Heading for disaster
Since this forum is monopolised by lowtime JAR/CAA flying students obsessed with money and their potential employment and lifestyle issues; I thought I better stir things up with some thoughts from reading all your threads.
Downunder and up there, it seems the way most of you think of getting a job post licencing is by getting an instructor rating. Not a lot of you consider heading out to look for a hangar job or other menial work route that most of the higher time pilots on this forum were forced to do. The attitude is simply charge it up and buy myself a job.
It is becoming the preferred method of cracking the industry and (I'm sure it's been voiced before) in my opinion we are allowing a dillution of training that is slowly permeating all aspects of our industry to its detrement.
It is driven by the regulatory authorites who allow 200hr pilots to start training immediately out of their licences. Blind leading the blind.
This is a perfect situation for the training schools since they generally get their future staff to pay for their training and then work them for free for another 100hrs or pay them peanuts for the priviledge of gaining experience at another students loss.
What loss? well they cannot impart any commonsence nor well learned lessons from industry experience. Their 'instructor' struts around pretending he/she knows what its all about while ignoring the self doubt in the back of the mind.
Later the 'instructor' jumps up another level on the rung with the accrual of lots of time watching someone else fly and then gets to supervise other 'new' instructors. Its a retarded system.
The system won't pay decent wages to pilots with 5000hrs for training so they don't do it. If the hightime pilot opts to become an instructor, he gets a measly 5hr reduction for having an ATPL licence or nothing at all for a CPL and has to do the same length of course as the 200hr newbie. So after 5-10yrs of industry time you are loathed to part with the money to take on a job that pays you peanuts.
Any experienced IFR Captain or high time bush pilot will tell you we are starting to see the effects of this system. Pilots who come into jobs lacking in radio skills, airspace knowledge, bush experience and poor aircraft handling skills.
What is the answer? What have you recently shaken your head at and what needs to be done?