G'day guys.
I had been reading a lot of the REX "cadebtship"
threads on here for a while and came across plenty of posts presenting the valid issues of cadets achieving command. As I understand it from all the reading there were 2 major requirements for upgrade on the SAAB 340:
1. class 1 ATPL
2. 500 hours MEC or ICUS (correct me if I am wrong with the ICUS time)
The issue with requirement 1 was that AAPA only fulfill 70 hours command time (single engine?) off the 100 hours that are required and cadets would have to fork out for the rest of the 30 hours?
Regarding requirement 2, people mentioned that cadets would be FOs for around 6 years because accumulating the 500 hours ICUS at REX would take around this much time.
Now with the ICUS program in place, am I right in saying that this program only addresses requirement number 2 for the command upgrade? I am not entirely sure how the program works but I guess the cadets accumulate the 500 ICUS in less than the 6 years previously mentioned? (4 years from Stiff Undercarriage's post) Also, do the cadet FOs follow a structured ICUS flying routine in this program or is the 4 years to command a ballpark figure? Just wondering if it is being called a "program" there might be some certainty that every cadet will now pretty much get a command in the said time
But then again wouldn't there be a backlog of cadet FOs who joined up before this program came into existence waiting to undergo their ICUS program? Would this push the aforementioned 4 years to command time further for new cadet FOs?
And coming back to requirement 1, are cadet FOs still responsible for bridging the 30 hour command time gap? The Jetstar cadetship tries to address this command time issue in their training phase by basically calling these extra hours as "additional expenses". They also pin food and board under the same category
Just wondering if AAPA do something similar but don't tell you about it untill you're at the interview?
Finally, I read from the cadetship faq document that the repayment of the 100k loan over 7 years will be on a "
sliding scale geared to salary so that the fortnightly repayment represents an affordable proportion of the estimated pilot’s salary" So if its not the 14k (plus interest) annual repayment from the beginning as some posts make it out to be, are people still of the opinion that the take home wage for a new cadet FO will be low enough to pay rent etc.? I have the salary figures for FOs but without the repayment adjustments its useless info for someone thinking about this cadetship.
I apologise for the barrage of questions, but I felt that after reading long threads that some of the gritty detailed stuff was untouched
Cheers.