Originally Posted by
Giraffesarecool
If you can't weed out "grossly underprepared" pilots during an interview/check flight and instead direct them to your flight training business that's a bit dubious.
When your companies require the paid course before employment that's downright shady.
I can see your perspective.
However, from the charter operator’s point of view it gives a good opportunity over several days to see the individual characters of the pilots as well as the obvious benefit of specific type training that is contextual to the operating environment.
Better that way, then offering applicants the nebulous BS about requiring some random amount of “200 series” time (which may or may not have actually taught the aeroplane), or total time. We take first starters, many companies won’t, and don’t care about total time or crap about “200 series”. We will train it - properly - but given the length of tenure / loyalty of most first job pilots, we’d go broke if we continuously gave it away. Guess what? You CAN’T often weed out bad attitudes based on an interview or quick “check flight”.
In my experience, the difference between a 200 hr pilot of good character and a 500 hr pilot is negligible (from a technical standpoint) - so the trick is to find junior pilots who actually care about putting in at work and helping their employer to sustain / grow their business.
Finally, the GA course is not marketed as a “buy a job with us” product - that is a label attached to it by the hopefuls based on the business processes of our other companies. Of itself, the course offers solid training and experience - and we genuinely hope (believe) that all who do it gain useful technical development.
But I’m happy to accept your judgement. BTW, for my awareness of your expertise, can you summarise your experience in personnel (pilot) management and how many pilots you have employed and given opportunity to?