Digressing slightly but ...... CAS essentially turned out good quality students - especially at the CIR M/E and LOFT phases. However these phases of training were all conducted by very experienced instructors, and QF have acknowledged this.
Standardisation was an issue during the ab-initio stages, however it did not significantly affect the quality of the cadets at test stage - it was just that they all did things in slightly different ways, which is unacceptable for Airline Cadet training as their whole future is going to be based around adherance to SOPs (supposedly!).
The other main issues that concerned QF was the unreliability of the aircraft and inability at times to maintain a set schedule. It should be noted that at no time was a student ever required to fly an unsafe aircraft, it's just that was always a snag of one sort of another that rendered the aircraft u/s until rectified. A large aspect of this 'snag' situation is that the staff tended to have a low tolerance of anything that may affect an aircraft's servicability - which is exactly as it should be.
It could be argued that all of the above is a result of poor management, however there were a number of senior people within the organisation that tried their best to get everything set up in a professional and well run way - if there was "fault" it was most likely due to "poor ownership" and the inability of the people "who write the cheques" to see the truth of what they were being told by those they employ to tell them what to do. Pathetic really!
I wish GFS the best in their endevours. It's about time some-one put new aircraft on the field!
Last edited by Farknel; 1st Oct 2002 at 08:24.