You have some pretty good replies and I'd like to build on a few of
them, but at the really basic level. Hang in there, I'll get to a point
after a bit of a wander around. (I would also like to acknowledge at the
beginning my appreciation and indebtedness for some first class material
posted in the last few weeks. This is really working!)
I would add to the Thorndike Laws relayed by Vince Mancuso the 'Law of
Origin'. Where did the pilots come from? As Tony Kern points out, a
pilot entering a CRM learning session in, say, the Airr Force Reserve,
has a definable background, which will include lots of opportuntiies to
practice group skills (starting with parade ground drill). Many pilots,
however, will get into an airline after a training regime characterised
by least-cost accumulation of only the minimum test-passing
competencies. Pilots from this category may have some very undesirable
habits -- which they can hardly be blamed for, that being 'the system'
-- but which will need to be dealt with. You have to know the current
state of knowledge/ skills/attitudes in your troops, and you can only do
that by testing them.
(Curious isn't it that most (all?) pilot training programs' earliest
focus is on going solo, with later consolidation also done as a solo
operator, when most professional pilots will spend most of their career
flying as a crew member?)
I'd also add the 'Law of Age'. Thorndike's Laws are clearly cognizant of
adult-learning theory, as there will be few children in CRM programs. As
we get older (and it's worse for men than women) our ability to learn
skills diminishes. (The good news is that, at least pre-Alzheimers, your
ability to absorb knowledge increases.) In developing or maintaining
skills, older pilots need to do more practice (see The Law of Exercise).
(Whether they are doing it or not is another question. But they should
be.)
Next is what I call the 'Cargo Cult'* mentality. CRM programs are
brought to the pilots, dropped in their laps. Naah, no good, send
something alse. Yet Thorndike's Laws can, collectively, be seen as a
case for auto-didacticism -- self-learning, self-training. The Company
might deliver a CRM package four times a year. You should do something
every day. (OK, take Sundays off.) The individual is the only person who
can maintain the regime.
So here's what you do, Marc. Get the pilots to work out their own 'how
we should fly as a crew' routines and training. They sit down at a desk,
ordinary chairs, side-by-side, flight manual open at the 'cockpit' page,
air route maps, departure and approach plates handy. (Anyone old enough
to recognize the very first CRM sessions?) By 'flying' mission after
mission, from pre- to post-flight procedures, no short cuts -- every
procedure, intercept departure radial, fly the track, let down, good
weather and bad, etc -- they first work out allocation of duties between
Pilot Flying (PF) and Pilot Not Flying (PNF), and then, through more
practice, adjust, re-practise, until they have written their own
procedures. (A flight manual for a large jet would be a handy reference
in PF/PNF task allocation routines.) Yep, basic indeed. And if they feel
a little awkward about the process, a tad embarrassed, then that's good
practice, too, practice at operating under stress. Shouldn't cost too
much, either.
Hope this is of use.
Cheers
Doug
* 'Cargo Cult'. During WWII, New Guinea natives from primitive
tribes, many of which had had no contact with other people, saw the
occasional cargo 'plane fall from the sky. On entering the wreckage,
they found piles of goodies, like food. In following years, curious
clearings in the jungle were seen on remote mountain sides. On closer
inspection, crude models of aeroplanes were spotted, 'parked' in the
middle of each clearing. Contact with these tribes revealed their belief
that there was a god up there somewhere, who flew goodies around in
large 'birds'. As birds will alight where they spot one of their kin,
then, if they made the right preparations, it was only a matter of time
before all this bounty dropped out of the sky. So convinced were they,
of this ensuing good fortune, that other food- producing activities had
virtually been put on hold. These people were nearly starving.
Anthropologists called it the 'Cargo Cult' mentality. Thereafter, the
term has been applied to folk who sit around waiting for the necessities
of life to drop into their lap. (By the mid-60s, the 'god' had been
given a name -- ELLBEJAY -- Lyndon Baines Johnson.)
Another New Guinea story. Famine relief had the Air Force flying
choppers into remote villages in C-130s. Curious natives would always
turn up at the strip. They needed little persuasion to assist unload. At
one place, where contact with the outside world was very recent, the
notion of a mother bird delivering her progeny animated enthusiastic
unloading -- assistance at the 'birth'. When the Herc turned up a few
weeks later to pick up the chopper there was not a single volunteer to
assist with the reverse procedure!