EMB145 Good Post
Didn't one of the most senior training captains at BA say a few years ago that he would be quite happy to put a young person
onto a 737 sim from 0 hour to the line?
A lot of this relates to personal experience
i.e. WWW ex BAe came to his job through an
operation that teaches people to fly aeroplanes single crew. OK a sim may be
used later on multi-crew. Most CAA staff examiners have only ever flown light aircraft
and ME IR instructors are the same.
They regard the single crew ratings as
a prerequisite for good multicrew ops.
Its their job.
I think with the aging fleets of GA aircraft
and associated escalation of costs for spares
etc and the plummeting costs of simulators
one expect a shift of emphasis
This has already started. Most BA sponsored pilots will never use their Single crew IRs
after their initial IRT. Why get an expensive
rating that you will never use.
The JAA severed the link between multi and
single crew environments and more legislation may be in the pipeline.
Of course BA would love to save costs and cut out all the single crew initial training
but this may be a long time coming.