The airlines use a form of training called Line Oriented Flight Training or LOFT. "Line" refers to the "flight line." In a LOFT scenario a pilot and crew are in the simulator but instead of practicing maneuvers, they fly through an actual flight from Seattle to Los Angeles as an example.
As flight students and instructors we work very hard to improve our skills and maintain our status as safe pilots. But can our methods of flight training actually create problems once the student has left the protected environment of the flight instructor? In some cases the answer to that question is YES!
What are the Airlines doing that we should be doing? The National Transportation Safety Board initially classifies 65-percent of the General Aviation accidents as "pilot error" accidents.
Joe Marsh was the airport manager at Sedalia, Missouri, when I first began giving flight instruction 15 years ago (Joe's now manager at Easton, MD -- drop in and say hello for me!). Retired from the Air Force, Joe had served first as a navigator and then as pilot on lumbering C-124 four-engine, propeller-driven cargo airplanes. In the mid-1960s, Vietnam was a common destination for Joe and his crew.
As far as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is concerned, there are only two ways for a civilian to learn to fly... either the school you use is FAA approved, or it is not.