How do you fix airmanship?

[Slick Goodlin]

A friend and I were chatting tonight about some airmanship gripes the discussion shifted over to how you fix that. He said if we do a good enough job then everyone else will slowly pick it up by osmosis but in single pilot GA flying I’m not convinced that will work. After all, is good airmanship even visible if you’re not looking for it? Bad airmanship sure is.

So how do you make things better, or are they fine and like I said we’re only seeing a rare bunch of poor examples?

[Nark]

Well it comes in two forms;
You need a mentor and reflect what they do in your own actions. Therefore osmosis only partially work.

B: you need an initial instructor to demonstrate airmanship.


Analysis stem's from years and years of GA flying.

[Squaretail]

The most obvious problem is that if you got ten pilots together to determine what constitutes "good airmanship" you would find ten different definitions. While a good instructor can and should point out some of the maybe non-obvious tips to a neophyte, there's no changing who someone is at their core. I mean I run into one fellow who determined everyone else who didn't recognize his superior needs as an airman and give way deferentially immediately was practicing "bad airmanship".

As for correcting someone who is a ways from the ab initio stage of their pilot journey I would be of the opinion that only substantial negative reinforcement would get them to change their ways, or traumatic event. But I'm not even convinced the latter will, and the former works only if said negative reinforcement can be continually applied for long lengths of time.

I mean this wouldn't even be solved if everyone followed the Colonel's Guideline 1.00 for aviation: try not to piss people off. Because it acknowledges that no matter how hard you try, its going to happen and someone is going to be offended and accuse you of "bad airmanship". And when that happens, apologize if you can, then just move on.