PJ:
My point was that hundreds of hours instructing, flying NDB holds etc or floating around the skies of Florida hours building all in light aircraft is now quite unnecessary, as the experience and skills gained and taken forward are disproportionate to the time, expense, hard work and sheer aggro involved.
. . .
The ability to handle an abnormal or emergency situation in a jet comes from operating a jet, not a PA28 or whatever.
Well, yes and no. Having had 1500 hrs in the circuit, on charter, in twins and some work on the coast of BC (but only limited float time which is the reason I'm still alive...) and then transitioning to heavy transports I can say that just "being in the air, making decisions" regarding fuel, weather, weights, performance, pressing on, turning back
all mean a lot and such experience does carry over.
Flying a heavy transport is I think, no different than flying a 172 or Seneca in many ways - mentally, things happen six to eight times faster in a transport than in a smaller type partly because of raw speed but mostly because of the complexity inherent in flying transports even in normal ops. Physically in terms of dealing with the machine, one needs to be ahead of the airplane in cruise by appropriate distances from weather or by about ten to fifteen miles for any routine maneuvering in cruise, (much further if it's a wall of weather!), and for configuring on the approach about four miles ahead or so on approach, one needs to appreciate eye-to-wheel distance and height and one needs to appreciate the effects of momentum (mass and speed). In single pilot operations, cockpit discipline is different than with two, three or four crewmembers, so one has to learn how to coordinate with crew with very high discipline standards.
Any MPL sim session worth it's salt should get any candidate "up to speed" to be able to stay well ahead of such an operation. That would be a major test of any such program - if a student can't stay well ahead of the airplane, after a few days in the aircraft, the training didn't do it's job. It is in the sim, after all...
Heavy transports require a few months to get used to for sure, but if one has the thinking airmanship and priorities which kept one alive in the bush, military or corporate world, one has 90% of aviation solved and one only need keep open to learning which, while it should never stop, should be at that stage, "refining knowledge" and becoming a veteran, learning the occasional brand new thing usually through an "experience".
Lots of flying experience teaches that almost always in an emergency, one needs to slow the operation down and not react swiftly.
Doesn't always work that way I know, but they are the major differences between the types.
my father was a professional flight engineer, and he would say the american second officer/system panel operators were the MPL's of their day....just pushing buttons and flicking switches in accordance with the procedures and QRH!!! No "real" understanding of the machine, but as that system demonstated over the years, it still worked.....
Yup.
I flew the Lockheed 100 and 500 series aircraft for 3 years. It was and is my favourite aircraft next to all the rest - it was decades ahead of its time, had appropriate automation levels (CATIII before any other aircraft that I knew of and certainly way, way ahead of it's rushed-into-production cousin, the DC10, nice airplane that I have heard that type was). It was a pilot's, and a flight attendant's passenger's airplane, except perhaps everybody was always walking up a 3deg incline in the cabin... The MDLC was brilliant as was the flying stabilator. One only "pushed" once to "roll the airplane on 'smoothly' !! One pulled, the next time. Great to hear a wrench, (hat's off and deep bows to all wrenches btw), talking nice about the airplane, thanks.
carrier, good points, imo.