The truth hurts.
Whoever put the pen to paper, well done.

Totally agree,the truth does hurt.
And well written.

I've got many mates in QF, and in fact one of them was on the flight deck of QF32, but if being part of that organisation means.....

..... they would set about learning the Qantas way of doing things, a distillation of more than 80 years of experience, and 50-plus years of flying heavy jets around the world.

which restlts in an attidude that suggests.....

.... One captain commented that a first officer is ''there for two reasons: one is to prepare for his own command, but by far the most important is to make sure I do everything correctly when the **** hits the fan''.

...then my decision to join another major carrier for my career seems like a better decision overall. The word "I" should never appear in any communications to do with teamwork. An appaling statement within an otherwise well constructed argument.

Agree, very well written.

I was reading this yesterday and one line really stood out at me....

Is this the best boss in Australia?



Who would have thought that treating your staff well would increase productivity for the company? That Clive is a genious!

Well done that man:ok: This also is not just for the guys in the game now, but the ones like myself wanting to go down this career path. I see my future going down the drain with this sh!t and it has to stop.

That is a well written unemotional article.
How many of your non aviation. Friends and relatives would have read it?

Can I suggest that if every person on here sent this article to all their friends and associates, maybe asking them to forward it in, we are doing the job of the media and ensuring all people have to option of educating themselves about the current aviation situation. Copy/paste/send to address book.:ok:

Senate Inquiry update:
 

I agree that is a very good article and may I suggest that it doesn't just reflect the situation at Jet* either!!!:ugh:

Seems the inquiry won't be presented in the Senate till March next year (see link below)!? Does this mean they were bombarded with submissions or has the whole inquiry been put in the too hard basket?? :hmm:

Does anyone know if they are still having the public hearing in Sydney on December 1st, and when will they publish more of the submissions?

At the request of Senator...: 17 Nov 2010: Senate debates (OpenAustralia.org)

cheers

Sarcs

More Submissions published , including AIPA , VIPA , AFAP , QF JQ , Virgin , Cobham and more.

44 now in total.

Senate Submissions

Good Start
 

I hope it keeps rolling and actually addresses the issues. Well done all who put their 2 bobs worth in. But can you beat the spin and political agenda with honesty and concern for the 'game'. I hope so.

The CASA submission is a hoot.

The ATSB is tragic. Resources for 70 investigations against 8300 odd acknowledged 'safety issues'. Thats got to be worth a Royal Commission. Stand alone. All the safety spin in the world and not a feather to fly with.

I tend to agree with Sunny, where on earth are we headed.

....and surely when some employee finally has the balls to coherently, intelligently and rationally explain the current state of the industry and gets the sack for doing so - this too is worthy of assessment by any senate inquiry.

What a rotten industry this has become.

A full Senate beats a press gallery
 

.Quote - (AER) - and surely when some employee finally has the balls to coherently, intelligently and rationally explain the current state of the industry and gets the sack for doing so - this too is worthy of assessment by any senate inquiry.

This is only one reason why it it was so important to support this inquiry. Just once, without being isolated you could have your say with a modicum of protection. I hope there are a lot more submissions piled up, The 'big' end of town' know how to play these games and they are good at them.

Carpe Diem boys, big time.

Bingo !! Rose Thorns nails it one sentence.
The ATSB are getting stretched wider than Lady Gaga on tour !
Australia severely lacks the financial resources and levels of manpower needed to safely, adequately and professionally oversight aviation across all levels, as well as investigate. Mitigation strategy I hear ? This, $$$$$$$$$$$.

Is it this bad?
 

This makes me feel sick.

Senate inquiry: Australian airlines abandon exceptional excellence in pilot training – Plane Talking


There is something truly alarming about the major airline submissions to the impending Senate inquiry into pilot training and airline safety standards instigated by South Australian independent senator, Nick Xenophon.
None of them invoke (or revive) the concept of exceptional excellence in piloting in Australian carriers.
They endorse the notion that if an airline can meet the minimum requirements set for pilot competency in training outcomes in Australia they are adopting world’s best practice.

Inexperienced pilots in control seats of high performance jets
 

Picked up by The Age newspaper this morning (most viewed article so far):

Air India Express | Panicky pilot caused passenger jet plunge

It really worries me that there junior pilots in these airlines who rely so much on automatic systems, and have insufficient background nor confidence to disconnect, take over, recover and fly the damn aeroplane. The cockpit gradient between Captain and First Officer experience is a real problem.

The Senate Enquiry are still receiving submissions and will continue to do so as long as they come in, regardless off any cutoff date.

First hearing is tomorrow!

First hearing is tomorrow!
 

SYDNEY: State Room, Mercure Sydney Airport Hotel, 12.30pm - 3.00pm

The first cab off the rank is AIPA, with Joe Eakins as one of the speakers,next T*ger then R*X.

So is anyone turning up to show support?

The airlines are in the driving seat when it comes to pilot training requirements. They provide the market, hence dictate the quality of the product. The airlines provide 94% (?) of CASA's and AsA's operating funds in a climate where the customer is always right. CASA can't get an updated set of regulations published. There's no need. The airlines don't need them and GA makes up such a miniscule economic input to CASA's coffers that to work on updating regs seems like throwing a huge capital expense at an area that has little economic return. Two private entities run the entire industry.

Wasted writing...I know, but IMO, the demand for quality pilots has to be encouraged. To this extent, ditch many of the RPT regs limiting route operations to specific companies and open the skies to effective competition. But first CASA needs to get the regs in order.

Does anyone know if/where transcripts of the hearings will be available to the public?

Transcripts will be published here: Parliament of Australia: Senate: Committees: Rural Affairs and Transport Committee: Inquiry into Pilot training and airline safety including consideration of the Transport Safety Investigation Amendment (Incident Reports) Bill 2010: Public hearings a

There is sometimes a lag between the hearing and the publication, depending on how busy Hansard is. Also, if the Committee hears evidence in camera, transcripts of that evidence may not be published.

By the way, vision and audio of hearings in Canberra are usually broadcast live, here (and sometimes audio is available for hearings outside Canberra, although there doesn’t appear to be anything scheduled for 1 Dec yet) : Parliament of Australia: Live Broadcasting

After speaking with the committee, it appears there are many such submissions due to the fact that most submitters are fearful of retribution from their employers. It sounds like there are quite a few more submissions than has been published on the website.

Senator's are asking great questions ... let it all begin.:D

Listen Live - audio only.

Damn - I missed the first couple of hours.

Did anyone by any chance record the feed or alternatively if, and where the 'archive' mp3 file may be available from??

Cheers

Biggles

Just thought I would post this for those that haven't seen it...

Jetstar sacked pilot Joe Eakins pulls out of Senate safety inquiry

A Common Theme
 

Submissions to the Senate by Airlines seem to have the common theme that Competency is a better system than hours. This was comfirmed by the REX testimony yesterday when they specifically stated that Cadets perform better than pilot that have been 'polluted' by a few thousand hours up in the top end.

If that is the case why do they maintain minimum experience levels for recruitment purposes? Why not just do what companys do outside of aviation and seek CV's from a unrestricted level of experience, then invite those they like the look of for a sim check to assess their competence??

The Kelpie

The other interesting thing I see from QF/J* submission and I gather from the other submissions is that in order to get a command you need to have a met a certain hours (4000hr narrow body 6000 hrs for wide body J* case) requirement along with a minimum time in the company and passing the training. So they admit that experience in hourly and in yearly terms does play a role.

Taking their argument to extreme: (sarcasm on) If a 200 hour cadet is good enough for the right seat because of competence then why not the left seat? Why do they place the restriction for hours or time in company for command. If competent the why not have a CPT that has 500 hours? Is that because they actually believe that time spent doing the job is a good thing. That some experience can't be taught in the sim. They should be lobbying CASA to drop the 1500 hr limit on obtaining an ATPL and dropping their own requirements for command if they think that hours don't matter. (Sarcasm off)

I was a QF cadet and I know that I wasn't ready for the right seat after finishing my course and I went to one of the better, if not the best flying training school outside of the RAAF. Could've I learnt quickly if I was placed in the right seat. Probably. But I know I would've been a liability for a substantial period of time. I struggled to make HF radio calls as a new S/O as I had had no exposure to it, My radio work in general was rubbish as I had little exposure to how ATC worked in the non training environment, let alone being able to pick a CPTs error in fuel ordering or alike or being able to help interpret a difficult MEL. I certainly benefited from sitting in the back watching and I certainly made a lot of errors along the way. Book knowledge is different to practical application. I'm sure most of my fellow classmates and other cadets would agree.

Maybe the senators should call all ex cadets to their enquiry and ask them how ready they were at the end of their course to go into the right seat.

That sounds exactly like the sort of submission the Senate should hear.

Yes Captain Kremin you are right.

Another thing the Senate seemed particularly interested in was the cost for the cadet schemes and who paid for it.

REX told the committee that their cadet scheme costs approx. $88,000 funded 25% by 7 year bond, 25% by scholarship or Applicant and remaining 50% by applicant at a preferencial interest rate. Ab-Initio to RHS SAAB 340 for $88,000 in a state of the art, brand new, custom designed training facility run by the airline itself in 32 weeks and guarantees a job - sounds competitive!!

Will be interested to see how Oxford and CTC in their partnership with Jetstar justify to Senate circa $180,000 for essentially the same course (albeit different endorsement) without the guarantee of a job. I find it highly coincidental if not suspicious that the training costs from two completely different third party training organisations can be within $1,000 of each other - especially when they seem as inflated as they do.

Oxford and CTC you are companys with a history of charging these rates in the UK. This is Australia - different market - different market rate. Well that is the argument Jetstar are putting up for Asian expansion isn't it?

Oh and Oxford the fact that you trained the first 4 JQ cadets in a Seneca simulator with 300 knots of wind up the arse instead of a Glass CRJ jet type simulator (as you are supposed to have) and with a handwritten cardboard speed scale placed over the mechanical ASI has not gone un-noticed either!!!


From the Jetstar Website
Also I wonder whether Jetstar will cough to the fact that they are charging circa $40,000 of the total for the cadet's line training in Jetstar aircraft on normal A320 passenger carrying operations - a cost which a direct entry FO would not have to carry!!!! This $40k is in addition to the cost of the A320 endorsement!!

To tie this into the Senate Theme and the issues surrounding Joe Eakin - Stress caused by being skint all the time as a result of being ripped off and from being treated badly will contribute significantly to cumulative stress levels in what is already recognised to be one of the most stressful jobs in the world. Stress causes poor performance. Poor performance causes ACCIDENTS!!!

More to Follow.

The Kelpie

32 weeks sounds awfully fast. I think my course was 13 or 14 months full time from ab-initio and without a SAAB endorsement on it. Though they seem have got good results. I think my course (flying component) was priced around the 80k mark in 1990s dollars.

So $88,000 seems a pretty competitive deal in todays money for this amount of training and prospects.

$88K would have been competitive in the last '90s for a course such as that.

I'm amazed at how they cram it into 32 weeks. My cadetship took 15 months in 1991-92. It could have been shortened by two months without too many dramas but that's about it. I wonder how much content is retained and how much is simply learned for the exam and then 'dumped.

Is 88k without ATPL subjects but includes room and food from what I understand.

Were you ready for a right seat after your course Keg? What about your classmates?

Right seat of what? An RPT airliner? Hell no. After two years in the back seat I found F/O training bloody hard going. Having had those two years to sit back and watch other guys do it and get a bit of 'experience' behind me was invaluable when I finally checked out as an F/O.

I should point out that my cadetship included the following:

UPPL
SE CIR and then IFR navs to consolidate hours.
CPL Nav training in a duchess
MECIR coincident with the nav training including solo navs (VFR) in the duchess.
Aerobatics endorsement on Cap 10 (15 hours)
15 hours multi crew in a C500.

Total syllabus was about 210 hours. I've not heard of a cadet course that has run things that way since my course. Now it's bare minimum hours. Much less experience IF and much less experience in the twin. Better or worse? Dunno. I know that I wasn't ready for the RHS of an airliner.

I take it yours was before the Industry Experience keg?

Do you think it's actually safer to go straight in as an SO (where you are in the back) rather than have those 2 years of industry experience?

gotta LOVE this gem....

how times have changed!

I think what Mr Davis really meant was " Rex is was sick and tired of having pilots that are not locked into their ****ty conditions and pay pissing off to better jobs"
The real reason they like the cadet scheme is the lock in obligation and having Fark All experience means they could not piss off if they wanted too!:}

What a rip-off. 15 hours to teach someone to do a slow roll, barrel roll, loop, roll off the top, stall turn. You could do the lot in one hour in a Tiger Moth provided you didn't get air sick..

That 15 hours included about seven hours solo to go and get out of shape however you liked. If I recall correctly it was a couple hours of general handling and dual circuits. An hour of solo circuits. A couple of hours of aeros and then the remainder was solo or dual depending on your choice. For me I chose to fly with Dog Seaver on a couple of designated solo sessions to pick up a few additional manoeuvres than just the basic things you can do in a Tiger Moth.

Mcgrath50. I've never flown regional in 'industry experience' so I don't think I'm qualified to say whether that would have worked effectively for me or not.

For anyone that's interested the Proof copy of the Senate public hearing held 1st December is available.

http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/senate...tee/S13375.pdf

an interesting read, for sure. But it doesn't ask the question about WHY pilots move one, and why, in particular REX lost 50% of their pilots in 07/08.
no one has asked WHY pilots will keep moving jobs/companies.... and I think that some of the presenters dodged the underlying issue rather effectively, by saying that pilots will move because they want to fly 737's, or A320's .... mentions NOTHING about the low $$$ on offer,managements refusal to deal with the issues at hand, or the company increasing working hours for no more renumeration.That pilots were pressured to extend their working day because the company didn't want to have a decent number of pilots on reserve lines, or that pilots, sometimes even MANAGEMENT pilots could(and did) earn more $$$ working their second job, than they would by going in to work for the airline.
They don't mention that in the end, the pilots who applied AND were interviewed may have been "second rate" because the HR departments didn't get back to the better ones, and so they withdrew their applications once they saw how badly they would potentially be treated.
They gloss over the fact that now EVERY captain will HAVE to be a pseudo training captain, and that cadets will be MENTORED by those captains who have cut their teeth in GA, and industry prior to joining the airlines. and that these pseudo training captains wont be paid any extra for the privilege of babysitting a new chap.
They also fail to experiment into WHY GA is paid so poorly. WHY it is over-regulated, and WHY so many dodgy operators are allowed to keep on operating.
They fail to mention that regional airlines in a lot of cases have monopolies on certain routes, and that it is the airlines themselves that discount the airfares, when there is no need to. they then cry poor and take it out of the workers potential paypackets. in the rest of cases, generally it is a duopoly or at WORST a triad of operators, and, without alleging price fixing, generally they all charge about the same price for the same service over the same route.
I would seriously LOVE to sit down for an afternoon of off the record chatting with senator Xenophon.... although it seems he has more than a "press reported" view, at this stage. I will reserve my judgement of the committee once I read the rest of the transcripts and see their findings.

very interesting.

Now I have had a chance to have a good read something doesn't add up.....literally.

For the JQ cadetship AIPA reports the course as costing almost $200,000. This is correct but as all cadets are to be put on Nz contracts and paid in Nz$ this equates to a payback amount of approximately Nz$259,000, less the JQ 'sponsorship' of $21,000 (Nz$27,000).

The tax liability in Nz is marginally higher than Oz so from a salary of Nz$47,000 this would reduce take home pay to approximately Nz$28,000 per annum in years 1 to 3. In years 3 to 6 there is an increase to salary to Nz$54,000 reducing take home pay yo approximately Nz$36,000.

Over 6 years total take home pay is Nz$192,000.

Income of Nz$192,000 - Cadetship cost of Nz$232,000 = -Nz$40,000 over 6 years which equates to a negative average income of Nz$6,700 per annum.

Cadets will be paying them!!!! I hope the Senate committee identifies this as it is clearly below the minimum wage.

More to follow

The Kelpie