1. You cannot BUY experience. You cannot TEACH experience. Experience is something that has to be EARNED by practising some profession, trade, sport, craft or other activity over a suitably long enough timeframe, often under the supervision of an old master.
2. Even the above does not guarantee achieving the level of a skilled master as normal personal attitude and ability come into play. Well known sales trainer Jerry Bresser said: “We all know somebody who has been in the business for twenty years but who has only one year’s experience – repeated nineteen times!”
3. Cadet schemes in Europe, South Africa and Australia worked well many years ago when it was normal to have three or more experienced bodies in the cockpit. At least two of these were experienced pilots and the flight engineer normally held a pilot’s licence and was himself on his way up the pilot food chain from cadet. With two experienced pilots and a part-experienced pilot as flight engineer the cadet was effectively the fourth member of the cockpit crew. On long intercontinental flights with relief crews there were even more experienced pilots available in the aircraft. It was therefore fairly easy for these experienced pilots to take turns wet-nursing the "boy pilot" on board. Promotion in those days was not quick so a pilot who started as a cadet had several years of opportunity to gradually acquire real (not textbook) knowledge from those experienced aviators he flew with as he worked his way through cadet and flight engineer to the right seat. He witnessed and was part of experience-building situations where he was under supervision and did not have to make a real contribution that might affect the life-saving outcome because there were already enough experienced pilots to handle both normal operations and any crisis.
4. Since the reduction in the number of pilots to a two pilot is normal situation, non-North American airlines have continued with bringing in inexperienced pilots. This has worked as long as things have gone well. However there have been enough crashes and mishandled incidents to question the practice. Because of their lack of experience such low time pilots have to fall back on their book training and there have been several occasions where thinking outside of the box as a result of experience would or might have saved the day but such experience was not available. A number of times it has been pointed out that an EXPERIENCED North American pilot would have handled such situations in a different manner as a result of his experience and the outcome would probably, but admittedly not always, have been more favourable. A Euro/SA/Oz pilot who had worked his way through cadet and flight engineer to the right seat would probably have been equally experienced and capable.
5. The MPL has been introduced to cut costs and particularly to cheaply offset a perceived looming shortage of pilots (temporarily put back by the world economic mess). The latter was also the reason for ICAO changing the retirement age from 60 to 65.
6. I suggest that cadets who came out of the College of Air Training at Hamble 40 years ago were at a level of training and capability ahead of today’s MPLs.
7. The problem with the MPL is that there is no longer the same opportunity to gain experience within a three crew aircraft or to work one’s way up the aviation food chain outside of North America because general and regional aviation are so inconsequential elsewhere.
8. Putting a "boy pilot" whether cadet or MPL into the right seat of a two pilot aircraft effectively makes it a single pilot IFR situation. Anyone who has regularly done this will know that it is a heavy enough load for an experienced pilot to handle on its own, without the additional responsibility and distraction of effectively being an instructor to the greenhorn beside him. Creating such a situation obviously detracts from safety.
9. A little tongue in cheek, further to point 8 above, where a captain has to undertake such a dual role are the airlines going to give additional remuneration for the extra task and responsibility of also being an instructor, along with danger money for the decrease in safe working conditions?
Last edited by Carrier; 6th Dec 2008 at 02:58.