Learners often experience scheduling problems, and this can be aggravated by aircraft problems, weather issues, and other unpredictable events. Learners are also subject to other external pressures involving work, family, finance, and other issues. All of these can create distractions, anxiety, and other responses that can degrade learner performance.

Instructors can best assess and mitigate identified risks by following the risk management procedures outlined in this chapter. In all cases, the instructor should include the learner in the risk management during dual instruction. For example, the instructor should emphasize that they are both responsible for maintaining a lookout to see and avoid other air traffic. The learner should also be instructed on how to assist resolving items such as aircraft airworthiness status and issues involving the training environment, such as airspace, NOTAMs, or TFRs.

Specific mitigations for the instructional hazards and risks identified in previous paragraphs include, but are not limited to, the following procedures.

The instructor’s qualifications are paramount in mitigating currency and proficiency issues. Instructors should familiarize themselves with aircraft models and avionics before instructing. This could be as simple as reviewing the pilot operating handbook (POH) or avionics manuals or as extensive as acquiring flight time in such equipment before giving instruction.

Instructor aeromedical risks should be constantly monitored using the IMSAFE model. Similarly, the instructor should communicate with the learner to establish a confidence level that will encourage learners to come forward to disclose their own aeromedical issues well in advance of scheduled flights, so that they may be rescheduled if necessary.

The instructor should determine the aircraft’s official airworthiness status before scheduled flights and before conducting the actual preflight. Unless instructing in their own aircraft, instructors should be familiar with the aircraft operator’s procedures for reporting and correcting discrepancies and review the current discrepancy report. Any questions regarding airworthiness status should be resolved with maintenance personnel before conducting the preflight inspection. The instructor should consider involving the learner in this process and should emphasize that it is intended to manage risk by reducing the likelihood and/or severity of potential hazards and risks arising from failed equipment.

Environmental risks are one of the most frequent causes of accidents. These notably include risks generated by weather, terrain, and night operation hazards and additionally include airports, airspace, and other environmental factors. All these hazards and risks will likely come into play at some point during the instruction process. Accordingly, instructors should emphasize accurate assessment and mitigation of such risks when providing instruction.

The instructor should involve the learner in every step of the assessment and mitigation process. For example, the weather may be marginal VFR. If the scheduled dual instruction called for practicing stalls and slow flight, the instructor should coach the learner to identify the risks involved in conducting stall practice under such conditions, such as inadvertently entering IMC or practicing stalls at too low an altitude. The instructor and learner can discuss ways to mitigate the risk, such as changing the lesson plan to stay in the traffic pattern, conducting a lesson in a flight simulation training device or ground school, or rescheduling the lesson altogether.

External pressures can create the most insidious of hazards and risks. Instructors should ease learner concerns about schedule conflicts with events in their professional and personal lives. Instructors should be conscious of each learner’s schedule limitations and other external factors that could affect their performance. Instructors should also emphasize the ability to make schedule changes as needed, change training from an airplane to classroom instruction, or terminate a lesson early if the learner appears apprehensive about time pressures or other external concerns.

The instructor is involved with risk management on multiple levels, which include not only managing the risk of a particular phase of flight or maneuver, but also teaching risk management and managing the risks of providing in-flight instruction. Some concepts an instructor should bear in mind while teaching most maneuvers include:

The following discussion contains examples of instructor considerations while providing in-flight instruction on various maneuvers. Among other things, the examples demonstrate the extent to which instructional techniques and instructional risk management are interconnected, and why a systematic, integrated approach to risk management provides safety.