Originally Posted by
jumpseater
It doesn’t. It shows a defence lawyer at work.
The defence is being paid to minimise/refute the impact of the prosecution case for their clients, so if making light and underplaying the requirements of qualifications, experience and ‘commercial regulation’ gets their client off the hook, they’ve done their job.
No different to the lawyer whom is often associated with successfully defending for celeb driving offences
Well said, the defence case was littered with selective and partial statements and the tactics of playing upon the likely preconceptions of a lay jury. The reference to Henderson having been an RAF officer, whilst true begged a multitude of questions. Whilst it was true that he had completed Initial Officer Training (IOT) and was thus commissioned, in his remaining time in the service he could not have proceeded much further than initial navigator training before he voluntarily withdrew or was withdrawn from training and may or may not have been offered continuation of service in another branch. We shall never know.
In a similar vein, Ibbotson's 3,500 recorded hours of flying were offered as evidence of his competence. Unfortunately the public at large readily accept the gross figure as a true indication of acquired ability. Those of us who have flown for a living know nothing could be further from the truth! The fact that the flying time had been gained over a period of nearly 30 years would not occur to most if any of the jury. A quick sum tells me that I have on occaision flown nearly as much in a month as Ibbotson's annual average. It gives it a little perspective that defence counsel might rather wish to avoid.
The comments about professional licences were so partial as to be almost an attempt to mislead. All a professional licence does is allow you to seek employment as a pilot, it is a pre-requisite and doesn't make you anything special; counsel was correct in that respect! If you spend any time in aviation you will run across those individuals who struggle to get that first job; even in times of shortage; and may never achieve it. You usually have a pretty shrewd idea why.
As has been said above, there's a lot more to flying for hire or reward than the stick and rudder bit. It's about consistency and maintaining competence and performance over an extended period within a complex and sometimes unpredictable environment. Proper training for licence is the ticket to an organisation that will start you on the road to properly understanding the job, mentoring and development throughout the whole of your career.
YS