Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Jim Logajan wrote in
:

"Ol Shy & Bashful" wrote:
It really disturbs me that the FAA is constantly dumbing down the
pilots of today and you can see it in the various publications. A
lot of material is deleted that still applies but it is as if
someone is afraid to teach it because it either scares them, or they
simply don't know how to address it except by deletion.

With all due respect...

The statistics computed for the Nall Reports and by the NTSB seem to
show that the GA per-flight-hour accident rate has been generally on
a very slow decline over the last decade or two. So if the FAA is
"dumbing down" pilots, they aren't getting dumb fast enough to stem
the decline in accident rates.

Bottom line is that the declining accident rate doesn't seem to
support the claim of "dumbing down". Or perhaps if it is true then
maybe "dumb" pilots are safer pilots.... ;-)

Well, there could be a few explanations for that. one could be that
since new recruits to the past-time are down, the experiance level is
coming up.

That's a pretty plausible explanation for the decline in accident rates.
Probably not enough raw data collected over the years to say whether that
is the reason for the decline. :-(

Dunno, just offering it as food for thought.