deltaindia
Pre-Flight
20 years ago, METAR and TAF did not exist in the US and neither did Class A, B, C, D or E airspace. ....
enough that has changed over the course of 20 years that it will probably take more than an afternoon of flipping though a book.
The airspace designations did exist 20 years ago, actually. I remember because I began my training in the Summer of 1994 and recall my instructor going over the New York sectional and mentioning that the airspace names "recently changed". METARs and TAFs also existed in 1994.
Aside from that, the CFI should absolutely encourage the pilot to go through the current PTS and relevant FAA handbooks (flying, aeronautical knowledge).
Out of curiosity, has he tried looking up his name in registry.faa.gov to see if/how his pilot info is reflected?