mr ripley - the courses to which I referred have different skill set requirements. Furthermore, in the past some would have been given to experienced, not brand-new crews and no further hacking back of these courses can be achieved within prudent limits of safety.
The course length reflects the pessimistic maximum time that it might take to qualify a crew in all roles and on both types from scratch - and do remember that we have to accept MELIN graduates who are extremely inexperienced. As soon as usable role categories have been achieved, crew members will also fly unscreened on appropriate tasks when the opportunity arises. It isn't like an old-fashioned 'OCU' course, it is more like a such a course plus the first few weeks of sqn work-up training; there are no 'OCU trainers' and, as all overseas training has to be done 'on task' it takes much longer even though it is cheaper.
[ 21 October 2001: Message edited by: BEagle ]