mrs glum – Ok, well show us the bias then ? Show us where we’ve distorted the truth ? Please tell us where it is that we’ve not told it as honestly as we could ?
Being open & honest, yes we're both admins upon PPRuNe and have been so for six years. It's privilege we earned, mostly by providing the kind of common sense / honest advice that many who're looking to break into professional aviation yearn for – and we similarly remember when there was
no PPRuNe
and the whole industry was somewhat shrouded in mystery and was often the hiding ground of many a charlatan and / or shoddy training & employment practices ( and which is something which PPRuNe, what with the open & honest approach we encourage, has helped to expose – and for which this site and those who run / maintain it have often been threatened with legal retribution, and worse – I kid you not ! ).
A-3TWENTY – Uhm, I can’t respond to your specific case ( though I have forwarded your post to the people who run the TRTO / Bond Aviation Solutions, for them to consider ) however what I can say is that during November I myself completed a transition from the B737 over to the B757.
The type-rating course, which five of my Astraeus colleagues and I undertook, was done through Bond with the ground-school conducted in our classrooms within the Alteon building and the simulator split between those housed at GECAT/LGW and BA/LHR.
Some what contrary to your experience, the very first thing that was given to all of us was a full set of systems and flying procedures manuals – and ( dare I say it, without wanting to appear biased
) very nice they are too ! ( see pic below ) - as well as one of the best organised training manuals that I’ve ever seen ( the importance of which is that allows the instructors to clearly and accurately confirm that they have covered and completed the relevant subjects, annotating your training file accordingly, such that when you want your type-rating issued all the paperwork is fully in order ).
I should maybe also point out that Astraeus 'line-pilots' do not normally get given paper-based manuals, i.e. we typically only have access to electronic copies via CD and / or our Intranet - so having these manuals is something of a rare treat.
