Originally Posted by
HeliComparator
It points to a wider and yet redundant skill set cluttering up the mind of a pilot living in a past role, not the current one. Some skills that you seem to set store by are not relevant in some roles. Therefore in fact no store should be set by them in that context. I liken it to the amount of effort I expended learning how to maintain the rotor rpm of the Bell 47 I learnt to fly on with the twist grip throttle. I now (used to) fly a helicopter type with absolutely zero manual throttle control, so that is a completely obsolete and redundant skill. Manually flying an ILS on that type was nearly, though not quite, and equally redundant skill. Skill sets move on, some folk get left behind. Don't be one of them!
HC, I have to answer some of that.
These skill sets may be, as you stated, approaching redundancy on the 225 in the NS, but they are by no means redundant for the vast majority of offshore pilots.
First, outside that highly regimented environment, from an employment perspective, even if the rest of us manage to get onto a very highly automated type there is a high possibility that soon we will be back on something older (ie 76) where we will again be working with less technology. The basic skill set should still be with us and ready to have the rust shaken off.
Second, in the environment where the incident in this thread happened any pilot who cannot read a map should be grounded. Beyond map-reading as a broad skill it encompasses so many finer skills and pieces of basic knowledge that I can only assume that you denigrating the skill itself either to make a point, or because you have learned it so long ago that you no longer recognize how much of 'airmanship' and 'situational awareness' is dependant on these basic skills. Like Gullibell, I have failed the one GPS source on a line check and watched mayhem ensue. This is a realistic and benign fault!
Just read your response tistisnot, and I agree. I leads into mine. The issue the bigots on here are missing about Nigeria, cadet programs, and the rest is that it is not a question of race, it is a question of industry culture. Many of the expats working in companies that are running strong nationalization programs are in an environment completely foreign to how their career progressed. They are in developing countries to start. Without a domestic aerial work industry the big single-pilot hours aren't going to happen. And on the maintenance side the new techs will not get to experience keeping an aircraft healthy cut off from the world.
Back in the USA, Canada, OZ, NZ, Europe, etc there was a huge component of competition to getting started in the industry. Getting a licence was just the first step and with each rung of the ladder not everyone made it through. Some didn't have the technical skills, or the drive, or the diplomacy. If one didn't work hard, tow the line, learn, and grow he/she was weeded out.
In the nationalization programs this is very likely to be politically difficult so it doesn't happen. The weak candidates progress along with strong. The bad attitudes are not shown the door, they are tolerated and it poisons all the relationships. The same can often be said of the expat who was so expensive to bring on staff in the first place. I've sat in the crew room at NAF base (yes Bristow) and looked around and was amazed at was tolerated of both Nigerians AND Expats. Cadets who have less than 100 hours on the 76 but felt they already knew it all and captains who used the system slide by with minimum effort, complaining not mentoring. The massively bigotted comments came from both sides and had no place in any work environment.
What does this have to do with this accident? Maybe nothing, I don't now what happened yet. Clearly anything written on here is so tainted with hate it must be ignored. But having been there, flown with the crews in both recent accidents, and seen the changes that have gone on on the maintenance side, I know where I would be looking!
I know very well that the job I had, as an expatriate in Nigeria (or anywhere else), was to train the person who would take my job. I was and am OK with that. Too many have lost sight of this. They need to be shown the door!
At the same time, it was my job to tell management, the training system, and the copilots I worked with, what needed to be fixed, what was going well, and who shouldn't be in the job. When they refuse to listen, and I feel safety is being compromised, it is time for me to go. So with disappointment, I did.
I flew with Nigerian copilots who were as sharp (sharper!) than some I fly with now, but the opposite was true too. 90% wanted to learn. When the system recognizes that the 10% who won't, and any who can't, must be shown the door then Nigeria will have the safety record of anywhere else.
Yes, I'd hold the captains, of any nationality, to the same standard.