Apologies in advance Meeb and others.
What used to happen was that a minor, third or second rate, jet operator would employ a turbo-prop experienced pilot and the operator would pay for the type training. The type training was one thing, the pilot had to be taught how to become an airline pilot too and this was done during type training, during line training and over the course of years with recurrent base checks. Sometimes the pilot would stay long enough to benefit from this training and would to get promoted to LHS, more often the pilot would take the benefit of this training to a better carrier, nowadays Virgin or Emirates come to mind. During the course of the pilots apprenticeship at his first jet operator he would be flying with Captains of generally not less than about 5000 hours and several years in the industry. The pilot had the benefit of years of collective experience and training from trainers that had thousands of hours and years of experience in difficult to operate jet aircraft, the B707 and Pprune’s 411A come to mind for those regular Ppruners.
In recent years, experienced turbo-prop pilots have gone to jet operators just the same, but instead of having the benefit of a couple of years flying some old TP that is a pig to fly, SD360 or F27 for example, manually flying (no AP), battling through the weather full of parcels in the middle of the night to some gale lashed regional airport with a captain who is 64, spent 40 years in BEA or similar and can’t see the instruments from more than 18 inches away; it’s more likely that today’s TP pilot spent two years watching the AP fly a modern turbo prop from one ILS to another. When he gets to his first jet airline, and by jet I mean an aircraft of over 50,000KG made by Airbus, Boeing, Lockheed or McDonnell-Douglas, he will be trained in the minimum of time by a third party training organisation by an instructor who has never flown the type in question. He will be line trained by someone with 200 hours on type to an SOP that varies monthly, is not allways written anywhere and differs according to the trainer. When he is on line, he will fly with captain’s with 3000 hours total and his recurrent OPC’s will be in a third party SIM that breaks down too often to do the LOFT exercise. His trainer will be on his first jet type too.
Or the jet employer can send his new pilots to CTC where they will be trained, coached and bullied if necessary into not only passing the type training, but learning to fly and learning to be an airline pilot at the same time. The instructor is likely to have spent years at BA flying several jet types and is still able to see the instruments from the back of the SIM, which rarely breaks down. If the pilot passes all this, it’s a bigger training risk because there is more to learn in a shorter period of time than in years previously, he will certainly pass his companies line training to a standard that is likely to equal or even exceed existing line standard.
The fact is airlines don’t have the training infrastructure of yesteryear and even if they did, the experience levels available to them to conduct the training have fallen. Why not get the candidate to carry his own financial risk and pay for the training at CTC? He will get the best training available outside first rate jet operators and if he’s no good he’ll get sent home.
My advice would be, borrow the money and get on with it; for sure the training will stand the individual in good stead for the rest of his/her career and since he’ll ‘own’ his rating and go elsewhere when the opportunity arises. In the post MYT times that are to come, quality training might mean the difference between working or not.
It’s true that T & C’s are being eroded, but compared to what? My friend the A330 captain paid for his own type rating 14 years ago to get his first jet job, waited 7 years for command and his first LHS salary was less than £50,000. I have a feeling that the benchmark in our industry may be about to change, again.