Originally Posted by
Rottweiler22
I enjoyed the course, but in all honesty I can’t see much of it’s applicable value in an airline environment.
It seemed to me like it was just 3 hours of flying slotted in between two days of briefings. All I remember is basic stall recovery, slipping and skidding stalls, spins, and nose high / nose low recoveries.
Granted, the briefings were some of the best I’ve ever seen. Delivered by ex-fast jet pilots. The flying was fun, but all I really learnt from it was “pitch, power, roll”, which was their mantra. After the various stalls and recoveries had been completed (which took about 15 minutes), the instructor gave demonstrations of endless aerobatic manoeuvres. It seemed like the instructors spent most of the time showing off and getting some stick time. You really don’t have much time up there, especially when most of the hour consisted of departures and arrivals.
The things I took from it were what I already knew from the PPL stage. And were taught to me by a PPL instructor in a Piper. And the type-relevant stuff taught in a type rating. It’s a great experience to fly in an airplane fit for the Red Bull Air Race with an F-16 pilot sat behind you, but I honestly don’t think UPRT should be mandatory. It’s a farce how if training isn’t expensive enough, it’s now going to cost £2,000 more. Not to mention the difficulty of getting it scheduled in Europe, considering it needs perfect weather.
There’s definitely an element of self-preservation and training providers who are trying to justify their own existence with this one.
I am disappointed to read this. Whichever ATO you attended, they have clearly had a Training Manual approved, but are not delivering it, or understand it. This is most probably down to instructor standardisation/training. The course is not about aerobatics - or the instructors ability to 'show off', it is about the physiological and psychological aspects of a divergence from a normal flight path and the coping strategies of that, in accordance with operation in multi crew environment as scenarios of a commercial aircraft.
There are very few ATO's in the UK approved to deliver this and I would be surprised if it was one of the top 3. Also, this course need not be too expensive to delegates, but it is worthy noting the costs to an ATO to deliver this course, as well as the calibre of instructors used by said ATO - well certainly the top 3!
Having delivered Advanced UPRT - A to 29 delegates so far this month, I can also concur that this is a real challenge weather wise, but delegates should be mindful that ATO's have their minimas, and will stick to it - for very good reason.
Thanks,
Rob