STUDENTS CAREENING FOR THE SIDE OF the runway, slamming down so hard the airplane needed a maintenance check, and barely stopping at a fence after coming in hot and landing long. These are some of the hair-raising moments that happen in primary instruction, but they pale in comparison to what some instructors see in advanced instruction. If the instructor is on the ball and the school has the right culture, safety is drilled into the primary training course from the first day. That's both to make sure each flight is safe, and also to give the student a foundation of good decision making and risk management. Maybe because it's assumed the pilot already has these skills, but most advanced training completely ignores these concepts. Although it's fair to say that instrument training has a decent focus on risk management, the commercial course, multiengine training, and especially aircraft checkouts and flight reviews barely touch on it. Twice I've said little prayers after ill-advised go-arounds during advanced training. The first was when the instructor called for a single-engine go-around in a multiengine training airplane that barely has the guts to climb on one engine, and that assumes perfect technique. The second was during an aircraft checkout when the mentor (not an instructor) had me perform a downwind emergency approach with rising terrain on the far side of the runway. I only have myself to blame as I was landing long and made the decision to go around.
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