For instructors and examiners

The Competent Instructor: what is inside

A book for the person in the chair at the back of the simulator: the instructor or examiner with the hardest job. It is about what to do with what you see, and how to turn it into a finding, a grade and a plan the pilot can use.

By Matthew Dowell, airline training captain and examiner. Written in a personal capacity: it reflects my own views and experience, not those of any employer or organisation. The book is available now in paperback and as an ebook on Amazon, and the ebook is in all major stores.

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The problem it answers

An experienced instructor watches a sector or a simulator session and, somewhere between the top of descent and the parking brake, has formed a view: what came up short, and more importantly why. That gut feeling deserves more respect than its name suggests. But on its own it cannot be taught, cannot be standardised across a department, cannot be defended when a pilot disagrees, and produces a verdict rather than a plan. This book is about the work that begins when the session ends: turning the feeling into an answer that can be acted on, argued about, handed over and taught.

Three propositions

• Your job is not to grade. It is to diagnose. A grade with no diagnosis behind it is a verdict, and a diagnosis with no intervention after it is only commentary.
• Concordance means agreeing on the decision, not the number. This is an argument of mine, not something the framework states, and the book says so. Adjacent grades are fine. Grades across a decision boundary are not.
• The gap is expressed in theory, never in specifics. Once a gap assessment becomes a preview of the scenario, startle and surprise are gone, and with them the only conditions under which several competencies can be observed.

The loop

The book follows one sequence from start to finish:

Gap → Objectives → Briefing → Observe → Record → Classify → Assess → Debrief → Evidence → Finding → the next session's gap

The briefing is where you construct the conditions for observation and decide what would count as evidence. The debrief runs the loop a second time, with the pilot doing the work. If the pilot can walk the loop themselves, the learning has landed. If you have to walk it for them, you have delivered information rather than development.

What is inside

55 chapters in seven parts, with three appendices: the instructor competencies and observable behaviours, the loop on a page, and the documents referred to, plus a glossary.

Part One: The Shift (chapters 1 to 8)

What changed, the objections worth taking seriously, and the order in which to change your habits. Includes: What changed, and what it asked of you; You were already doing this; The objections that are correct; The objections that are not; What it costs you; What you get back; The migration; What you are actually for.

Part Two: The Gap (chapters 9 to 12)

Probing what the pilot knows today, and why the probe must stay in theory. Includes: What a gap assessment is; The gap is theory, not scenario; Startle and surprise, defined; Why specifics destroy the evidence.

Part Three: From Gap to Brief (chapters 13 to 22)

Linking the task to threat and error management and to competency, setting objectives, and building and running the briefing. Includes: The instructional techniques, and what each is for; Choosing: matching the technique to the cause; Running the briefing: justify, don't discover.

Part Four: Seeing (chapters 23 to 30)

Observing and recording without contaminating what you see, in the box and on the line, and knowing the limits. Includes: You are part of the scenario; Observe; Record; The firewall; Contamination; When to intervene and when to let it run; What you cannot see.

Part Five: Assessing (chapters 31 to 44)

From notes to a finding, a cause and a grade, and keeping instructors in step. Includes: Root cause; Single versus systemic; When the finding is not the pilot's; What concordance actually means; Drift; Justifying a grade; Grade inflation; Grading yourself.

Part Six: The Debrief (chapters 45 to 50)

Running the loop a second time, with the pilot doing the work. Includes: three anchors for the debrief (the competency, the threat and error context, the objective); Facilitation as diagnosis; Debriefing startle and surprise; Remediation.

Part Seven: The System (chapters 51 to 55)

The loop at the scale of a department, and the instructor's own competencies. Includes: Standardisation across a department; Developing other instructors; The instructor's own competencies; Where this is heading.

Where to start

Frequently asked questions

Who is The Competent Instructor for?

Instructors and examiners working in a competency-based system. It assumes you can fly and you can instruct. It does not teach either: it covers the part in between, which is turning what you see a pilot do into a finding, a grade and something the pilot can work on next.

Is it a companion to Flying Competent?

Yes. Flying Competent is written for the pilot being assessed: what the competencies are, what the grades mean and what an examiner is looking for. The Competent Instructor is the follow-up for the person in the chair at the back of the simulator.

What is the loop?

The loop is the sequence an instructor meets: gap, objectives, briefing, observe, record, classify, assess, debrief, evidence, finding, and then back to the next session's gap. It closes on a finding, not a gap, and the finding carries forward.

Where should I start if I am short of time?

The book is designed to be dipped into. If you have a session tomorrow, start with the loop on a page in Appendix B, then chapters 13 and 14. If a grade is contested, start with chapters 31 and 32, then 42.

When is it available?

The book is available now in paperback and as an ebook on Amazon, and the ebook is in all major stores. Flying Competent, available now, is the companion written for the pilot being assessed.