By Joseph E. (Jeb) Burnside

If you’ve been around aviation much at all, you’ve heard this one before: "[Fill in the blank] is a license to learn." The speaker invariably is looking in the direction of a freshly minted Private pilot or someone with a wet-ink Instrument rating. He or she is admonishing, in a not-so-subtle way, that a certificate of accomplishment issued by the FAA doesn’t mean squat on a dark and stormy night when the rain sounds like a bad rock band’s drummer and the altimeter just won’t stay in one place. …