Hi Geoff - its not paranoia, I'm just picking up on a theme running in this thread.
What I struggle to connect is self-funding and the structure of any training syllabus, its examination, the pass rate and re-validation.
You seem to be saying that the quality of helicopter instructor is poor because they are private pilots, self-funded and wannabe CPL's. Yet still with no metric for the measurement of this quality beyond the anecdotal.
Our industry has forever been cyclical and those that feed on the crumbs at the bottom of the market don't deserve hand-outs. If the customer can't afford the rate for the job then maybe a helicopter is not the tool for the job.
They don't get hand-outs nor ask for them BUT there is a huge range that covers a single turbine helicopter driven by a CPL....
Imagine having this argument about the training of surgeons. If we don't have enough respect for our own industry then maybe we deserve to be treated like truck drivers or cattlemen but that's not what I see when pilots display amazing skill and knowledge in a complex modern helicopter.
This is a fair point but actually isn't this the real issue and different from the initial point? Ultimately its real knowledge of systems that become the challenge and yet who is the owner of that element of training?
I spent a lot of years in the single engine charter world and I know how tough it is but we do ourselves no favours by exposing poorly trained (but potentially good pilot material) to the risks and difficulties they will encounter when they have been trained by a system that does not stand up to close examination. When I tell non aviators how it is at the moment they are dumbfounded that we could be so dumb.
But what is the evidence for these poorly trained pilots? OR the benchmark for the poor training syllabus? Are instructors or examiners feeding back that our PPL / CPL isn't fit for purpose?? Its a genuine question - i don't know.