This is of course not the way at all in any civilian operation. Pilots are coming in from any number of training organisations who are to a greater or lesser degree more concerned with making money than producing a standard product. That is not their fault and maybe a little harsh or oversimplified, but it is the reality. Part of the problem is “what is the product?” A PPL or CPL who is just paying for their license for fun? Or an offshore pilot? Or what else? Who cares - as long as they pay! By the time they arrive at the offshore operator and have started a type rating it is too bloody late to stop the process if they are very weak. Perhaps far more time needs to be spent on real training when a new pilot comes into a company, and not just on a type rating course. The tendency today is for a type rating to be completed that will more than likely include nothing at all to do with offshore flying and is little more than a series of ticking exercise boxes. Then they are sent to the companies and released to line training (read - on the job training). We almost need to be teaching them again from the start when they come in and making sure they have all the basics covered first. Unfortunately there is no time to do this. My experience has been that some (not all) are arriving with very little real understanding of even the basics of airmanship, decision making or captaincy let alone handling, then are released to line training unable really to fly properly. They have themselves been taught by an instructor with 150hrs from the same school, who has just passed his CPL who has no experience and ability to pass on anything more than the handbook. This manifests itself into the development of all sorts of godawful bad habits. Ten years down the line - what do we have? That is how a culture is built.
The further contracting out of training (type ratings) further detaches the company from a vital check on the quality of their pilots at a critical point in their preparation and development and further degrades the long term culture if we are not very careful.
26500 - I think you should type that out and send it to the various reviews into NS operations that are taking place. Nail on the head.
