How do you define good pilots?
My observations over the years have led me to conclude that all pilots are deemed to be good pilots until they crash, then everybody at the airport suddenly (under their breath and safely out of range of the NTSB investigators) knows all of their short-comings and why they weren't really that good after all.
Unfortunately, some good pilots crash too, but probably not as frequently as the poor ones, and maybe for less-ignorant reasons. Professional pilots know that ongoing training is required and accept it as part of the package. Their accident rate when flying similar aircraft is a sliver of the overall GA rate, so it seems pretty clear (to me anyway) that continued training is a major contributor to safety, along with experience, judgement, maturity and luck.
We can debate the philosophy till hell freezes, or we can cut to the chase and acknowledge the reasons that pilots are reluctant to train are cost and fear of failure (being exposed as inept). What else can they be, other than a few arrogant *******s think they are better than they are and don't need any help from anybody.
If every licensed pilot was told that one full day of annual training was required each year, that it was free and that it would be specifically tailored and confined to the equipment and locale in which that pilot operates, how much kick-back would we get from them? The only caveat would be that the pilot had to satifactorially complete each portion the review before being signed off, and couldn't fly again until they did.
Doing such training as a LOFT session in a sim would allow much more realistic training for carb ice, IFR into VFR, fuel problems, deteriorating weather, impossible turns, pattern stall-spins, terrain and many other known killers that can't be taught in a plane.
I convinved a friend who also owned a 210 to accompany me to Flight Safety for my annual recurrent sim training. Within a month, he experienced a turbo failure after takeoff, with a chock-full airplane on a hot day. He had to dodge big buildings to return to the airport, and credits the training for his survival. His letter to FSI still hangs on the wall in their Wichita facility. Would he have made it safely without the training? He doesn't think so, and he's a smart guy. I'll take his word for it.
It's not that we don't know why pilots get killed, we just don't have the means or the resolve to lower the rate. That's probably not going to change, and the accident rate won't either.
That's fine, and that's why a learning pilot seeks instruction in new airplanes, new equipment, or for additional ratings.
Looking back over the last 5 years, I've flown with 10 different instructors in a wide variety of airplanes and learned a whole lot from each -- even those that weren't uber-CFI.
My point is -- a good pilot owns his/her development and proficiency and doesn't wait for guidance.
