Competency-Based Training and Evidence-Based Training

Competency-based training and assessment (CBTA) organises pilot training around what a competent pilot does rather than around a list of tasks to be completed. ICAO defines a set of pilot competencies, describes each one through observable behaviours, and asks training organisations to design their courses to reach those competencies and to assess against them. Evidence-based training (EBT) applies the same idea to the recurrent training of airline pilots: the content of the simulator sessions is chosen from evidence about what actually threatens modern operations, and the crew is graded on its competencies rather than on a fixed set of manoeuvres.

The change reaches every airline pilot. ICAO's Manual of Evidence-based Training (Doc 9995) and its training procedures, PANS-TRG (Doc 9868), set out the method; European rules allow an operator to replace the traditional cycle of proficiency checks with an approved EBT programme; and the same competencies now shape airline selection and crew resource management training. How the traditional cycle works is covered in airline pilot training and checking.

From task-based to competency-based training

Traditional training is task-based. The syllabus lists manoeuvres and procedures, and the pilot passes by flying each of them within set tolerances. Airline recurrent training grew up this way, largely on the evidence of accidents to early generations of jet aircraft: under EASA rules the operator proficiency check comes round every six months and covers normal, abnormal and emergency procedures, and the same worst-case events, such as an engine failure on take-off, recur in check after check, while new items were added over the years.

The weakness of the method is that a check can only test what is on the list. Modern airliners are reliable, and the events behind today's accidents, such as loss of control after an unexpected failure, mismanaged automation or a chain of small threats nobody caught, rarely resemble the rehearsed items. A crew drilled to fly the engine failure at V1 perfectly may still be unprepared for the situation nobody scripted. Loss of control in flight now kills more people in commercial aviation than any other accident category, and regulators responded by making upset prevention and recovery training mandatory.

CBTA starts from the other end. ICAO's training procedures define a competency as a dimension of human performance that is used to reliably predict successful performance on the job, shown through behaviours that draw on the relevant knowledge, skills and attitudes. A competency-based course states the competencies to be reached, the behaviours that show them and the standard expected, then builds the training to reach that standard and assesses against it. PANS-TRG also treats each competency as a countermeasure to threats, errors and undesired aircraft states, which ties CBTA to threat and error management. The multi-crew pilot licence course is built this way, with the trainee working in a multi-crew environment from an early stage (see commercial and airline transport pilot licences).

The pilot core competencies

The competencies describe the whole of a pilot's job, technical and non-technical together. That is the main difference from NOTECHS, the European behavioural marker system, which rates only non-technical skills (see crew resource management).

ICAO's framework treats the two forms of flight path management as separate competencies, so a pilot who manages the automation well but is rusty at hand flying, or the reverse, shows up as such in the grades. EASA's framework adds a ninth competency, the application of knowledge, covering the pilot's understanding of the aircraft, its systems, the procedures and the operating environment.

Observable behaviours and grading

An observable behaviour (OB) is a single action or statement, linked to one competency, that an instructor can see or hear and write down. "Confirms that the other pilot has understood the plan" is observable; "has good situation awareness" is a conclusion, not a behaviour. Each competency carries a set of OBs that together describe effective performance, so an assessor can say what a good or a weak performance looked like instead of offering an impression.

In a competency-based session the instructor notes what each pilot actually did and said, links each observation to a competency, and then grades the competency rather than the manoeuvre. The grade reflects how many of the expected behaviours were seen, how consistently, and what effect the performance had on the safety of the flight. A missed level-off, for instance, is only a symptom. The instructor looks for its root, which might lie in workload management (the crew was overloaded in the descent), in communication (the clearance was never confirmed) or in the automation (the wrong mode was armed), and the training then addresses that competency.

Grading works only if instructors grade alike. EBT programmes therefore standardise their instructors and monitor instructor concordance, the degree to which different instructors give the same grade for the same performance. The debriefing is facilitated rather than lectured: the crew is led to analyse its own performance, as after line-oriented flight training.

Evidence-based training: principles

EBT carries CBTA into recurrent training and adds the evidence. The industry analysed data from accidents and incidents, flight data monitoring, line operations safety audits and training records to find which threats, errors and malfunctions actually matter, and Doc 9995 turns the result into training topics, with priorities set separately for different generations of aircraft, so that the programme for a fly-by-wire jet differs from that for an older turboprop. Four principles follow:

• Competencies, not events. The scenario is a vehicle. A fire or a diversion is chosen because it exercises several competencies, and a crew that develops them is expected to transfer them to a situation it has never practised.
• Realism and variety. Sessions are line-oriented, and unexpected events and distractions are built in, so that the crew manages a situation instead of reciting a rehearsed answer. This links EBT to the management of startle and surprise.
• Training as well as checking. The assessment identifies what each pilot needs, and the rest of the time is spent developing it instead of repeating items already flown well.
• Feedback from data. Grades from the programme, combined with the operator's own operational data, reveal trends across the pilot population and change what is trained next.

EBT modules and phases

An EBT programme is delivered as a series of modules, each made up of simulator sessions, and the training topics rotate through the modules over a cycle of several years so that all of them are covered. ICAO's model divides each module into three phases, which EASA's rules group as an evaluation phase followed by a training phase:

The evaluation phase plays a role similar to the line operational evaluation of the FAA's Advanced Qualification Program: a realistic flight on which the crew's performance is graded. Its result shapes the rest of the module, and the training phase follows it. Manoeuvres training keeps practised the handling skills that must be exact whatever the scenario. In scenario-based training the crew meets threats, malfunctions and surprises in line-oriented scenarios, and the training aims at the competencies the evaluation found weak rather than at catching the crew out.

View full schematic

EBT in EASA rules

In the traditional European system the operator proficiency check is valid for six calendar months and the line check for twelve, and many operators arrange for one of the two proficiency checks to serve also as the licence proficiency check that revalidates the type rating. CRM and upset prevention and recovery training are built into the same recurrent programme.

EASA first allowed operators to introduce EBT elements within that cycle, an arrangement known as mixed EBT, and its Air Operations rules now let an operator replace the traditional recurrent training and checking with a full EBT programme approved by its competent authority. Approval depends on a programme that exposes every pilot to training topics derived from safety and operational data, EBT instructors standardised in the method and its grading system, and an instructor concordance assurance programme. The licensing rules were aligned so that an assessment within the programme can count towards revalidation of the type rating, sparing pilots a duplicate check.

In the United States the closest equivalent is the Advanced Qualification Program (AQP), a proficiency-based alternative to the standard Part 121 training categories. Its line operational evaluation plays a role similar to the EBT evaluation phase, and it integrates CRM into training and evaluation.

What changes for the crew

For the pilots in the simulator, EBT changes the character of recurrent training:

• No fixed script. A pilot can no longer prepare by rehearsing a known check profile; what counts is keeping general competence current, including hand flying.
• Feedback by competency. Grades show which competencies are strong and which need work, and the trend can be followed over several modules rather than judged on a single session.
• Both seats count. The pilot monitoring's communication, cross-checking and workload management are assessed as closely as the pilot flying's handling.
• Training follows assessment. A weakness found in the evaluation phase is trained in the same module instead of simply being recorded.
• One language throughout a career. The same competencies appear in airline selection, from the airline simulator assessment to competency-based pilot interviews, and EBT records follow pilots towards promotion: Emirates, for example, lists at least six completed EBT modules among its criteria for internal command upgrade.

The approach does not make training easier. It asks crews to manage whole flights well rather than to fly individual manoeuvres within tolerance, which is closer to what the line demands.

Library articles are written for study and exam preparation. They do not replace your aircraft's approved documentation, your operator's procedures or the regulations themselves.