Originally Posted by Poto
I don't understand why a cadet applicant is given a seniority number before they have completed the training....
This is a similar issue to Lookindown's
...if QF have said "for reasons a, b and c these cadets need some real experience...
I think the subtle difference is between 'need' and 'want' in lookindown's post. Do they 'need' it? Well, we all agree that it would help but I can point to about 80ish cadets who have mostly all passed F/O training with no dramas (a few of whom have now passed command training as well
) without that CIPP in place. In fact, those people all had at least a couple of years between graduation and starting. Needed? No. (I should acknowledge a couple of spectacular 'misses' from cadets in that time as S/Os though!) Needed? No.
Wanted and desireable? Absolutely- but I don't call it part of the 'formal' training that Poto alludes to and implies that they are still in- notwithstanding the fact that they are still under a degree of assessment Of course, we all know that it actually is 'training' in the same way that a qualified CPL flogging around outback NT in a C210 is 'training' for the day when they'll be doing it in a 310 or other machine and the same way that being a S/O is in 'training' for being a F/O but you get my drift.
Would the seniority issue be different at all if the cadets had been placed with QFLink instead and so therefore part of the group? (I know Hugh, you're always getting lumped with babysitting!
)
I wonder also too if every pilot that gets into QF would get in if they'd had the level of scrutiny over the preceeding three years of their development that a cadet tends to have. Believe me, there are no favours granted just because you're an ex cadet. If anything, in some respects, the expectations or some people are considerably higher of the former cadet than the GA entrant.
Anyway, that's enough from me for now!
