Blacksheep ,
One of the biggest problems for the future I see coming up is exactly what you just mentioned, lack of practical experience . There is much emphasis on training individuals to high academic standard & the JAR66 appears to confirm this but will they make good engineers as well? I'm not so sure.
For example , in BA the route that used to be taken was the apprenticeship followed by several years gaining experience as a fitter/avo & then if the individual chose to , the progression to a licensed engineer.
To my knowledge , last year BA only took on 6 apprentices and they were destined for the workshops anyway. For a company this size with the number of a/c in its fleets is this really the way to go? The PEP ( Professional Engineer Programme )which I believe is designed to replace the apprenticeship is in my mind is just a means for BA to employ more potential managers.
I could be biased towards the apprentice then later progression to LAE route because thats how I did it but I think it's purely because it was a more gradual transition than the PEP route.
There were no guarantees that the route I and many like me took would lead to everyone becoming good engineers but I'm convinced that the fastrack engineer route ( PEP ) will in the long term only make things worse because you can't gain experience out of book.
Ever heard the expression "lighthouse in the desert - very bright but not much use to anyone"?
AC.