A wee bit off thread.......
Of course, those at Gulf Air in the mid 90's will remember that their was a certain son of the ruler of Abu Dhabi who decided to become a pilot. On his return from Florida after completing his multi/IFR (and without any interview for the position of pilot as Daddy of course had a 25% interest in the airline) further training with GF was scheduled in Doha. On arrival at the sim, your man walked into the box and sat in the Left Seat. The instructor was mortified......what was he to do? Ask his highness that he might well have to sit in the Right Seat for just a little while at least to get the 'hang of things'. How disrespectful! Of course that would have jeopardized his job, so he said nothing. After loads and loads and loads of sim he was onto the line with the caveat that he was only allowed fly with 2 designated very Senior local Instructors.
This story was conveyed to me by expat Tony ( Instuctor) in the London Pub one afternoon. He was quite upset as he had just returned from DOH after just having completed a few days training with you know who. Tony explained that
he just could not fly a single-engine approach, so much so that Tony said that he even explained to boy wonder that he would place him on a Cavok 10 mile final and that he would fail the right hand engine. he then explained that all his highness would have to do is land and come to a full stop. I asked what happened and he said that your man had continually crashed just short of the threshold 30 deg off the RWY Heading AFTER having given him 10 try's. "I tried everything to give this guy a break, but in my conscience I just couldn't pass him, so I think it's the end for me." I asked, so where to from here and he said that they had sent Majid over (from Bahrain) to PASS him......and you think India's bad......same story, different DGCA!
Last edited by publius; 13th Mar 2011 at 16:52.
Reason: Grammar of course