My airline career is over and indeed my military career that preceeded it. One thing I do know is that groundschool and associated technical training has been repeatedly cut over the last forty years as airlines, in particular, seek to reduce costs. The days of 'chalk and talk' appear to be long gone. Now it appears to be a case of self-study using CBT with maybe, just maybe, a groundschool instructor being a available somewhere in the building. How many of us used to photocopy diagrams of fuel, oil, hydraulic and air systems to put into folders which we carried in our cases, readily available at a moments notice ? But of course its now all there in the laptop or tablet but how many younger pilots actually look at them ?
It is churlish to automatically assume that pilots from North America, Western Europe or Australasia are better trained than their colleagues from less affluent parts of the globe yet this seems to be the jist of some contributions here. Thinking back to some of the manuals I have had the dubious pleasure of reading over the years, it seems to me that they have become ever more simple to a point where complicated systems can be described in a paragraph or two. The manufacturers seem to have adopted a 'need to know' philosophy designed for the lowest common denominator within the field of aircraft purchasers and operators. Any wonder therefore that a system such as MCAS is sketched over in order to provide a simple differences course rather than more expensive and time consuming study in the classroom and simulator.
Boeing will of course find a fix for their problems in due course which will hopefully be correctly tested and approved by the regulator in a rather less cosy in-house manner. Getting the paying public to get on the aircraft will be a big challenge a little further down the line; I am guessing that decals proclaiming 737-800 Max will be very hard to find !