In general, the experience level of the pilots operating into the bush strips in PNG is significantly diminishing.
Gone are the days when pilots were assessed rigorously by the regulator for the issue of any kind of old CAO 28 approval in any shape or form,
Indeed
Duck pilot; When I started with Douglas Airways in early 1990 the requirements/training for going into bush strips was extremely rigorous to say the least! IIRC,as a newbie/boggie I had to do a minimum of three trips in the Right hand seat, simply observing along the route to and into each and every strip that I would eventually be flying. Then, from memory, it was Dz policy to do three trips ICUS into the aforementioned strips, via those routes. As the hackneyed joke of the time put it; You were 'stripped and routed!'
Once this was completed you were endorsed into that particular airstrip! And once you had, from memory, been endorsed in about three quarters of the airstrips of any one province, you were permitted under ANO 28 (as it was then) to self endorse into any strip you had not previously been into. Had the privilege of doing so two or three times in the Central and Gulf provinces M'self. With no dramas.
Speaking for myself
only.. I cannot fault the training I received way back then from Alan Y and Luk V from Dz, and later from the now late Richard Rowe, God rest his Soul, of Simbu Aviation. And that's not to mention the hints/tips etc I learned, (generally at the Club Dero over various types of throat lubricant) from such as
Chimbu Chuckles, various experienced Talair Pilots and fellow Dz Pilots such as Tim E, et al. If the current crop of pilots operating in the 'Land of the Unexpected' receive even half of the tuition that those three blokes gave me, then they should consider themselves blessed to say the least.
But then again, half of what I received could arguably mean half of the bare minimum!
