I believe the issue of competence for airline transport pilots is more subtle than some contributors have yet acknowledged.
It appears that there are two general systems for educating ATPs. Give or take a little bit, they are as follows. One is relatively loosely-structured instruction plus lots of hours built up who knows how (crop dusting, cancelled-check transport back in the days, the people I knew did it all by ab initio instructing); plus hours in twins and a check ride. The other is systematic pre-selection, oriented full-time training according to a detailed syllabus developed with a series of potential future employers (airlines); plus hours plus check rides. The first is used by US civilian airlines. The second is used by most AFs (including the USAF) and many European airlines.
Norman Stanley Fletcher pointed out that both systems have advantages and weaknesses. He was criticised by one commentator for (presumed) lack of experience of the US situation; by another for, well, working for Easyjet I think (that cannot be a serious point).
There is a study by Michael W. Gillen in the July 2010 edition of AeroSafety World, the FSF's monthly journal/magazine, on the proficiency of some 30 presumably relatively randomly selected pilots for US airlines. I cited it in the Islamabad thread in
http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/4...ml#post5893250 ; the URL for the article by itself is
Diminishing Skills? by Michael W. Gillen. The pilots were observed while performing 5 standard manoeuvres in a simulator, and on each manoeuvre the mean performance was lower than that required of an airline transport pilot; on two out of the five, it was lower than that required for basic instrument flying.
What does this study tell us? There are a number of choices:
1. Apparently the skills exhibited during the course of their work by some subgroup of 30 professional airline pilots are not up to snuff;
2. Apparently there is a problem with the system of training and currency in US airlines;
3. Apparently the methods used for recurrent training ("currency requirements") used overwhelmingly by the world's (better) airlines are insufficient to assure the retention of the necessary level of skill;
4. There is something wrong with the study.
It is a well-written article which takes care not to claim more than has been shown and I don't see anyone proposing option 4.
Some indirectly questioned selection criteria (option 1) but the question is whether the sample is significantly unrepresentative; whether any other group of 30 pilots would have done considerably better. So, is it unrepresentative or not?
One contributor went for option 2, averring "from experience" that UK CAA-certified crew would do better.
A couple of commentators went for option 3, as I do.
One can go round for ever discussing the Colgan Air crash, and the lessons for hiring/proficiency/currency and undoubtedly one will do so (and the FAA is obliged to, as is the NTSB if any of the FAA's reactions to their recommendations are classified as "response unsatisfactory"). Brits and Europeans can say "it can't happen here" - until it does.
I cited the Gillen article in the context of a discussion as to whether CTL is a relatively risky manoeuvre in a fast commercial transport when it needs to be used, or whether it is a routine manoeuvre that all competent instrument-rated pilots ought to be able to undertake without problems. If one plumps for option 3, then one could well believe that both are the case!
I think option 3 represents a major problem and needs discussion.
In a completely different context, that of computer programming, the question has been aired for at least a couple of decades why there is so much badly-designed and badly-written software around, and why more than half of large software projects end up abandoned (usually after enormous amounts of money have been spent). One answer is that the demand for programmers is increasing enormously, whereas, as a colleague of mine once said, "time was, there were about thirty competent programmers in the world. And things have not changed." One might well consider this point, and how it applies to all professions requiring high levels of skill, such as that of professional transport pilots.
PBL