Safety training rules
Safety training is the IBA’s mechanism for ensuring everyone teaching in or being taught in its tunnels is demonstrably trained right now. It’s how currency stays active for the cycle-based roles, and how new instructors / trainers / examiners prove they’ve done the curriculum required to advance.
Programme catalogue
A safety-training event is always tied to one of these programmes:
- Flyer safety training — for everyone who flies.
- Instructor safety training — additional curriculum for members authorised to teach.
- Trainer safety training — for members who train instructors.
- Coach safety training — for coaches working on technique.
- Examiner safety training — for examiners who run formal assessments.
- Military safety training — for military flyers; runs against the parallel military programme rather than the standard IBA cycles.
A member only does the programmes relevant to the roles they hold (per member-lifecycle). A flyer does flyer training. An instructor does both flyer and instructor. A coach who is also a flyer does both.
Initial vs recurrent
| Kind | When | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Initial | First time entering a programme. Often combined with the assessment that grants the underlying role. | Longer, more comprehensive curriculum. Typically run by a higher-tier role. |
| Recurrent | Periodic refresh on the role’s currency cadence. | Shorter. Focused on what’s changed and what tends to be forgotten. ~95% of recorded safety-training events. |
The currency cadence by role drives when recurrent training is required:
- Instructor / coach: every six months (cycle-based).
- Trainer / examiner: annually.
- Flyer: only if 180-day flight-activity rule has lapsed (otherwise no recurrent training needed).
- Military: per the partnering military programme.
Approval workflow
A safety-training event isn’t valid until it’s approved, and the approver’s qualification matters:
- Flyer recurrent training → an instructor at the tunnel signs off after the session.
- Instructor / trainer / coach recurrent training → a higher-tier role (typically a trainer or examiner) signs off.
- Initial training that grants a new role → an examiner runs the session; a separate verification step often follows.
Critically, both signatures must come from people whose own currency is active at the time of signing. You can’t be signed off by someone who’s themselves out of date. If an approver’s currency lapses between session and entry being recorded, the training isn’t recorded as valid.
See approval levels for the full “who can sign what” matrix.
What lapsing looks like
A scheduled job runs daily and flips members to “not current” when they miss a recurrent training window. Once not current:
- Booking-driven flights stop generating logbook entries.
- The member is sent a notification with a recovery path.
- Skill approvals they grant stop counting (if they’re an approver-tier member).
Recovery is “do the training”. For most lapses the recurrent module is enough. For members deep enough out of cycle, initial training is required again (per the currency module’s “beyond 5 months” rules for cycle-based roles).
Sub-page
- Training enrollment flow — sequence diagram of how a member enrolls in, takes, and gets credited for a training event.