I agree with most of the above. For CX in the mid nineties we worked a simple algorithm for the potential recruitment to a P2X licence. The numbers are dispiriting to say the least. Back then we could suggest that 30 pilots per year would be available for JFO upgrade. Some years we bettered that, some we were less.
It's a bit of everything. As you say, self selection away from the job to start with. Lack of women applicants still takes out about 48% of the Hong Kong population. Family expectations are a prime influence to go to a different profession; better earning prospects elsewhere and the concept of not being your own boss, which is culturally important.
Eyesight and Hepatitis took out nearly 50% of applicants in the early days. Even security branch got into it, if your brother/father was a known Triad.
Prof. Michael Bond at the Chinese U did some work (with Capt Graeme Ogilvy) on pilot sourcing and cultural characteristics, which coincided with the Geert Hofstede cultural measurement work for IBM at the time. NASA got a look in, and Ashleigh Merritt and Robert Helmreich at University of Texas did some excellent work but it got a bit edgy in the politically correct world of early this century so it seems to have been dropped.
Adelaide do good work on the cross cultural aspect of western derivated aviation for CX trainees and for several other disparate nationalities. It can be addressed, and some of it can be taught.
It's fascinating stuff if you want to get into it, and whilst not quite of the, "Japanese cannot fly planes because they have bad eyes", stuff that came out of America before Pearl Harbour, shows that certain cultures are better suited to the Western developed flightdecks of a modern airliner.
Which may well be the point. The Chinese bought Trident aircraft from (then) De Havilland and installed a very different flight deck. The two forward facing seats were for the pilots, neither of whom was the Captain. He sat sideways on the left, controlling the comms. In the mainland culture at the time, leaders did not drive, they were driven, just like the early days of the Royal Flying Corps with their sergeant pilots with officer observers.
Plus ca change....
Last edited by moosp; 7th January 2007 at 12:18.