Singapore Flying College were also keen on the MPL at one stage. I don't know whether this is still the case. They did have a Baron-By-Pass program (whereby cadets went straight from flying the C172 direct to the Lear 45) since learning to fly a piston twin had little in common with flying a fast jet. According to a presentation I saw by a training captain from SIA, many 'habits' in flying a piston twin had to be "unlearned" when they get to the Lear stage of their training, thus the reason why the Baron-By-pass program was implemented.
The main reason for introducing the MPL was to fulfill the perceived pilot shortage and train more airline cadet pilots quickly for the right hand seat of a jet, by passing GA altogether. Candidates spend more time in a simulator than they do flying GA training aircraft. Since the pilot shortage is no longer upon us in the industry, the rush for churning out first officers is no longer there.
I've heard this kind of b-s arguments thrown up before. Tell you what - if they put a guy who's never flown a
REAL AIRPLANE and got him his licence by "bypassing" essential stages in flying to be in the right seat next to me, #1 he will get no flying from me for a very VERY long time until i am absolutely certain that he/she has truly got his/her act together. Simulators - even Level D - in my book don't handle anywhere like the real thing. Besides, in a sim, you are the ONLY airplane flying around and on the ATC frequency. How's that for realism??? Let alone putting this kind of guy on the right seat of airplanes carrying passengers who paid money expecting to be kept safe from A-to-B, little realising that they've been short-changed and that some of their fellow passengers might actually have more Microsoft Flight Simulator time than the F/O (i'm sure the individuals are enthusiastic, but the training/experience/syllabus that they get sounds woefully pathetic).
This MPL is a sick joke thrown up as a cabbage patch stop gap measure to address shortage of pilots with experience (
real experience, not parker pen or MS Flt Sim or Warcraft). The whole thing would actually be funny if we weren't so close to it.
By the way, it used to be an open joke that the CAAS stood for "
Committee
Against
Aviation in
Singapore".