To claim that anybody who hasn't seen a console in 5 years is unemployable is crap also, if true some of the instructors should hang their heads and head off (back) to retirement
Hmmm. That's a bit close to the truth for comfort,
karrank.
Most of us who have been in the field for longer than ten minutes remember the laughable University of Tasmania degrees or diplomas or whatever the hell they were. Loads of students coming out with "tertiary" qualifications, well versed in middle management techniques and IT, but when they got to the field a disconcerting proportion were found not to be able to control an aircraft as long as their bums pointed to the ground.
It was always better in the old days, of course. I remember the stories of the old timers being thrown into a procedural tower, told "that's north, now get on with it". All slightly enhanced with time, of course, but not totally removed from the truth.
Now trainees have 87 volumes of training manuals and paperwork to fill in before they can answer the phone. Unfortunately none of those volumes tells them how to answer the phone.
If you can do the bloody job you can do it, if you can't you can't. If DHC's missus has held a rating in the past she can do it again. Everything else is politics.
I suspect the same "cover your arse" mentality is at work in the airlines. Any old TAA/Ansett drivers remember being asked to turn base south of the Pioneer river into Mackay? Never a problem. Now a close base means four miles, and never below 1500ft.
Somebody bring me the bloody grumpy old man pills, please.
NURSE!!!!!!!