wouldn't you agree that if someone cannot fly a circling approach at night in a machine they are endorsed on, then they should not have been issued with a MECIR in the first place???
Yes I absolutely agree with that statement...however.
The very BIG difference between IFR standards now and IFR standards up until the last 10 yrs or so are years ago you invariably did your initial IFR rating with the department and then subsequent (6 mthly) renewals with a company check and training pilot. The chap from CAA was often an old crusty mil pilot who was just looking for a reason to fail you. The company check and training pilot, and I was one, worked on the basis that if he wasn't prepared to put his family members in the aeroplane with you on your WORST day then you didn't pass. In both the initial and renewal cases you went back for more training and if you didn't come up to scratch you a/. didn't get that rating in the CAA case or b/. you got sacked in the company case.
This is still the case in regionals/airlines...every 6 mths.
In GA now the vast majority of people do their initial IR with a CASA delegate (ATO) and type ratings are done by just about any Instructor with 10 odd hrs on type.
In both cases you are PAYING for it...you're the customer....that was never, or very rarely the case, many years ago....it is a huge psycological difference for both the trainee and the trainor.
You did not pay for the CAA guy...he was a public servant working for the CAA. If he was the toughest mutha fker to ever to sit in an aeroplane it did NOT effect his pay packet one bit. The same was the case for the company approved fella...he was paid by the company you both worked for, a premium over line captains pay, and you were BY GOD paid to be there too...so you better not **** around.
I'll give you an example...I was once failed on an IR by a company C&Ter who was also one of my best mates...I had not called out the glideslope check on the ILS...his comment after was "Chuck that was one of the best ILSs I have ever seen BUT...." Small niggly point? Yes....he renewed my NDB and DME (we did DME homings and DME letdowns in those days for real)...but I had to repeat the ILS.
These days not only are you only tested 12mthly...i.e. HALF as often (and I believe that is a huge mistake) but if the ATO/Instructor is 'too tough' he very soon gets that reputation and his work dries up...it affects his earning potential....so lots of people have MECIRs who SHOULD NOT have MECIRs.
Same thing when you pay for a type rating at a flying school. You are a customer and they want you to recommend them to your mates. GA has been ransacked by the airlines, both regional and major, of the VAST MAJORITY of really experienced multi engined pilots and all that is left is minimally experienced (in a multi engine sense) Instructors and the career failures who populate CASA in numbers to high for the good people at CASA to overcome. Thus you have practices like landing and taking off at blue line speed becoming commonly accepted 'best practice' when it is bloody dangerous. This sort of rubbish even makes it into print in Australian Flying being quoted as 'CASA preference'...I wrote a scathing email to Oz Flying last time they did it..it was printed in a VERY watered down form.
If I can do it, like I have before, surely anyone can
No...for all the above reasons that is not a true statement.
I would've thought that going from a complex piston twin such as those you stated into a King Air, for example, would amount to a reduced workload since, as you say, there is less planning/engine management involved.
Yes when we went from 1000s of hrs of piston twin to Turboprop...having been checked every 6 mths for some years leading up to that coveted turbine type rating...and some guys were NOT given turbine promotion based on those previous checks....and you were being type rated by a company training captain with 1000s of hrs on type...and he wasn't just going to 'give you the rating'...see above about family members...and then you did 30 hrs ICUS on the company route network followed by a line check with a different fella, usually the CP or his deputy...and they did fail people (every one I ever met/worked for/Checked for/Trained for/was checked by worked on the same worst day/family members mix mentioned above)...yes after all that flying the turbines was often 'easier'....or did we just make it look easier?
