Originally Posted by Affirmatron
Genghis
Without formal accreditation what officially separates the Nurses from the Doctors, and the Secretaries from the Solicitors?
I have no doubt there are some very highly-qualified and competent pilots and engineers that haven't completed a TP/FTE course. But at the moment anybody can call themselves a TP just because they have a PPL, and anybody can call themselves a FTE without ANY formal qualifications at all. Bonkers
I read an article in
Scientific American a while ago about a South African lab technician who did much of the detailed technical work behind the first heart transplant. He then went on to do much of the training of the first 2 or 3 generations of heart transplant surgeons who came to South African to learn.
Yet he was never (until near his death when he got an honorary doctorate) formally recognised for his skills. Why? He was black, and apartheit era ZA couldn't possibly recognise such abilities in somebody the wrong colour.
One of the most capable and respected Test Pilots I've ever worked with has last I asked around 5,000 hours on the class of aircraft that he tests, and has probably flown towards 200 types, and goodness only knows how many first flights. Yet he's never attended TPS, nor for that matter got a commercial licence - because he tests microlight aeroplanes, he functions with a PPL. This didn't stop UK-CAA authorising him as a TP.
What's the issue here? I'd say that both of these people were formally accredited - by the authorities overseeing their work. The lack of a medical degree in one case, or CPL / ETPS / whatever didn't change that fact in either case.
Where I think that you are wrong is in looking for a single central accreditation - this just isn't achievable: the global flight test community (and medical community) is just too disparate. I believe that de-facto accreditation exists and is by and large pretty rigorous; but it's more localised than I think you are hoping to see.
So, a senior flight test manager working in the airliner community, the military community, the light-GA community, etc. knows what is acceptable basis for his or her organisation to accredit any given flight tester as "fit to practice" in that environment.
Similarly, a senior medic in a hospital (or more likely these days, the managing committee!) knows which medical degrees and qualifications they'll accept, and which they won't. This amounts to a system of accreditation again - but is still not universal: somebody accepted as a medical Doctor in e.g. Azerbaijan, is unlikely to receive automatic acceptance in Paris (nor vice versa), they have different practices and standards.
In the meantime, anybody can
call themselves an FTE, TP, Doctor, Nurse, accountant.... That's inavoidable, the problem lays with anybody then employing them.
G