Originally Posted by
Cloud Bunny
True. But I think the point is that all this will create is an added level of undue pressure, causing stress levels to be increased which will in turn increase the likelihood of mistakes being made, missed calls etc etc. They will then turn round and condem you on the back of this.
You're right at any stage, day or night we should be able to go into a sim and fly any procedure, deal with any emergency and have a successful outcome. With zero prep. This scenario doesn't mirror that and they are very very wrong if they think it does.
If someone was to go and sit next to a receptionist and tell her that "today if you make a singal spelling mistake in any of your typing, you're fired. And I'm going to sit here and watch everything you type." What's going to happen? They'll make a spelling mistake in the first sentence they write. Does this prove they are incompetent and totally unsuitable? No. It demonstrates a perfectly normal human psychological reaction to being put under that level of scrutiny without notice. A 'startle effect' of sorts if you will.
Once again they have an opportunity for change, to make things better and again it would seem they're going to f this up too.
Yes and no. To fail a check it needs more than just a "hic up" (or a spelling error as in your example). There might be things to discuss but that doesn't mean to fail. A fail does not nean you are fired either. But quite obviously there is something to be looked at and, maybe, re-trained. There have been several examples, even recently, of pilots being re-trained.
If an unannounced check increases the level of pressure as such that you cannot perform properly anymore, one might have to think about if the chosen profession is the right one. There seems to be a problem that we have pilots that do not perform up to the required standards (and I don't want to point fingers at the colleagues in DME, as we don't know enough to judge). I believe this is an appropriate mean to filter them out and give them the chance to improve with training.