212
Your initial analysis is correct and the perspective I have may or may not be a valid one but right now it is the one I have.
Having done your job (Chief Trainer in another life) I understand exactly where you are coming from and I am horrified to think that you can imagine I subscribe to the 'beat-them-up' school of sim-trainers. I am totally opposed to that approach. I should have been more selective with my hyperbole.
Let's say instead that a good workout is for example doing the IFR section with a means of ensuring that no part of the outside world is visible to the candidate and a walk-in-the-park is not doing anything of the kind. Do you get my drift?
Company TRIs and TREs have the benefit of knowing the people you are dealing with and understanding their strengths and weaknesses. You also have the need to see them as a long term investment and that makes a big difference to how you can view the way forward for the weaker ones.
Nonetheless I have been at this SFI lark since April 2007 and the sample size is large enough for me to feel comfortable about what I say in the context of overall pilot standards viewed from a global perspective and not confined to civilian pilots.
We could have an 'Emperor's New Clothes' situation here if we are not careful. In the first 30 years of my flying career I lost 30 colleagues, close friends, mostly in accidents of one sort or another although a couple were lost in the Falklands. In the 12 years since I haven't lost one in an accident although two have died of natural causes, and that is what I call progress. Progress that has been hard won. Let us not see that progress disappear for want of some plain speaking or innovative thinking.
G.