I don't think that I would pay $100 or $200 to attend a one-day seminar run
by 'big names.' I am not convinced that it would be helpful in any way. Of
course, I fly every day, read everything I can get my hands on, and study
the regulations and manuals constantly.

Back in the 1970s I remember an FAA guy saying that we can give pilots the
best equipment, the best training, the best weather information and air
traffic control, but we can't give them good judgment. It is difficult
enough with the dolts posting here who show all the dangerous attitudes:
macho, anti-authority, complacency and all the rest. Some of the guys who
constantly criticize instructors, the FAA, maintenance, and everybody else
really concern me. The "I have ten thousand hours and I don't care what some
pup says" syndrome (even when the 'pup' is more than 50 years old and has
decades of flying experience of his own) is evident here in full force. At
least they appear to care a little bit about flight safety.

I am beginning to think that there really isn't anything you can do with
some people. All this week we have been working with a woman who wants to
commit suicide (she is clinically depressed). What she does is she takes all
her anti-depressant medication with beer. Well, this won't kill her, but it
is likely to lower the oxygen levels in her blood sufficiently to cause
permanent brain damage. Apparently she would rather live the rest of her
life having somebody feed her, wipe her bib, and change her diaper rather
than face her rather minor problems.

I think some pilots are like that. They can't be motivated to even open
their mail, let alone attend a safety seminar. They would rather die. And
some of them will.

I gave a commercial student a stage check -- the final one before his check
ride. He had been very insistent that he is ready for the commercial check
ride and had been demanding that we sign him off for it. His instructor
finally tired of his complaints and sent him to me for the stage check,
hoping that I would reinforce what the instructor had already been telling
him -- that he was not ready. The student did terribly on the oral quizzing,
unable to demonstrate even rudimentary knowledge of aircraft systems, FARs,
or weather. Apparently the only studying he did was to read one of those ASA
oral exam guides and memorize the answers. If you deviated even slightly
from the questions in that book he was unable to answer them.

His flying was the same. Although the clouds were reported as 1200 few and
4900 broken, it was easy to see that the 'few' became scattered to broken
the moment you left the vicinity of the airport in any direction. He did not
know how to start the Cutlass properly, missed or screwed up several other
checklist items starting the engine, did not know how the GPS worked but
attempted to program it anyway, taxied with the mixture full rich and then
did not know how to clear the resultant fouled plug, then departed straight
into the clouds. As he was starting to enter the clouds he turned to me and
said, "What do I do now?" He stopped being pilot in command! He did not
leave himself an 'out' if he got into trouble. I had to take over the plane
to keep him from going VFR into the clouds, and then direct him back to the
airport which was less than a mile away. The interesting thing was that
there was plenty of room to deviate around the low clouds, but he did not
attempt to do this, nor did he try to fly to a clear area. Instead, he
departed straight for the heaviest and thickest clouds in the area and did
not deviate at all because he had not planned for it. Overall, I found his
performance very disappointing. On the ground he refused to admit that he
had made any errors and offered all kinds of excuses.

I think that is part of the real problem. Some people just don't accept the
idea of being pilot in command. They can't control themselves, let alone an
airplane. They blame everybody else for their problems. They think the FAA,
the instructors, the FBOs, the mechanics, the government, and the 'system'
are all incompetent. After I explained to this student that he was in real
danger and just why, and told him that I expected that he know how to fly an
airplane instead of passing a test, he showed some change of heart and a
determination to study harder. I hope he meant it.