"There is something rotten in the House of Agusta!"

[InstruMENTAL]

Been hearing ultra-poor feedback from pilots trying to achieve their 139 training in Italy - instructors not turning up for days at a time, trainees being given pointless exercises to fly, pilots being stalled(for weeks at a time) until their company's actual airframe rolls of the assembly line before flying training may commence,...and so on, and so forth.

I have been told that the upper management at the sim facility have all been fired to try to address these shortcomings. Is anybody aware if this culling has improved the situation.

Thanks

[paco]

I had heard that they were only interested in quantity and not quality. And it wasn't the fault of the instructors, but the company. just what i heard!

it would need something as drastic as that to change things

phil

[BlenderPilot]

The first two pilots to try to go to training in the A139 for the people I work have been bumped a couple of times due to instructor unavailability, and also waiting for the ship to be completed to take the training in it, but that will be in PA.

I am scheduled to attend the A109E initial, (for the second time) on Sept. 10-14, anbody else from here to attend??

[Captain Buck]

I hear that the problem is the shortage of suitably qualified instructors. You're right about the quality/quantity issue. There's one woman in the HR department of CAE in UK who thought that you could train monkeys to teach exercises in the sim by numbers. Now they may have had a rethink, but the same person is still in the loop and it makes it very hard for the guys over in Italy to get the quality they want. A number of guys have already left because of frustration with the system and the way things are run. Don't reckon it'll improve in the short term unless they try harder to get the people they need to do the job, not just fill the slots :ugh:. It's very frustrating for clients and maybe more pressure needs to be put on Agusta. In present days you don't expect to buy a multi-million dollar machine and not have at least a couple pilots per machine having a quality factory course and a good simulator for part of the training and recurrent training. My training will begin on ........

[paco]

Well, now, if we're talking about CAE, I did (and passed0 an interview ages ago and am still waiting to hear from them...... I know what you mean about the HR dept!

phil

[Geoffersincornwall]

I'm sure my colleagues will agree with me when I say that we appreciate all constructive criticism here at Rotorsim but ill-informed mud-slinging can only increase the heat without providing any illumination.
There has been a management change here but that was a natural progression as the engineer who set the sim centre up was replaced by an experienced (and very capable) Training School Manager.
The fantastic success of the 139 has put pressure on all aspects of the Customer Services we provide but you can rest assured that we are working hard to deliver the goods.
Those with previous sim experience will understand that a Type Rating gained under JARs or FARs is nothing like the recurrent training you may select for your particular company. The syllabus and lesson content is fixed as soon as it becomes approved by the TRTO overseers and we don't have a lot of latitude for 'entertainment'.
The course is also designed and delivered in English by English speaking instructors of which we have just 3 'on-line' as we speak and 3 more in the pipeline currently receiving their own training. The bulk of our students have so far been non-English speakers whose language skills vary from 'adequate' to 'non-existant'. I'm sure you can understand what a challenge that presents.
The staff here have impressed this old shag (me?) with their commitment to professionalism and to constant improvement of the product.
All constructive criticism is welcome but it may be more effective if it is directed to us personally rather than trying to stir up emotions in the pages of Pprune.
As I am not a company appointed spokesman don't expect me to respond to thread-based questions but PMs are always welcome.
G
:ok:

PS - we can observe that the guy(?) who started this thread has made just one post - this one - motives would be nice to know.

[tottigol]

GeoffInCorn. are you all short instructors?
If so, can you please PM me the requirements?

[rotortuna]

:mad: If the NEW management are working so hard why is it such a universally accepted opinion Agusta has lost the plot.

Major international companies give away their pilot training slots for engineer training and train their own. Albeit not to any better standard, but certainly much cheaper than the waste of time spent at Vergiate and Cesto Calende.

The engineer training is even worse than the pilot. The instructors are EX something, never held a civil license and never worked or seen the aircraft until the previously pseudo accredited team packed off to USA and they were parachuted in. The engineering training does not meet any of the major authority requirements and is an absolute sham.:D Agusta should be sweating bullets with their :=ACCREDITED TRAINING:= and the lack of knowledge their instructors possess. Most if not all of the students rocking up for training are better suited to instruct than the boys in house.

That is not to say they will never get there, or they are not trying hard, they are indeed by all accounts, but as indicated earlier $13,000,000.00 USD:eek: a copy deserves more effort on Agusta's part.

[Vidal 423]

Rotortuna,

Your comments would carry far more credence if you had actually been to the training school. If you had you would know that it is SESTO Calende.

We are all EX something - how else would be qualified or experienced enough to teach?

Weather is lovely here today. :)

[rotortuna]

S / C, my Agusta rep associate details that indeed I may have been quick to spell the name without verifying. Nonetheless back in the days when John Heanen (spelling not verified) was at the school trying to be effective and being stonewalled by the Family, meetings at the old school actually ended in physical contact.:ugh: Enough detail to verify my attendance, or would you prefer a detailed transcript of my Agusta instructors, or possibly I could forward my OJT record to you to show my attendance at the Experimental (spelling not verified) Hangar.

My credentials and experience are of no consequence to you, as clearly you respond in honest belief of your endeavor being noble. At the very least you're quite happy with the monthly stipend that Agusta pays its expat workers in stark contrast with the 1200 - 1800 euros per month its naturalized workforce receives, benefits notwithstanding.

Yes, I certainly agree with you from an adult education point of view a correctly constructed OTU and Engineering syllabus does not have to be taught by subject matter experts. But the fact is THERE APPEARS TO BE NO SYLLABUS, to this very day they are making it as they go along. Hastily photo copied excerpts from questionable sources does not quite cut it as a student study manual. Take a look at the P&WC study manual, a better quality example does not exist anywhere.

DO YOU REALLY THINK YOUR CADRE OF IN HOUSE AND RECENTLY GRADUATED STUDENTS ARE NOT TALKING TO THEIR COMPANIES ON HOW MUCH A COLOSSAL WASTE OF TIME IT IS TO GO TO THE SHINY NEW SCHOOL @ SESTO CALENDE.

I hear a middle east company is trying to get their engineers in the flow for a course by CHC. Rumor or not, do not even know if this course exists, but it defines the level of contempt for the current training. Possibly they are trying to train their people quicker who knows.

It is a beautiful stay at the Tre Re (3 Kings), fantastic courtyard/sidewalk cafe, short walk to the school. I bet you did not even know about the extensive remodel, Sylvia and her family, undertook to make an excellent hotel even better. You probably didn't even know it is family owned.

My casual comments on the viability of the individuals is aimed at Agusta not the persons, shallow as that may appear.

It is daunting enough to be in the education sector at best but to be in the Aviation Education sector, EXPECT NO MERCY. With the resulting fines and possibility of jail from errors in judgment and maintenance practices aviators ET AL are above the curve in professionalism.

The lack of true 24/7 support, documentation mismanagement, delivery line oversight, build quality, hydraulic system bypass, elastomeric bearing failures, exhaust failures, long lead time for nose tire tubes, standard practice non-compliance etc etc etc. How about the best one, Agusta does not share its collective community experience with all operators so it enhances the quality and availability of the type.

Already the universal community sentiment is great helicopter wrong company.

So yes I have been to SESTO CALENDE.:=

[paco]

rotortune - that's pretty much what I heard, but my source was particularly concerned with the FMS training, pointing out that the same item in a Gulfstream would get you a week's training at least, yet less than a day at Augusta - I don't know that for a fact myself, but the essential point was that the training given was relatively cursory.

My skills in DTP were what prompted me to apply for a position there, but a source of frustration for me is not being allowed to do my best work, so maybe it's best that it's been a bit quiet!

phil

[rotortuna]

Nicely stated and politely portrayed, as a company man I am sure we all are.

Quite honestly my instructors were of substantial knowledge derived from hands on, if not at least long exposure to the project.

A true rant would be bereft of fact and most certainly much more seething in tone, and thank-you for being concerned about my health.

All else true or fiction, I simply have been made aware of problems during my substantial time at Vergiate, but the timbre in the assembly barns certainly tells a tale.

Training is a daunting undertaking and the Lombardy countryside breathtaking but I humbly must decline your offer for employment as I have promised myself to another.

But assuredly my comments are inappropriate here as this is the Professional Pilots Rumour Network and of which I speak I know to be fact.


you can tune a piano but you cannot tuna fish:ok:

[rotortuna]

Quite true and further to the point the similarity to the big fish in the sky is more than most realize.

The salient fact still remains though how much of the latest FMS capability do you need to do an out and back.

A new real danger from a CRM aspect is the eyes in and eyes out distraction of the new whizzbang screens. I have been on acceptance test flights where the Agusta test pilot, and customer, both have eyes in the cockpit. This went beyond my comfort zone for so long I called for eyes out due to the busy traffic around Vergiate / Milano and all the other hobby fields in the area.

One only has to assess the size of chapter three in the RFM 4D to fathom the scope of capability within the system. 180 pages are in Chapter 3 of which approximately 50 pages are AFCS and related systems.

If that were not enough I challenge anyone to say that they have wrestled through the expanse of Supplement 12, Cat A Ops (250 pages) with all its different aspects. It has its own emergency procedures and even a different power check (part G Common Performance). This supplement alone is larger than most Flight Manuals.

Quite possibly one day may be a little light in being able to teach the Honeywell FMS in the AW139.

But hey, FlungDung has just completed his OTU so help is on the way. I am sure as an instructor at Agusta he had more exposure than the average student.

Here's a challenge, does anyone know how many pages are currently contained within the FMS / MCDU's?

And oh did I mention, I have been to Sesto Calende!:ok:

[phoenixaw139]

I spoke with several of the engineer instructors while I was attending a course in Sesto Calende and it is really bad there.

What they told me is that only a couple of instructors are licensed engineers and most of them came from other departments in Agusta. To be an instructor pilot, one has to actually be a pilot, why not the same for engineer instructors?

Apparently training is not a priority for Agusta, it's just something we customers complain about.

[Captain Buck]

Well if you but a Fiat you expect it to rust, right? Even if you buy a Ferrari you know it's beautiful, impractical and unreliable even if it is incredibly powerful. They're Italian, what else do you think :E