Self Funded Type Ratings

[carbheaton]

Flypuppy,

I really respect your point of view but don’t you see that what you perceive as having killed off your aspirations to become a commercial pilot, actually gave life to the careers of many others who otherwise would not get the chance. SSTR’s are not compulsory and many airlines are hiring hundreds of people a year through the traditional route. I happen to think that any business has the right to expect its prospective employees to be up to a certain standard before they hire them, or before the employee expects to be hired. I am absolutely amazed that we think just because we do a multi IR we should expect to be taken on by a benevolent employer and trained, with a salary, so we can go fly their incredibly expensive equipment without any investment on our part – and please dont tell me the cost of a multi IR even with MCC is a credible investment on our part. If you compare the investment other professionals need to make in themselves to obtain their qualification and practice, it is much much more than the amounts we are being asked to pay. For donkeys years, the best firms in the world, expected professionals such as dentists, doctors solicitors etc. to pay a fortune up front to buy into their practice once invited to do so.

You ask where will the line in the sand be drawn. In my opinion that will be only where people like me say no to paying for further training. At the moment that is not at SSTR and I make no apology for it.

20Driver said it all for me a few posts ago. I certainly wont be waiting for my senior colleagues to come to my rescue and neither should you. T’s and C’s were eroded over time because these folks allowed them to be. They cashed in T’s and C’s to keep there own high standard of living and I suspect, regrettably, that most of us would have done the exact same thing.

On Speed On Profile.

Congrats on starting the thread.
While I can fully understand your stance and opinions on SSTR’s, you don’t seem to be able to understand mine. I don’t want you to approach BALPA or any other organisation for that matter in order to eliminate SSTR. I argued for years against the closed shop monopoly that you want to reinstate. I and hundreds of others like me now have an opportunity that wasn’t there before. It dosent erode T’s n C’s, the market does. We will be paid what the market says we are worth and if that is not the case, then we have the democratic right, and tools at our disposal to fight for them. But you cant do this from the outside so I chose to get in however I could and then if necessary, fight from there. You don’t wish to do this as you are probably young enough to wait in the hope that the old regime will return. I’m old enough to know that it aint gonna happen, but, and I mean this most sincerely, good luck to you in whatever you decide.

The last point I must address is the notion that SSTR trained pilots are somehow inferior. Flypuppy’s outrageous statement that …

“…the ability to become an aircraft commander should be based on ability and performance not just the ability to pay”.

I can only assume that this statement is either meant to inflame or is based on ignorance of how SSTR’s work. An SSTR is another avenue into a TRTO that wasn’t there before and once you have been accepted, you are subjected to the full rigors of a type rating. If you are clever and choose a TRTO that is affiliated to an operator, then that companies Ops manual is also thrown at you. It is totally forgotten that you are self funded once you start and if your not up to it, you will not pass. To suggest that there are pilots in the right seat that shouldn’t be there is unbelievable. There is absolutely not correlation between aircraft incidents or accidents involving SSTR pilots so the notion that they are inferior is, I’m afraid to say, sour grapes. If it were the case, then there should be some serious incidents by now. Why not extend this rational to university. Is someone with and engineering degree from Southamton inferion to an engineer with a degree from the Institute of Electrical Engineers and vice versa. Both are internationally recognised and both attained in completely different ways.

Too many of us are trained to stay inside the box. I say, in order to get inside the box, you must first think outside of it