Can We Build Better Instruction?

Redbird's Migration In Its 10th Year Tackles The Question

- Julie Boatman

If the basics of airmanship still apply in safely controlling an airplane—coordinated maneuvers, power-and-speed management, and situational awareness, for example—wouldn’t the methods to deliver those skills to new pilots remain anchored in fundamental truths as well?

Redbird Flight Simulations launched in 2006 with the idea that this is not necessarily the case—and pursued development of a line of full-motion aviation training devices and other products priced for the flight school market to help prove the point. For the past 10 years, the company has hosted an annual conference—Redbird Migration—for the flight training industry, to assist both flight schools and the educators who deliver training in understanding that there’s a new world out there.

But instructors learn in their initial coursework that education doesn’t occur unless there is good communication, and a certain amount of mutual buy-in has to take place before a message comes through and is understood. That’s why training tends to lag behind the technology; it’s much easier to fall back on the “good old ways” when an instructor is trying at the same time to understand the new equipment. This is true of initial pilot training as well as that for advanced certificates and transitions to high-performance, complex and turbine aircraft.

Members of the Flying team have attended Migration over the years—and (full disclosure) I was managing the Cessna Pilot Center program and participated when it first launched 10 years ago. I returned in October 2019 to the event at the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum’s “Boeing Blue Sky Aviation Gallery” to see how the conference had developed and if any change has taken place among those who participate.