AT Captains' Courses

[charliegolf]

Genuine interest- were such courses formal 'conversions' from co to captain; or were they squadron based training for 'senior' copilots?

Did people fail?

As an SH bloke, every Puma pilot was a de facto captain, so I wondered about the AT fleet(s). Same goes for Chin-hooks I suppose.

Cheers

CG

CG

That\'ll be CG squared!

CG

[BEagle]

On the VC10, I taught many a 'co-capt' course and very, very few people failed. But they had to be good enough in the first place......

Had a complete knob from the C-130 world who failed the '10 OCU once. But from what I later read, they'd been only too glad to see the back of him in the first place! Clearly they hadn't been fooled, even if Binnsworth had!

[charliegolf]

BEagle

Thanks.

Did you 'construct' each course as and when the need arose; or was there a sort of 'captain's ocu' running at brize all the time?

cg

[BEagle]

Nope - there was a standard 'Co-Capt Course' and we did one whenever there was both flex in other tasking AND a perceived need.... Otherwise the candidate went and did the entire basic course again with a brand new crew - more for their benefit than his. It was often a pi$$ing contest between bosses determined to get their blue-eyed boy an early captaincy, the training flight staff availability and the people at Binnsworth who never seemed to be able to provide whole crews for courses which were designed around whole crews!

[EESDL]

CG
As an SH mucker you will think that Co-Capt course is the biggest joke out! Fortunately, in the Truckie world atleast, some common sense has prevailed and streamlined the process. No1 interview down at Gp, etc etc where the Grand Fromage could not answer your questions/concerns anyway!!!!
Yes, there's the odd knob who doesn't get recomended, but then he wouldn't have passed an SH OCU, or even been streamed that way in the first place - but streamed gp 2.

If you're ex SH and just on your first co tour you've already learnt to keep your mouth shut and your head below the parapet.

The challenges of landing from one international airport to another should not be too much for an ex SH mucker - just remember that you still get paid the same:-)

Gp2 Captain - Fallacy

[charliegolf]

EESDL

I'm an ancient ex crewman from 33 and 230, and just got to wondering.

I'd happily swop my current job for a co spot!

CG

(But I did also know when to keep it zipped!)