Originally Posted by
TBM-Legend
I recall well trained cadet pilots being let loose in Mach 2.5 flying machines that weighed the same as a fully loaded DC-9 at age 19 straight after wings awarded.
These are the ridiculous statements that draw me back into the perennial cadet-value debate. I have no problems with a well trained cadet pilot programme. However, in my experience, the training is slashed leaving cadets ineffective crew members until they can scrape enough line experience to do the job.
The supersonic teenager examples are churlish now and always have been and will be. The resources to get the Mark Fallons RIP of the world and the small number who followed are extensive and impossible to replicate in the civilian world. I did fly with Eastern Bloc airline cadets that had military like investment in their cadet programmes however these schemes long gone as are the Communist-bloc airlines.
So for the supersonic teenager you have a class of 30 say. 15 are scrubbed. A few are suitable for fighters of which another few are scrubbed and you now have a fast jet pilot who still isn’t ready for the job. An absurd comparison.
It’s not going to go away so let’s consider a weighted comparison to a civilian cadet program? If all you wanted to do was fly an F35 or Super Hornet from A to B, with a high level of instrument competency being able to manage an abnormal, it wouldn’t take long and probably the same time as a civilian cadet.
The truth behind cadet programs I’ve seen is you have a very extensive and fat training system. A budget of 150K of training slowly gets razored to under 100K as segments of the program deemed unnecessary. In a rapidly expanding airline where commands possible within 5 years it’s a scramble to get these cadets to command standard. The shortcuts in their original training leaves substantial gaps in civilian command training which is rarely good enough to spoon feed or closely guide the level of organisational training you may get in the military.