Above The Clouds.....how many years ago? How many of the 14 exams did you do? How many types did you hold at conversion? How many exams did the FAA make you sit and were they relevant to flying a plane, or were they questions like "How does the surface temperature get affected by Solar flares in Winter, in the Southern Hemisphere?" A) Who knows B) Who cares C) Ask a BA 777 Captain and watch his head explode or D) It's not relevant to flying an aircraft!!!
Seriously though....how many people got grandfather rights? Until a year or so back, how many people who could demonstrate flying an airliner on an FAA ticket for more than 3000 hours or something (exact rule eludes me) got given JAR licenses? I don't know, but they used to hand them out like confetti.....no reported accidents as a result. And thats the key. It's to do with politics. It isn't to do with flight safety. It isn't to do with bringing up the base level of intellect, or demonstrating knowledge....its politics. I say again,if BGS and Oxford etc have been seeing more failures of late....its way more likely that this is down to the system, not the methods and not the teachers.
I've just passed the EASA LST, just in case I need it (I won't....but the company wanted it done to be sure). It was a very straight forward test, as usual (done them before and sat alongside as co jo, for many of my EASA counterparts for their rides). Harder, more complex, more comprehensive than an FAA skills test??? No. Does it show that I'm above FAA level of skill? No. Does it show that I can operate a complex Jet, safer than an FAA pilot? No. Was there anything in it, that demonstrated anything above an FAA test in any way? No.
The irony??? The Examiner is an FAA Examiner, with a kind of validation that allows him to hand out initial issue, recurrent OPC/LPC tickets etc, until the sun comes down. He's never held a European licence of any kind.....although I think he said he had a fishing licence once, when he was based in the UK for a while.....maybe he had a TV licence too....but never a Euro licence that allowed him to fly!!!
Come on....tell me that this isn't politics and bureaucracy at its most laughable!