North American Ab Initio Flight Training for Chinese Pilots: A Case Study on Selection

Abstract

This article outlines a method for selecting pilot candidates for ab initio flight training at a North American flight training unit (FTU) serving the Chinese market. Over the past 4 years the FTU has developed and implemented a ground-school-based method of assessment and selection for Chinese candidates. The method was developed in response to the lack of reliable and affordable assessment materials available for flight training candidates whose first language was other than English. Development, implementation, and the effects of assessment on the early hours of Canadian ground school are described.

Notes

1. ¹The role of English language proficiency in accidents and incidents led to the “establishment of clear training targets, described in the ICAO Language Proficiency Rating Scale, for speaking and listening proficiency” (Mathews, 2007, p. 16). Further information on the ICAO Language Proficiency Requirements can be found on the ICAO website (ICAO, 2008). Chinese airspace is largely controlled by the Central Military Commission rather than the CAAC. Domestic air travel is subordinate to military traffic.

2. ²Another 100 or so students were trained at the MFC Moncton FTU before 2007.

3. ³On multiple intelligence theory see Gardner (1999).

4. ⁴It is worth noting that the tight time frame serves the Chinese client’s purposes rather than the FTU’s: Less time for assessment might lead the FTU to include marginal candidates who a more thorough assessment might exclude.

5. ⁵AE has evolved along with other English-language professional curricula for teaching such as in business, law, and medicine.

6. ⁶Guanxi does not usually determine who appears in a pool of candidates: It is cited as an example of cultural subtleties usually lost on assessors. There are many factors other than test scores or social connections that can account for a student’s appearance in a particular candidate pool, including family name, month of birth, home province, or height. Few of these factors are helpful to the assessor.

7. ⁷In 2006 the Moncton FTU hired several English teachers to offer language classes to Chinese candidates who had been selected and who were in training in Moncton. The English language classes were tangentially aviation based, but they were taught by language specialists who had no aviation background. Observations showed that the students were passive, disengaged, and distracted in their classes. Few FTUs would today employ this ad hoc approach to English language teaching.

8. ⁸ICAO Language Proficiency Requirements demand Level 4. For further details, see ICAO (2008).

9. ⁹We do not test the bodily-kinesthetic aptitude of the students. This has led to a few students weaker in this aptitude being accepted into MFC; however, the issue is not a significant one, as candidates are tested for basic fitness by the Chinese airline or university.

10. ¹⁰Reading and writing skills, although not as vital, when below a certain level, act as a barrier to the success of the candidate. Extreme weakness in one of the skills sometimes points to more general weakness in the student’s ability, which will be revealed through the multiple assessment tests.

11. ¹¹Instructor training for China selection has two parts: classroom review and practice of the Socratic method of instruction; and guidance in development of the portfolio of assessments to be delivered on site.

12. ¹²Phase 2 of PPL ground school follows immediately after Phase 1, lasts approximately 5 weeks, and ends with the student’s successful completion of the Transport Canada Private Pilot written examination.

13. ¹³Very seldom are there any issues of personality difficulties between instructor and student. The FTU’s chief flight instructor can recall fewer than five instructor changes for personal reasons since the Asian program began at the FTU in 2007.

14. ¹⁴The FTU has learned that questions that include disjunctional phrases such as “in your opinion” often liberate a student from the stress of risking an answer that might not be exhaustive or correct (e.g., one might ask, “In your opinion, what is the relationship between stall speed and angle of attack?” to which the student will usually respond with a statement beginning “In my opinion …”).

15. ¹⁵The Transport Canada Flight Instructor Guide (FIG), the foundational text for flight instructor training, is directly indebted to Gagne’s nine events of instruction. For detail, compare Gagne’s nine events (Gagne, Wager, Golas, & Keller, 2005, p. 195) with the FIG’s five “procedures” (Transport Canada, 2004, p. 20).