Beyond pilot training

With its free-of-charge Safety Standdown seminars at Wichitaw and EBACE Geneva, Bombardier takes civil pilots into realms way beyond the "aviate, navigate, communicate" arts of flying they are traditionally exposed to.

You have to go to one to find out what I mean, because you don't know what you don't know until somebody shows you.

But when you've been to the Standdown, especially to the full four-day Wichita session, you walk away taller, with the enthusiasm you once felt about your profession renewed, and a justified belief that you can do your job better.

The training on offer puts you in scenarios that normally only military pilots get to train for - but which are highly relevant to any pilot in any job. As I said before, it makes you realise how narrowly focussed your training has been.

Then the human factors instruction takes you beyond anything anyone else does, providing a degree of self awareness as an aviator that will stand you in good stead when things get tough at any level.

If you have the opportunity to go to the Standdown and you don't take it, you - or your employer - need your head checked.  Quite apart from anything else, it is serious fun for serious aviators.

The Standdown takes pilots beyond the graduate level and into the realms of the Masters.