Steve Freeman

Training people who perform under pressure

Steve has spent more than 30 years training and developing high-performance pilots in the military and commercial sectors. He began on military fast jets, flying operationally and as an instructor, and is now a current evidence-based training (EBT) simulator and line training captain with a major UK airline. His airline career has included nine years as a base pilot manager, delivering operational excellence with responsibility for safety. He also works in Standards Assurance, a role where noticing how procedures drift and why errors happen is part of the job.

EBT changed how airlines train: instead of repeating the same checks, pilots are assessed against competencies, graded from evidence and developed in realistic scenarios, including the unexpected. It works because professionals want to get better, and because it gives everyone the same language for what good looks like.

Why motorsport

Two seasons racing in the Porsche Club Championship, finishing third overall in Class 2 in 2018, showed Steve how much of a race is decided by the same skills he trains in pilots: awareness, decisions under time pressure, communication and managing workload. Top-level motorsport already measures the car in extraordinary detail. Free-Force Performance brings the same rigour to the people.

Assessors

To corroborate grades, Steve works with qualified assessors from similar aviation training and standards backgrounds, known to him. Independent grading by more than one assessor ensures concordance: different assessors reach the same grade from the same evidence, so a grade means the same thing whoever gives it.