Aviation Expo – Palm Springs International Airport, California October 22, 2016
This past summer, about the time the Airmen Certification Standards (ACS) were implemented, AOPA Pilot Magazine and Flying Magazine collaborated on a extraordinarily unique idea. Both magazines simultaneously published in their July, 2016 issues the same article – Dogfight – The Great ACS Debate. The story featured John King, Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of King Schools and Rod Machado a renowned pilot, CFI, author and speaker. These two respected aviation educators have very different views on the ACS and presented point-by-point facts that supported their opinions.
Here is the complete unedited version of The Great Debate.
An outgrowth of the article was an event held at the 2016 Aviation Expo in Palm Springs. John and Rod appeared together on stage with moderator Stephen Pope the Editor-In-Chief of Flying Magazine. In this video, they debate their sides respectfully, factually, professionally and they had some fun.
John and Martha,
I am the only instructor at my airport so very often my former students sit down with me after they scared themselves. From in route weather they did not expect, a MOA that goes active and they have to divert around it. filing direct out of Class Bravo and then getting vectored many miles in the wrong direction. all these eat up the fuel they had planned for reserve. Or having to go missed on an approach because they did not realize it had a six degree glide slope and they stuck to their normal power settings.
I have done many many flight reviews now where the pilot had a new Ipad, but little idea how to use it, They have ADSB traffic and they are frantically looking for the plane 20 miles away or 20,000 feet above.
Recently, one of my students failed the private test for the single mistake of entering a ground reference maneuver into the wind. But there was very little discussion about his planned cross country into Bravo airspace.
I guess what I would like is a test that spends less time on completing a series of maneuvers and more time on critical thinking and decision making.