Originally Posted by
Lucifer
Don't worry - that is utter BS. Even BA does not believe that. They retrained a large number of flight engineers as pilots through BAe Systems when it was at Prestwick. A large number were successful, desipte ages of up to late 40s.
Jolly good to hear it, though from my post I guess that is already quite clear!
Personally I don't need to be persuaded; as a career changer I am my own living proof that one's ability to learn, train others and ultimately move on to a jet fleet does not end at 30! However it does require dedication and it can be just a tad tougher on the liver than some other careers!
However I also have some idea, through first hand experience, of some of the prejudices out there and where they lie. I can confirm that the quotes I used are accurate, and were said in the context indicated at the time. However this was a good few years ago now, and the quoted remarks will have been said in the context of the market at that time, when the "green shoots" of recovery were barely evident and ab-initio schools were not placing such large proportions of their graduates with airlines, as they are now.
Operators' preferences are a another thing..I would defend their entitlement to them of course (whatever the latest PC trend in legislation might be) and I can also confirm that the age stipulation which I quoted did come from a major UK carrier and it applied to their part-sponsorship scheme and ab-initio low hours cadet applicants at the time I commenced my own training. I hear that it has been substantially revised upwards over the past few years. All this suggests a supply/demand driven business, like any other, as opposed to a training issue.
Yes, so far as I am aware BA have always been one of the more enlightened; the lowest age limitation I have ever seen from them being 47, and even that was explained in terms of the economic return on training someone. A flight engineer is not comparable with an ab-initio cadet, though. My captain last week was ex-BA and formerly an RAF flight engineer...clearly it made good business sense to use their experience on the 2-crew flight deck .. after all as flight engineers they were often responsible for directly controlling 50% of the pitch-power couple already !
Anyway, I wish everyone in training all the very best. I'm going to back out here and maybe spend more time on the technical and lifestyle fora, and brush up so as to keep my own instructional abilities a bit more current! Basic training will always be a contentious area as people have positions to advocate and defend. Like most things in life, one size does not fit all and having been through t'mill I see some of the shades of grey between the black and the white, that's all.
George.