Originally Posted by Panther 88
Finally, as a trainer, the upgrade candidates I saw were almost to a man/woman, outstanding. But I cannot say that about the new first officers.
Difficult to follow. So were they good or bad ? because upgrade candidates are usually F/O, aren't they ?
Originally Posted by Panther 88
I do remember one former 737 captain on his third line training flight who could not do the takeoff review, try as he might. But how did he get that far in the first place?...
And you are proud of that ? if you judge the captain potential of a candidate by his ability to produce a verbatim, no surprise that we get so many incidents from new captains who gave excellent repeats of calls and that sort of things, but are so much behind in term of technical understanding of flight (and I'm not talking about technical knowledge of systems, such as oil temperature at which the pump overheat caption will illuminate..)
We have so many pilots now who are perfect narrators of calls, are brilliantly up-to-date with the latest changes of them, are computers experts for everything related to crew apps and EPT... but are miserable when it's time to operate controls, understand AOA or perform a simple mental calculation, so scared they are of their own shadow...
I also disagree with the colleague saying "
trainers are not here to spoon feed the trainees" Well, I have been a trainer for years - and for me a type-rating (also called a conversion course here) is the opportunity to learn the aircraft, how it flies (maybe, probably differently from the previous types the trainee has flown) what could be the pitfalls - otherwide, when would be the opportunity to learn it ? and it was my pleasure to teach. Problem is that so many trainers lack the real academic and technical knowledge ... checking calls in their latest versions, any moron can do it ...
We will have to be patient to know more, as always. Like JoBurg and others, it will be issued once half of the pilots will have forgotten about it.
But once again, DME is an easy destination, just have to stick to a very simple SOP regarding QNH and feet /meters... I've seen F/O selecting meters (not required) and when challenged, giving me the answer "
it's for gross calculation, situation awareness " - looking great, but pitifully wrong ...