SLF,
For you to compare the quality of a fully qualified military aviator with at least one complete tour under his belt to a cadet (or even a 1500 hour civilian) is telling.
I suggest you re-read my post and tell me where I compared the two
I thank you for your nomination of Ignorant Post Of The Year but I'll have to decline the offer as I am not ignorant of the facts and those are portrayed in my message. If I were writing as supposed SLF, then perhaps I might not know about what I write. On the other hand, as an ex-military single-seat, fast jet aviator (as you like to call them), a commercial airlines captain and one who has flown with a good number of cadets, I think I write from a position of reasonable knowledge, as opposed to ignorance.
Go beyond that and look at the operational conditions in peacetime military flying and then go to X10 for flying in combat conditions.
Thank you, again, for your lesson in a subject with which I am familiar but, again, look at what I wrote (carefully this time), climb off that high horse and then tell me where I'm comparing the standards of military training and operations with civilian.
Lilfly,
How can you possibly say that a person with an MPL is just as good as someone who has had real world experience.
I'm not saying (and didn't say) ALL. I am saying that those I flew with, who were trained as 'future captains', rather than FOs and who knew more than slinging gear are just as good as a good proportion of those with 'real world experience', better than some and worse than others.
This broad-brush, 'all cadets are crap' nonsense that pervades these pages really annoys me.
Again, this is what I wrote, with the emphasis being on 'broad-brush'. What some of the nay-sayers consider 'real world experience' (for instance, bashing the circuit in the right seat of a Cessna 152) has little relevance to airline operations. This imagined scenario where, because of the plethora of 'real world experience' he's going to be given more scope for saving the day is nonsense. In day-to-day operations, where SOPs dictate how we operate, there is so little latitude for individual 'creativity' to shine through. I'd much rather have a cadet who does what's required by the airline and operates in a standard manner than someone who's spent 3000 hours flying a C185 in the bush and wants to demonstrate to me and my passengers what a great pilot he is. 'Real world experience' definitely had its place when aircraft were basically a hand-flown, single man operation but things have moved on and our perception of pilots as all-conquering heroes needs to advance too. Yes, there will be occasions when things go wrong and require pilots AND experience but Cadet X is not going to be doing anything in isolation, just as SFO Y is not going to be doing anything in isolation, because it's a team job and the bloke in the left seat has got a veto if he doesn't like what's going on in the right seat.
How about when dealing with emergency situations?
If I haven't already 'outed' myself, this isn't going to help
I had a cadet pilot in the right seat of a 737, who was on their first flight, having been cleared to the line the day before. This pilot had fewer than 200 hours in their logbook (JAR 'frozen' ATPL). We had to shut down an engine in flight and then followed Company SOPs, FO flies the approach for captain's landing. This supposedly incapable pilot (lacking in loads of 'real world experience'), flew and operated the aircraft like a dream and made my job extremely easy for me. In summary, when dealing with an emergency situation, it couldn't have gone better if it were a 15000 hour captain sitting next to me. Doubtless you will tell me there are exceptions to the rules and I agree.......both ways
