A few years back I was based for a short while in Malta and frequently found myself at the hold watching approaches being made by young pilots being trained by (I think ) Lufthansa. The young men and women being trained in those aircraft had been selected following a very tough selection process that filters the qualities that are most desirable in an airline pilot. They’re highly motivated, have above average intelligence, and have shown that they have the mental and co-ordination skills required to deal with multiple functions under stress….and without bursting into tears. During the many stages of the selection process, and their basic flying training, they have seen many of their fellow candidates chopped from the course. By the time they are seen training on an actual airliner they have spent a minimum of two years gaining their private pilots licences on small aircraft, their instrument ratings, their Airline Transport Pilots Licences with all the attendant exams followed by many hours of training in CRM. Having survived all that to the satisfaction of Lufthansa, they have then spent many hours in a simulator that is in almost all aspects exactly the same as the aircraft they will be flying for the company. By the time they get to sit in the cockpit of the actual aircraft they are as primed and ready as Lufthansa can make them, for all intents and purposes they can fly the aeroplane. Now sit down alongside the runway and watch them practise their first approaches.
When it comes to the real thing it will never be quite the same. It is I suppose partly psychological, as good as the simulators are..and they are superb.… the trainee knows that it is after all an exercise, if the aircraft is not lined up exactly right or if the descent profile is becoming unstable the instructor can simply put everything on hold while the student thinks about where it’s going wrong. This is never an option in the aeroplane. I’ve watched those training aircraft making the approach, skewing around and climbing and descending while the poor tyro is sweating it out in the cockpit wondering why it’s all going pear shaped...
What puzzles me is;
1) just which bits of all that training are now considered worthless ?
2) (Ignoring the bean-counters and SAA's questionable motives)... Who is happy about reducing the training requirements for new pilots ?..Is it the passengers ? ..I doubt it...
Scroggs speaks intelligently about streamlining the new generation of pilots and I'm quite prepared to go along with it ... Provided that the overall abilities of the new pilots remain the same. As for the CAA / FAA's of various countries.. they are far from being fool-proof... they have been shown in the past to be subject to pressure from airlines through an old boy network and that includes the UK CAA... And they have shown in the past how thoroughly arrogant they can be when a post accident investigation leads to criticism by the NTSB / AIB of their acceptance of limited/inadequate training (eg. transferring from basic to glass cockpits )... they have on more than one occasion simply responded with a comment along the lines of : The CAA does not accept the findings of the Board.
Has there been any input at all from a group representing pilots when designing these new training syllabuses ?