TPS 67

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    • Warning to Airlines: Flight Instructor Shortage Could Create Long-Term Problems [view article]
      True dat, Spudman. Apr 02 03:22 PM
    • Warning to Airlines: Flight Instructor Shortage Could Create Long-Term Problems [view article]
      From my perspective, after a full 44 years as a military jet pilot, followed by a lengthy career as a pilot for a major airline, the situation seems actually worse than is made evident by just the diminishing pool of qualified pilots and instructors.

      There is, and has been for some time now, the assumption that all that is required to be an airline pilot is that one jumps through the requisite training hoops; ground-school, simulator training, and passes the defined check-rides. Whereas in years past a pilot was presumed to have garnered substantial experience, knowledge, and wisdom, he is now simply able to acquire a license to command a passenger jet merely by satisfying the formally defined qualifiers ...and the simulator check-ride is the major one.

      Unfortunately, the entire modern initial type-rating training process, which is the avenue for granting a command pilot rating, is more, and more, designed to minimize training costs and circumvent a truly thorough evaluation of the candidate for the rating. As a matter of fact, the entire simulator training curriculum is now intended to simply rehearse aspects of the "rating-ride"... The check-ride is predictable to a fault, and it's predictability permits many of dubious skill to train for the sim check as if it were a video game, and ultimately pass the test.

      Tragically, there's a perception that just about any monkey can be trained to fly a high-performance jet by the numbers. Looks pretty easy, after all.

      This is a more prevalent attitude in this world of intense economic competition in which there is pressure all the way from the regulators (here the FAA), down through the aircraft manufacturers who strongly support sales of older jets to 3rd world, or low-cost, new entrant, carrier in the State (so that they can sell new, replacement, airplanes), and ultimately the airlines, themselves, who will try avoid spending every penny they possibly can. Of course, this leads to a terribly higher cost, unavoidably, when inept, or marginally capable pilots find themselves ill-prepared to deal with the inevitable circumstances which they will sometime meet, and find exceeds their abilities. When that moment comes airplanes are destroyed and people die in them.

      Pilot knowledge, which must be passed down from generation to generation if we hope to avoid re-learning tragic lessons learned in blood, has been assigned a monetary value. The airline industry, and the support infra-structures surrounding it, has pretty much determined that it's cheaper to accept some loss of life than to assure that it provides the best trained and qualified pilot force. That's just too much expense. Better to skimp on training costs...after all, isn't that what liability insurance is for?

      For the price of a ticket, you get to share the pilot's fate.

      As for me, if it's not a big jet, flown by a reputable flag carrier, I'm driving, riding a horse, or just staying home.

      Apr 02 12:13 PM
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