App Store and on Google Play. In addition to the updated FAA endorsements, it features all FARs,
near-real-time NWS weather, flight tracking, flight planning services, an aeronautical checklist for experience required for each FAA pilot certificate, all FAA knowledge test error codes, all available Airman Certification Standards, the full FAR and AIM, SkyVector charts and more.
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July/August FAA Safety Briefing Available
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The July/August 2017 issue of FAA Safety Briefing is largely devoted to answering pilot questions about the new FAA BasicMed qualification process.
BasicMed is the new FAA rule that allows pilots flying non-commercially to use a state-issued driver's license as proof of medical fitness to fly.
Among other questions answered, the new issue confirms that CFIs are indeed able to instruct for hire with a new BasicMed qualification, using his or her state driver's license.
Under BasicMed, a pilot must complete an online medical education course every two years, undergo a medical examination every four years, and comply with aircraft and operating restrictions.
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SAFE Applauds PIREP Promotion
Push
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SAFE is enthusiastically supporting a new NTSB push to restore the value of pilot reports.
"PIREPs have become almost an afterthought in today's world," said SAFE Chair David St. George. "As much as weather reporting and forecasting have improved, there are many times when the only reliable information on potentially dangerous conditions is a PIREP."
He urged SAFE flight instructors to not only remind but ask students to submit pilot reports during training and said that the system for collecting and distributing PIREPs is inefficient to the point that it discourages the filing of the reports and hinders their dissemination.
The NTSB also addressed a variety of recommendations to aviation stakeholders, including instructors, for making the system useful again. "Whether a participant in the PIREP system initiates a report, enters it in the system or retrieves it for distribution, that person should understand the importance of the information being shared," said St. George. "And the system for sharing it should not stand in the way, which is exactly what is happening now in many cases."
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Aviation Education - Not Just For CFIs
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One of SAFE's core missions is to encourage an aviation mindset in youth. Unlike most industry associations, SAFE doesn't just react to current challenges in aviation instruction - such as rule changes that make it more difficult or more expensive to learn to fly - but actively advocates for aviation-related education in public and private schools. After all, youth are the future of aviation, right?
Since shortly after SAFE was founded, we've provided small yearly grants to elementary and secondary school teachers who propose the best projects incorporating aviation in their curriculum. Our grant program started with one grant per year, then went to two each year and now four this year, thanks to generous donors who also believe that youth are the future of aviation.
Aviation-related topics complement the current national STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education in elementary and secondary schools.
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iPad Scenario Generator Offered
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SAFE member Todd M. Underwood has created a "CFI DPE Scenario Maker" app for
iPad or iPhone, designed to create different scenarios that can be used by CFIs instructing or by DPEs evaluating an applicant's ability using the new ACS.
"With the pilot climate the way it is right now, CFIs don't stick around very long so they are always new,"
said Underwood. "Because of that inexperience, many CFIs are not doing a great job of scenario based teaching."
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New SAFE Blog Entries
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Master CFI: Every Student Is Different.
SAFE Chair David St. George cautions about over-standardization in flight instruction. "If not checked, this standardization (stuff) can quickly lead to the Army Chow Line Approach to Instruction, e.g., This is lesson 3, step up...here is your slow flight (blop), turns left and right and intro to stalls (ready or not!)."
The Importance of Life Long Learning.
Dr. Sherry Rossiter, an ATP and CFII in both airplanes and helicopters and charter SAFE member, has kept her instructional credentials current for more than 40 years, but she still ended up with several pages of notes as she listened to last month's SAFE Webinar on CFI Professionalism. She pointed to the four panelists on the webinar - Greg Brown, Rod Machado, David St. George and Russ Still - and said, "they are continually learning and refining their teaching skills...they stay abreast of current technology , engage in creative solutions to real world flight training problems and learn more every day about how students learn."
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Master Instructor Activity
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Karen M Kahn
of Santa Barbara CA, an eight-time Master and SAFE member, was granted Master Instructor Emeritus
status July 1 in recognition of her many years of commitment to excellence, professional growth, service to the aviation community, and quality aviation education.
A retired airline pilot, Karen is an aviation writer, career counselor and an independent CFI at Santa Barbara Airport (SBA). She is also a 6-time Santa Barbara Airport Commissioner and serves as a FAASTeam representative for the FAA's Van Nuys FSDO.
Pat Knight
of Argyle TX, an 11-time Master and a former SAFE board member, renewed her Master CFI accreditation July 1 through
Master Instructors LLC
. A longtime pilot examiner
and CFI, Pat worked as an Aviation Safety Inspector
with the FAA Flight Standards program at Alliance Airport
in the Fort Worth area where she specializes in human factors in aviation, accident prevention and investigation and glider as well as multiengine training. She is currently assigned to FAA headquarters in the Airman Training and Certification branch.
A retired US Air Force officer, she is only the second aviation educator ever to earn a Master designation when the accreditation program was first introduced in 1997 and is the only one to ever be accredited eleven times.
Matt, a Cirrus Platinum instructor, owns Progressive Aviation Services at Waukesha County Airport where he specializes in Cirrus aircraft recurrent training. Additionally, he serves as a FAASTeam representative for the Milwaukee FSDO and is an A-319 / A-320 series first officer with Virgin America Airlines.
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Fly SAFE!
David St. George, Chair
Society of Aviation and Flight Educators
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Copyright SAFE, Inc. 2017. All rights reserved.
SAFE, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) Tax-Exempt Public Charity
[email protected] -- [email protected] -- www.SafePilots.org |
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