SAS
Sometimes SAS I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I swear that if I started a thread about the poor training of Carmalite Nuns by the Catholic church the very first post would be from you and it would be two paragraphs about how this was all the fault of those pesky British TREs.
Let me point out a few things:
1. I do not work in UK and I am not a TRE .
2. FSI are a fine outfit and I am sure do a good job training their SFIs as does any school that I know about insofar as they do what the authorities specify as the minimum training required.
3. My beef is that they and others are going for the cheap option. In my opinion they should take people who have an FI background not just a CFI ticket and a background heavy or medium twins is a must not an option. EC 135 to S92 doesn't cut it in my book.
Please don't go on anymore about the UK system and British TRE's. I beginning to thing that a TRE did unspeakable things to your kid-sister and one way or another honour will be restored via the pages of PPrune.
This is NOT about one country's system being better than another's. It is about the shift that is taking place globally as our industry moves from an era where FIs and QHIs were the dominant influence to an era where SFIs will be the dominant influence. It just so happens that as far as the regulations are concerned the qualifications to be an SFI are the least within the instructor spectrum so there is at least the possibility that commercial pressures will lead to a reduction in the quality of training received by the global helicopter population as they will be fed through regional sim centres that will tend to base their model on the North American/European centres.
Operational sim training will require NO SFI qualifications at all as is the case currently for recurrent training and for the training of military, para-military and para-public organisations.
We are heading in a direction that does not give me a warm feeling.
G.
Last edited by Geoffersincornwall; 13th Nov 2011 at 20:41.