This plan has kinks left right and center.

What 'suitably qualified' SO/FO wants to delay their own progression to the RHS/LHS (and associated pay rises/reduced retirement nest egg) by spending extended periods back instructing just to help out short sighted management practices dating back years?

If enough applicants made themselves available anyway they might be able to swing it to a limited extent by rostering them to instruct several days a mth each instead of reserve/standby days but that would severely restrict QF's ability to recover from schedule disruptions themselves at possibly enormous cost.

From what I hear from current QF pilots QF is severely short of pilots themselves...a product of short sighted recruitment practices in the last several + years. Does anyone really think they have the spare capacity to release enough suitably qualified SO/FOs back to GA to instruct cadets?

How many QF pilots are not already logging something in the order of 800-900 hrs/annum? Anyone given any thought to FTLs?

Personally I think it would be short sighted of any current S/O or F/O to offer their services. The only way we are going to be able to maintain or improve our conditions is via having market forces on our side. Why anyone would want to help the company with the supply side of the equation is beyond me. :confused:

CC, I think that you might have missed a couple of the salient points.

Seniority will accrue normally whilst instructing so there would be no delay in being promoted to F/O.
They will be paid normal S/O rates with superannuation paid at standard rate so there will be no reduced retirement nest egg.
Yearly pay increments (up to 12 years) will be paid as per normal.
This plan is aimed at instructors currently at flying training schools - not at S/O's currently employed (as you said no spare capacity)

Five of the recent QF recruits were high rated instructors from one of the larger flying training schools and I believe that the schools management complained big time to QF as the schools capacity to check out trainees had been sevely restricted by the loss of these instructors.

QF wouldnt have a shortage of pilots if 50-70% of applicants didnt fail the stage 1 psych test.

Eliminate the dumb psych test and just inetrview all suitable candidates.

While it is a good idea; I don't think to many people who have done a decent amount of time in GA will won't to go back there in a hurry.

NoMoreCatering

You not wrong there!

These pysche tests mean nothing, and perhaps Santa might have time to drop in at QF Pilot recruitment and bring them into the 21st C. by letting them know .:ugh:

Any clever pyscho can pass a personality test, it's in the simmulator and online perfermance where they come unstuck, in the meantime a lot of good pilots don't get scrubbed at stage one.


Blue Foot

The allocation of instructors from QF is a largely academic argument. With the advent of the MPL , the majority of the licence training is to be conducted in a simulator. A shortage of qualified sim instructors will then be the issue.

I should also add that the QF Stage 1 testing is specifically designed to eliminate those who believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.

Could QF offer the old guys who are about to retire, to subsidise their instructor training and use them. I'm not a pilot, but quite a few I have spoken to love to fly and maybe would like this as a part time gig.

I don't know how this works with the retirement age, but it is just one thought. QF seems to lack any lateral thinking. They also don't seem to want to have any happy employees, which how happy will a SO or FO be to go back to GA.

QF aren't looking seriously at the MPL or at least that's their stated stance. To quote one well known person in QF who has an influence on such matters "doesn't save any time, doesn't save any money- in fact it's more expensive-, doesn't give a higher quality pilot, so why would we touch it".

Personally I reckon he's right on this one.

Did you ask him how he arrived at those conclusions without having trained anyone to the proposed MPL standard? And then evaluated their performance over a period of time? I am particularly interested in the bit.

The MPL is not all sim time, as I am sure you are aware. There is some flying in a - gulp - real aircraft which will require at least some Flight Instructors.

From my own experience the banging around the back of Bathurst that I did in a PA28 in order to log solo (command) time for my CPL didn't really prepare me for the multi-crew jet transport occupation that I now enjoy.

Yeah like 10 hours was the numbers I last read.:rolleyes:

The fact is that with the MPL compared to the traditional license:

It takes longer as you do more time

The sims are more expensive than training aircraft

The instructors are more expensive

Given also that there will be plenty of holes to plug cadets now in mining charter :}:} aircraft or in QF regionals then I cannot see the point of an MPL as opposed to doing the way they always have THEN going into a Dash 8 or Metro.

I disagree. I work with one experienced relatively young (30) guy who would not want to be an SO due to the boredom. I Know another guy who was an SO but quit due to the boredom.

I just love this site!
I think you will find, Neville, that if you do some more reading that it is 10 hrs solo. Care to provide some evidence for your assertion re costs?
You can disagree all you like Fonz - it is just that I haven't met anyone that doesn't want to be an SO. That of course doesn't mean that they don't exist - I just haven't met one or two or three. Perhaps they are rare?
Boring being an SO? Hardly. No more bored than the guy/girl sitting next to you on that trans-Pacific flight. Oh that is right - they get to actually land and take off the aircraft. 20 mins work in a 14 hr sector. Yeeehaaaa! Woopee! :D B.F.D.

Boring?? Compared to flying with a student in the circuit that just wont f&^#ing listen to you??

But on a serious note can someone please advise if this means that all the instructors that are being hired at present as SO (Jan start date onwards) will be expected to do flight instruction?

Regards

I know of at least three pilots who don't want to be S/O's. One is going to CA, one Jester, one Virgin. None applied to QF as they didn't want to be long haul S/O's. It wouldn't phase me but it does phase many.

Leaving aside the industrial relations issues. Mixing long haul S/O with GA flying at, hopefully a well resourced and equiped, flying school doesn't sound like such a bad gig.

Hey White Rat Wannabee....are you still out there?

I told you that RACWA Instructor Rating would come in handy one day.:E

Is CA- Cathay. If it is, how is this pilot going to get out of being a long haul S/O there. Or is this another C scale Direct entry possie in Aust.

How is being an S/O more boring than being an F/O or Capt?.

IT IS EASY!

All the flight training institutions have to do is pay MORE!

MORE MONEY = MORE INSTRUCTORS

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Beer Bong wins the prize.

Is Qantas employing airline pilots or flight instructors? If it was me in Qantas and offered an instructing job, I'd jump at the opportunity. Home almost every night, maintain seniority and pay, weekends off, etc. And then Qantas would have to find another pilot to replace me.

Qantas can't get instructors at 30K per year, so someone decides it would be a good idea to have "QF SO's/ex instructors sent back to GA." costing somewhere in the region of 100K per year each plus another 100K for a replacement. D'uh!

What a stupid idea!

Why would Qantas even think of putting SO's and FO's into instructing, when simply if they paid enough to hire existing GA instructors at 100K per year, they'd have their choice of an outstanding crop and wouldn't have to employ any of them.

Hellooooooo! Earth to Qantas...

Lowdown, re-read the previous posts. The plan is not to send existing S/O's (who can't be spared) back to instructing jobs - it is to employ existing instructors at S/O rates of pay to stop them leaving for other airlines and thus cause the pilot training system to implode. Obviously, these instructors would have to work for training organisations that are training pilots for Qantas.