Here goes on a few of the charges made by AH64Apache.
With regard to the departure of JD - yes he was sacked> No I don't know why. No I will not comment because I do not know the facts and will not indulge in ill-informed speculation based on part info.
We do not have a manning problem. In line with every other FTO we have lost trade due to the recession and therefore have enough people. As WWW says, there is every likelihood that we will be able to recruit almost at will becuase of the current situation - and even before the 11th sept we had rejected several applicants for groundschool instructors (coming from other FTOs) because we are being choosey.
To the best of my knowledge, any delays experienced are minor and again quoting WWW (who is better informed than Apache) what have they to go home to anyway?
We can handle one course a month - although some more FIs would be handy as you can see from our advert in Flight. However, see above re; recruiting.
Sure, there are some of us who are unhappy with the management - can anyone honestly say they love all their bosses? On the up side, we have been assured by the Chairman of BAE Systems (Sir Richard Evans himself)that we have the unequivocal backing of the board to ride the recession - we will NOT be going out of business. Who else can say that? We have also just hadf a pay rise as a reward for meeting financial targets - once again, who else in this industry can say that?
I am not going to prentend that everything is rosey - it is not, with the departure of John Dixon leaving an "atmosphere" over then place. additionally, the whole industry is under a cloud and that has people worried - even with the support the board has given. workload has been high, and will be for some time, but we cope. Many/most schools in the UK have a big problem with late graduations due to weather/priorities/manning and I am not going to name and shame as that has been done regularly elsewhere.
However, the picture is nowhere near how Apache paints it and I for one would love to know where he gets his info from. I feel a good deal more secure job wise here than I would do back in the UK.
Note, please, that unlike other people mentioned in other threads we have a FULL 12 month approval from the CAA so at least the authorities are happy with what we are doing.