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Sad story about a high and mighty check airman

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Sad story about a high and mighty check airman

Old 10th Dec 2012, 06:05
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This pommie canuck should long be put to pasture! Have never come across such fake and insincere piece of work. Teaches rubbish during his sim sessions.
Very true. This is the guy who teaches pilots to shut the fuel control switch off immediately upon an RTO in case of an engine failure without reference to the checklist because " you might get a fuel leak ". At the same time he lambasts you for not following the ECL to the letter in the case of an engine surge whereby you continue the memory items of auto-throttle arm switch off (affected side ), thrust lever ( effected side ) idle down to fuel control switch ( affected side ) cut off IF THE SURGE CONTINUES even though the fuel control switch to cut off is not a memory item in the engine surge non-normal checklist in the ECL.

Likewise he lambasts pilots for descending down early to the visual circuit altiude once cleared for visual approach. He expects you to fly his " Vancouver visual " approach way of keeping a 3 degree flight path because of noise concerns. " Keep high at 3000 ft or above and maneuver for a visual 3 degree glide path ", he admonishes! Well that is a local YVR requirement for a day of good visibility! There are airports in other parts of the world whereby for ATC purposes you should get down to circuit altitude pronto. Likewise where there are some cloud banks, one should get down to circuit altitude early to continue to maintain visual contact with terrain and airport environment. Well I guess he is so proud of his " Vancouver " way that he judges other pilots' visual approach techniques as unacceptable.

I am surprised that Alteon keep such instructors and checkers; what is even more surprising is that KAL agree to keep such retards around the training center.

Last edited by Prince Rupert; 10th Dec 2012 at 15:00.
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Old 10th Dec 2012, 19:53
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He was just teaching his own techniques and preferences. We have this kind of dinosaurs all over, full of themselves and their self declared much vaunted procedures.
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Old 18th Dec 2012, 10:20
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Absoluely amazing that Boeing/Alteon recruited such non rated pilots as instructors and pulled wool over their customer airlines.

The sim is a good tool to check on adherence to SOPs, procedures, etc. However we all know that the sim can never replicate the handling characteristics of an actual aircraft. However good the visuals are, they are synthetic. A instructor/checker worth his salt surely knows that and will duly factor that in his assessment of the checkee.

This thread makes great reading for all pilots. Much as I sympatise with babablackship's mentor, I think that are many of his ilk out there who indeed need such a wake up call.
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Old 24th Dec 2012, 16:59
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Quote:
This pommie canuck should long be put to pasture! Have never come across such fake and insincere piece of work. Teaches rubbish during his sim sessions.
I know this guy, a real vindictive chap but seems extremely nice to those who have not seen his bad side. Once I had a session after he had given sim PT to some guy. He was complaining to a fellow Alteon guy(my checker ) about his earlier trainee...it seemed that he was pissed that the trainee, a south east asian gentleman, had remarked that his ( the instructor's ) conduct of a sim exercise was negative training! He sounded peeved and vengeful.

What I learnt later was that it was a CFIT exercise. The trainee was vectored and put through a high descent rate towards the terrain, the goal was to
induce a " terrain, terrain " and subsequently a " terrain, terrain, pull up, pull up " GPWS warning. However with the high descent rate coupled with the fast reducing radio altimeter reading, the trainee stowed the speedbrakes first. And just as the speedbrakes are stowed, the GPWS warnings came and the trainee made the standard recovery with full power up, autothrottle/autopilot off, wings level, pitch 20deg up, then recomfirm speedbrakes stowed, etc. He was lambasted during the debrief that he had the procedure wrong! He MUST HAVE THE POWER UP, AUTOMATION OFF, WINGS LEVEL, PITCH 20deg, then only speed brakes!

The trainee argued that he was just stowing the speed early because by the high terrain closure rate he sensed through the radio altimeter, he had instintively stowed it earlier out of sequence BUT HE HAD SUBSEQUENTLY ENSURED THAT THEY WERE REALLY STOWED. The instructor maintained that was absolutely wrong! Follow SOP! The trainee then argued that in real life flying, he would NEVER EVER leave the speedbrakes deployed with such a reducing terrain closure rate as indicated by the fast reducing radio altitude, remarking that the exercise could be negative training. That must have riled that 757 hero! I was not sure if language problem ( the trainee was some south east asian chap ) was the case of the remark of negative training making the instructor upset, because the trainee might not have articulated it very well.

I understood the trainee's contention but I guessed there was miscommunication as the real intent of the exercise was to activate the GPWS warning, then recover. So I think instructors should be able to communicate their intent well before hand to avoid being " badly stung " by comments of negative training by a perceived upstart!

Last edited by Namor; 24th Dec 2012 at 17:03.
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Old 1st Jan 2013, 20:28
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Written by Namor...
The trainee argued that he was just stowing the speed early because by the high terrain closure rate he sensed through the radio altimeter, he had instintively stowed it earlier out of sequence BUT HE HAD SUBSEQUENTLY ENSURED THAT THEY WERE REALLY STOWED. The instructor maintained that was absolutely wrong! Follow SOP! The trainee then argued that in real life flying, he would NEVER EVER leave the speedbrakes deployed with such a reducing terrain closure rate as indicated by the fast reducing radio altitude, remarking that the exercise could be negative training. That must have riled that 757 hero! I was not sure if language problem ( the trainee was some south east asian chap ) was the case of the remark of negative training making the instructor upset, because the trainee might not have articulated it very well.
Absolutely correct, seat of the pants and great airmanship! I have had sim sessions whereby the F/O keep on charging down with full speedbrakes deployed despite my pre-emptive warnings about " altimeter alive " and excessive altimeter reducing rates! Once I took over and recovered from the impending CFIT before the GPWS warnings and was alo chided for it. I agree, it is absolutely NEGATIVE in establishing a certain mindset!
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Old 2nd Jan 2013, 00:56
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[quoteWhat I learnt later was that it was a CFIT exercise. The trainee was vectored and put through a high descent rate towards the terrain, the goal was to
induce a " terrain, terrain " and subsequently a " terrain, terrain, pull up, pull up " GPWS warning. However with the high descent rate coupled with the fast reducing radio altimeter reading, the trainee stowed the speedbrakes first. And just as the speedbrakes are stowed, the GPWS warnings came and the trainee made the standard recovery with full power up, autothrottle/autopilot off, wings level, pitch 20deg up, then recomfirm speedbrakes stowed, etc. He was lambasted during the debrief that he had the procedure wrong! He MUST HAVE THE POWER UP, AUTOMATION OFF, WINGS LEVEL, PITCH 20deg, then only speed brakes][/quote]

What the checkee/trainee did was absolutely correct and prudent!

If the objective of the exercise is to give an unexpected GPWS warning and checking if the checkee/trainee recover correctly, what the check airman should have done was to create a " glass mountain ", triggering off a sudden GPWS warning. Besides the " glass mountain " there are other means of triggering the GPWS without getting the checkee/trainee to do a deep dive! Sheesh.
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Old 4th Jan 2013, 12:34
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Negative training?

I thought the term negative training applies only to weight training! And it is supposed to be good and highly effective!

I guess this term must have negative connotations so much so that the forementioned check airman got so peeved.

I would consider the frequent re positionings, slewing and " fast double speed " to be negative too! Too often the gyros between my ears toppled beyond recovery from the constant repostionings so much so I actually gained nothing from the training exercises. I just become plain robotic to get the exercises over with.
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Old 6th Jan 2013, 21:24
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Heard from a reliable source that KAL is conducting an audit on the alteon geriatrics. Seemed like they are finally coming around to addressing the complaints aired aeons ago!

Amitabh, I believe the term negative training is also used loosely in aviation parlance albeit to indicate undesirable effects as opposed to that for weight training.
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Old 11th Jan 2013, 00:43
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Blokes with thin skins and big egos have no place in the training business. Bruised egos can wreck havoc to other people's careers and well being.

It makes me wonder why a reputable entity like Boeing does not employ psychological testing to weed out these silent killers.
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Old 18th Jan 2013, 06:29
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Was alerted to this thread by a friend who said I should post my experiences with some Alteon checkers.

Some years ago I was rostered to assist as F/O for several foriegn captains consecutively over several days. I was not under check but acted as copilot to several expat captains. 2 of the captains bungled some of the check items and generally performed quite poorly but still passed. One other captain did very well eccept that he landed a bit long (about 2500-2800 ft) passed the threshod during a dual hydraulic failure case. He was given a real dressing down even thpugh it was a 13123 ft runway. As we ran out of time, it was marked as incomplete...the company considered it as a fail and he had to do the whole check all over again. Another captain did very well too, and because he did well the checker keep moving the " goal posts " so to speak...items that were recommended as waived by the previous instructor were ignored and still conducted in the check. Well he breezed through that, so the checker made some ingenious things so he finally ended with a hard landing. I knew the checker played dirty because when we did the approach preparation we had fuel to the effect of landing some 50000 lbs below max landing weight. When after the so called " hard landing ", my side vision caught sign of a fuel quantity increase of some 49000 lbs more than we had calculated. The increase in weight must have accounted for the " sudden drop " at close to touchdown! I pointed that out, but the checker just hushed me up by saying that he had configured a reset of the simulator for max landing weight for the next exercise. It was complete bs...it was our last item and so when I pointed that out, he said he is just setting up the sim weight for the next instructor taking over the sim as a courtesy!

Why did I bother to write this....because the 2 expats who passed even though they performed below par were westerners. The other 2 who had a hard time were from third world countries. I just lost my respect for that checker; my complains to our training manager was a waste of time as he said it was the 2 third worlders's misfortune and he did not want to rock the Alteon-KAL relationship when no Korean captains are involved. I was just a lowly co pilot, so I couldn't pursue the issue any further.

Now lest some people doubt my account, so be it...it is just some people just can't be honest about their fellow ethnic groups's misconduct.
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Old 20th Jan 2013, 01:26
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All ethnic groups have the unenlightened ones with their skeletons and demons. Some of the Alteon folks fall into that category. During my time in the Land of the Morning Calm, I had met mostly professional and diligent instructors and checkers from Alteon. Sure, there were a couple of jerks tending to be racist. How did I know that? Well, there were times when we foreign captains were paired up for sim training on the right hand seat as KAL prepared for the local pilots' strike. On two occasions I was paired up with some Asian bloke who performed better than I did! Surprise, surprise...during the debriefing, all sorts of little trivial faults of the poor bloke were harshly pointed out whilst mine were scarcely mentioned and that was only after I volunteered to own up to my own boo boos!

I was an old fart by then and I had ditched all those self aggrandizing attitudes, smugness and superiority complex. I just made light humour of the
two episodes, knowing that somewhere along the line the guys who still hold such complexes somehow get their come-uppance. This thread should be suggested reading for lots of guys venturing to teach, train and check in multi ethnic or multi cultural environments.

Last edited by gleneagles; 22nd Jan 2013 at 06:35.
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Old 21st Jan 2013, 19:00
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about 8 years ago, I had a PT/PC training session with an Alteon checker. I was co pilot. My cpatain was a Canadian fella. He was all over place with the engine V1 cuts; the instructor was was ever so patient even though he did sound a bit exasperated towards the end. Despite that chap going off the runway a couple of times, it was still a satisfactory check. well, some weeks later I was on simulator co pilot job again...this time, the same instructor but the non caucasian checkie had a hard time eventhough he never had any of the errors and blunders like the earlier guy. I was peeved at the unfairness and discrimination. I talked to the later captain at lodging a protest but he said that it would be futile. The Alteon checkers never fail a Korean countrymen of mine UNLESS they had prior clearance from our management pilots. The failees are normally the ones out of favor, not of the same clicqe. All those talk of superior fairplay are just hot air.
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Old 30th Jan 2013, 21:50
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about 8 years ago, I had a PT/PC training session with an Alteon checker. I was co pilot. My cpatain was a Canadian fella. He was all over place with the engine V1 cuts; the instructor was was ever so patient even though he did sound a bit exasperated towards the end. Despite that chap going off the runway a couple of times, it was still a satisfactory check
Oh oh, that must be the one with name like fish fry, big fry in a small frying pan??? I know that guy; I am not going to add anything adverse, but just to say that being paired up with him in the sim was no fun. Pretty embarassing even st.......
Alas, these things happen. We live in a real world, not some kind of true to God fairness utopia! Well, I heard he is out of KAL, so you can breathe easy.

Last edited by billabongbill; 30th Jan 2013 at 21:51.
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Old 12th Feb 2013, 16:51
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I know that what I am about to suggest may not be very practical but I strongly feel all check airmen need to undergo psychological testing or assessment to ascertain whether they are genuinely up to the task.

In my younger days as a lowly first officer, I had come across many specimens who might be great machine operators but absolutely lacking in people skills. However due to old boy's networking they were made checkers making life really miserable for those not of their mindset or skin colour.

This does not mean we should take political correctness to the extreme. However, those gungho kick ass type certainly have no place in the check and training department in any professional set up.
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