it was a bit shocking to read your post about new pilots coming from their training with fresh certificate yet not ready to really operate as a FO's in real life.
I am in a training business for 20 years now (not aviation) and I am observing declining ability of graduates from universities or even any school to take a job right after their completion. I've been involved into training in various part of world from Europe up to South America and this declining trend seems to exist everywhere.
I am an aviation enthusiast and I use examples from aviation a lot in my lectures and writings simply because it is still an area which is very practical and anything learned can be seen quickly in operation once you leave the apron.
Honestly, I expected that flight schools should be able to prepare trainees for the real world to the degree they can really do their job without any big delay.
My first question is:
What is your idea why it is so (was it better before), in other words - what is the root of this situation?
And another question:
What is done by airlines to overcome this? Do they have some additional training?
I would be grateful if you can answer this and possibly you can even quote this text in your thread if you think it would be beneficial for PPRuNers to read our discussion. I selected PM because I am not an aviation professional in the first place.
Looking forward to your answers,
Pavol (from Slovakia)
Dear Pavol,
I think the root cause of this is all down to the demon money.
I am not just looking back to the good old days when everything was better (LOL).
When I did my initial examinations the questions were written, not muti choice. This means the examiner has to know the subject as well and spends time reading and correcting the answer. To save cost and reduce manpower the Authority got rid of that and went to the American system of multi-choice, where you just learn the answer to the question (rote learning). This has recently been highlighted on the news here as one of the problems our school children are suffering. Also the pay for teachers is very low, so the general standard of teaching has fallen dramaticaly.
Some airlines spend the time and money to train properly but this is in a very high cost enviroment. When someone completes a type rating the trainer has very little time to teach basics.
The flight schools are highly cost driven trying to compete with eachother. If you just look at the cost of ATPL ground schools you will see that there is very little money there. The net result is very poor and low paid instructors with very little experience of the industry, hence they just read aloud from a book and dont understand the subject.
Another problem is that the syllabus is ancient and does not reflect the technology and requirements of todays world.