Centaurus
25th Dec 2008, 10:11
In the old days during my Air force flying training on Tiger Moths, if you had not flown solo by ten hours things looked grim career wise. If not by 12 hours you were scrubbed. You could have had an incompetent screamer as instructor but that was your bad luck because if it wasn't working out then it took a brave student to ask for instructor change.
Of course there must be some sort of limit on how long you persist with a student perceived as slow and I guess the 12 hour limit, which was quite arbitary, was used as an average decision point. Keep in mind the military had relatively experienced pilots as flying instructors in terms of total flying hours, even though some may have just graduated as new instructors. For example using my case I had around 1500 hours on heavy bombers (1955 vintage) when I was posted to an instructors course.
This thread is prompted by a AAIB report in another forum about a very hard landing in an A320 by a new first officer with 3-400 hours total time The report was one of the best I have seen for concise writing and gave a potted history of this pilot's flying training up to to where he really stuffed the A320 landing. His progress reports throughout his A320 simulator training and his line training revealed he had re-occuring problems with the flare and touch down.
We have all had occasional "firm" landings in our career. But where it is apparent someone is having a lot more than the usual problems with landing a jet, then somewhere along the line someone has to make the difficult decision to call a halt and examine the options. In other words, ignore what may be a potentially serious lack of skill by the student and look the other way - OR - pull the plug on him/her and wear the tears.
The decision to continue looking the other way or to scrub the student on jet training, is sometimes compounded by a sympathetic instructor knowing the student has already spent a fortune on training. An instructor change may solve things - especially if the new instructor has the conviction to say enough is enough - sorry old chap but you are too erratic in your landings to be safe in a jet transport and I suggest you look around for a job in general aviation. We cannot risk having you as second in command of a big jet.
I surmised from the AAIB report that the first officer paid up front for a first officer's job on a jet. All of his instructors in the simulator could not be wrong, yet it seemed he was let slip through the training system even though there was no shortage of evidence that the poor chap was consistently unable to make safe landings with any degree of consistency.
He was finally let loose from the A320 simulator (there must have been misgivings) and went on to line training where the record revealed same problems with firm landings caused by late or no flare. But the company persisted - perhaps because he was paying for this training under an arrangement. The AAIB report alludes to this.
Regardless of financial arrangements between new pilot and the company, it seems to me the policy of buying a first officer's position in a transport jet needs to be reviewed. In the "old days" (please forgive the use of that term but you must know what I mean), passengers could expect two very experienced pilots up front. This policy has long since gone to be replaced on many occasions by an experienced captain and a very low hour inexperienced (in flying hours) second in command. The second in command bit is scary especially when the truth is the second in command may have less than 1000 hours.
I believe the solution is to bite the bullet and decide by mid way through the type rating course whether or not the candidate will in all probability never be more than below average. Rather than press on at his expense in the hope he will come good eventually, and then duck-shove him to the line training captain who is forced to wear the hard landings and stuff the frightened passengers - maybe the student (for want of a better word) should be told in a sympathetic manner that he is scrubbed.
We have all flown with pilots who are pretty ropey and shouldn't be in the seat. Why were they let go for so long? If the problem with a student arises early in his simulator training, then the instructor should never be put in the position that he is quietly pressured into passing a student on a type rating because of perceived commercial pressures. There is much of value to be learned from reading the A320 AAIB report on the hard landing. I suspect it is the tip of the iceberg in simulator training paid up front by the student.
Of course there must be some sort of limit on how long you persist with a student perceived as slow and I guess the 12 hour limit, which was quite arbitary, was used as an average decision point. Keep in mind the military had relatively experienced pilots as flying instructors in terms of total flying hours, even though some may have just graduated as new instructors. For example using my case I had around 1500 hours on heavy bombers (1955 vintage) when I was posted to an instructors course.
This thread is prompted by a AAIB report in another forum about a very hard landing in an A320 by a new first officer with 3-400 hours total time The report was one of the best I have seen for concise writing and gave a potted history of this pilot's flying training up to to where he really stuffed the A320 landing. His progress reports throughout his A320 simulator training and his line training revealed he had re-occuring problems with the flare and touch down.
We have all had occasional "firm" landings in our career. But where it is apparent someone is having a lot more than the usual problems with landing a jet, then somewhere along the line someone has to make the difficult decision to call a halt and examine the options. In other words, ignore what may be a potentially serious lack of skill by the student and look the other way - OR - pull the plug on him/her and wear the tears.
The decision to continue looking the other way or to scrub the student on jet training, is sometimes compounded by a sympathetic instructor knowing the student has already spent a fortune on training. An instructor change may solve things - especially if the new instructor has the conviction to say enough is enough - sorry old chap but you are too erratic in your landings to be safe in a jet transport and I suggest you look around for a job in general aviation. We cannot risk having you as second in command of a big jet.
I surmised from the AAIB report that the first officer paid up front for a first officer's job on a jet. All of his instructors in the simulator could not be wrong, yet it seemed he was let slip through the training system even though there was no shortage of evidence that the poor chap was consistently unable to make safe landings with any degree of consistency.
He was finally let loose from the A320 simulator (there must have been misgivings) and went on to line training where the record revealed same problems with firm landings caused by late or no flare. But the company persisted - perhaps because he was paying for this training under an arrangement. The AAIB report alludes to this.
Regardless of financial arrangements between new pilot and the company, it seems to me the policy of buying a first officer's position in a transport jet needs to be reviewed. In the "old days" (please forgive the use of that term but you must know what I mean), passengers could expect two very experienced pilots up front. This policy has long since gone to be replaced on many occasions by an experienced captain and a very low hour inexperienced (in flying hours) second in command. The second in command bit is scary especially when the truth is the second in command may have less than 1000 hours.
I believe the solution is to bite the bullet and decide by mid way through the type rating course whether or not the candidate will in all probability never be more than below average. Rather than press on at his expense in the hope he will come good eventually, and then duck-shove him to the line training captain who is forced to wear the hard landings and stuff the frightened passengers - maybe the student (for want of a better word) should be told in a sympathetic manner that he is scrubbed.
We have all flown with pilots who are pretty ropey and shouldn't be in the seat. Why were they let go for so long? If the problem with a student arises early in his simulator training, then the instructor should never be put in the position that he is quietly pressured into passing a student on a type rating because of perceived commercial pressures. There is much of value to be learned from reading the A320 AAIB report on the hard landing. I suspect it is the tip of the iceberg in simulator training paid up front by the student.