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Instructor variance is the quiet killer of training programs: two sincere instructors, two different meanings of “qualified.” This page summarizes the instructor governance system — the full working version is the published Instructor Initial Qualification course (IN-IQ-01).
The qualification path
| Tier | Gate | Authority |
|---|---|---|
| Instructor Candidate | Current platform qualification with teach-and-evaluate (P3) proficiency demonstrated on designated tasks | Teaches only under supervision of a qualified instructor |
| Qualified Instructor (QI) | IN-IQ-01 complete + initial standardization evaluation passed | Instructs and grades; carries own currency clock |
| Evaluator | Selected QI, calibrated against other evaluators | Conducts qualification and instructor standardization evaluations |
The grading standard
Every flight task gets an entry in the maneuvers-guide format — Description / Objective / Procedures / Standards / Common Errors / References — with explicit criteria for each grade (U / F / Q / QI). This is the instrument that makes ten instructors grade the same flight the same way. An excerpt from the Manual Landing entry:
STANDARDS: Q — all steps unprompted; drift within 0.2 m/s at touchdown; gear extension verified; callouts complete. F — safe outcome but prompted, drift above limit, or a callout omitted. U — instructor intervention, yaw input during throttle reduction, or approach to the aircraft before disarm confirmed.
The format has provenance: it is the Embry-Riddle standardization-manual model I trained under, and the same approach we used at SUNY Farmingdale when the Chief Pilot and I wrote the maneuvers guide that put all instructors on one grading standard as the program built toward Part 141 certification.
Calibration — inter-rater reliability as a managed metric
Quarterly, all instructors independently grade the same flight against the written standard, then resolve divergence by reference to the standard — and where the standard was ambiguous, the standard gets fixed. Grading variance per task is tracked over time: falling variance means standardization is working; a task with chronically high variance has a badly written standard, not bad instructors.
The evaluation program
Modeled on the USAF aircrew standardization/evaluation structure, simplified for commercial UAS: an initial evaluation before QI designation (the evaluator grades the instructing and the grading, not just the flying), a periodic annual evaluation observing an ordinary instructional sortie, and for-cause evaluations after incidents, variance patterns, or student-failure trends. An unsatisfactory evaluation suspends QI status; requalification is specific to the deficiency, and the record shows the whole story — downgrade, corrective action, requalification.
The no-surprise principle
Instructors are evaluated against the same published standards they teach from, exactly as students are evaluated against the PQS. If it isn’t written down, nobody can be held to it — which is why everything in this program is.
Train-the-trainer
The first instructor cadre is trained centrally; designated evaluators then qualify the next ring in the field using the same PQS, grading standard, and calibration mechanism. Standardization scales by shipping the documents that contain the judgment — not by cloning one person.
Sample material prepared for an interview demonstration. Not an official Draganfly Inc. publication.