New ATPL Pilots

[BEagle]

"One guy wants regional QNH set on the standby for Gods sake. We don't operate airliners like that."

What do you mean by 'Regional QNH'? Not a term I've heard used in the UK.

If you mean the 'Regional Pressure Setting', then I agree that it has no relevance in your people-tube operations. However, if you mean the aerodrome QNH (or TMA QNH for LTMA, for example), then I would disagree as, for example, the base of the LTMA below the Transition Altitude is defined by that value - as perhaps you might care to note?

Regrettably, many of your 'ex-FI' applicants have perhaps been wet-behind-the-ears 'hours builders' with an arrogance derived from many hours of trial flying lessons in C152s....

The FI world doesn't want them either!

[Say again s l o w l y]

Speaking as an FI and 737 pilot, I'm not convinced about the differences between modular and integrated students.

An instructor learns an awful lot about life in general and these lessons can come in very useful in an airliner cockpit, but this is getting away from the original point.

I am an ex-integrated student and whilst the training I recived was adequate to pass the tests, I realise now that there was an awful lot missing. This is one of the reasons I still instruct part-time. I'd like to do my bit to try and ensure that other people don't miss out as I did.

Airline flying is very different from bouncing around in a light a/c, but if I was in a jet and the sh** was hitting the fan, I'd far rather have an ex-instructor (who's learnt the meaning of fear in an a/c already!) than some wet behind the ears 250hr cadet who's never been outside of a structured environment and rarely had to think laterally.

One of the reasons I'm not a fan of this new MPL debacle that may be soon thrust upon us.

There is nothing wrong with serving an apprenticeship, be it as an FI, air taxi pilot or in a manky old turbo prop.

One last thing, on a recent base training detail, I watched a supposed 'high flying' cadet bugger up more than I thought humanly possible, the TRI he was with even had to resort to "Lower the nose, raise the nose, more power, less power" in other words exactly what an FI has to do with a new student learning the absolute basics. Whilst the other ex-FI's on board was spot on from start to finish.

Again, I know who I'd rather be sitting next to. Not conclusive I know, but it just shows that it's all really down to the individual.

[BEagle]

Point of order - we don't say "Lower the nose", we say "SELECT a lower pitch attitude"!......

Talking to mate in the CAA yesterday, I mentioned the infernal MPL ('Microsoft' Pilots' Licence). My view being that the absolute minimum 'mandraulic' flying that should ever be accepted is the current CPL without IR, but including the MEP Class Rating. NOTHING LESS SHOULD BE ACCEPTED! But the MPL applicant may then do all his beacon-bashing, MCC and CRM training in Flight Simulators, followed by his multi-pilot IR and Type Rating on the specific Type's simulator plus live base training.

It seems that Lufthansa still believe in the Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines Gert Frobe style of teaching and learning - "There is nothing a German cannot do! We do it like we do everything else - form the book of instructions. We have been taught this for generations!" - as the whole idea came from them in the first place. They didn't bother to elicit LBA support for their idea either!

[huckleberry58]

'Lower the nose' worked fine for me in the air. My students understood that. 'Select a lower pitch attitude' hmm... have to process that abit more in their heads and in a time critical situation it just doesn't work for me. For me, that phrase would belong in the brief/debrief.

[BigEndBob]

Being a flying instructor with thousands of hours does not necessarily make you a good multi crew airline pilot.
Instructing is not a multi crew operation. We are teaching people to be sole, self reliant problem solvers ( other than what can be offered by ATC).
I had 5000hrs instructing when i flunked out of line training (pre Mcc Crm).
Thought i was a good PNF, but got behind on my PF flying.
Got the impression that it was a bit monkey see-monkey do environment. Could see how the intergrated coursers might do better. I wanted to do eveything in the cockpit rather than getting used to sharing the tasks. So felt disconnected from what was going on.
At least i didn't crash the simulator like the instructor did and pulled off a double engine pfl at night from 5000 feet, so the instructing came in useful!

[StudentInDebt]

Regrettably, many of your 'ex-FI' applicants have perhaps been wet-behind-the-ears 'hours builders' with an arrogance derived from many hours of trial flying lessons in C152s.... The FI world doesn't want them either!

Well thats nice!! I was a "wet-behind-the-ears" instructor when I started, thankfully it seems someone in the FI world did want me and I spent 3 years instructing full-time before I moved into the airline world and out of poverty. I did many trial lessons in 152s, I'm not sure how one becomes arrogant doing so!! Some of the guys I worked with didn't want to be flying piston singles and since leaving they haven't been back in one.

From these and other comments you've made Beagle, do you feel that the FI course should have a minimum number of hours entry requirement far in excess of the current figure? If so what form should that experience take?

[BEagle]

RTFP!

'Perhaps' and 'many' are not synonymous with 'all' or 'every'.....

Yes, I do think that there should be more assessment and selection for FIs; I would prefer that they should also have a few hundred hours PPL experience plus an IMC rating as the minimum before assessment - rather than just having passed a CPL course plus lots of frankly irrlevant theoretical exams....

PPL/FIs should also be entitled to receive remuneration as one of their rating, not licence, privileges.

PPL, build experience, then FI course if able to pass selection, then FI time. Then take the CPL, IR and airline route. Less expensive courses to pay off before starting on the CPL route (around £10K?) - and an opportunity to be a part-time FI with a 'real' job until you've saved enough to help pay for the CPL/IR....

Which is what used to happen some years ago.

[Cloud 99]

I have read with interest the previous posts.

There does seem to be a bit of "what I Do is Better than You"

How about seeing it in other ways.

CASE 1: I have some great flying instructors who have done everything modular, yet these guys have the ability not just to teach but to instill a sense of responsibility and make you think about WHY you went wrong-not just that you did. I my opinion you need to make mistakes to be able to learn from them. I envy their handling skills and knowledge of their aircraft.

CASE 2: The newbie integrated student has been trained to expect an airline environment. Has in depth knowledge of the FMS, EFIS, fuel control systems. They haven't picked up the bad habits some people may have. They then have to fly second officer, training on the aircraft with long-term high hours guys who know the machine inside out. I envy their skills.

I suppose my point here is if the FI's out there took the time to speak with some integrated students they might realise that some of them actually can fly and aren't just there to be a "high flyer" but do care about their skills; and some of the straight into the airlines guys went along to their local flying school and watched how hard the instructors worked and how skilled they actually are; then we might all get along just fine.

Of course there are pilots who get in their aircraft fly from A to B then go home without much thought to what they actually encountered that day, but that goes whether they are flying a PA28 or a 737. Maybe we could all learn something.

Just my thoughts. (however don't agree with the MPL-taking things just too far).

99

[mad_jock]

Intergrated have been spoon fed all of their training.

What annoys me is they don't have to have the 200hours that modular CPL's have to have.

So they have no PIC proper time when they have to make thier own go/no go. They haven't actually done the PPL course. They don't have a bloody clue whats involved unless they went intergrated after getting a PPL.

I have only seen 1 instructor who went this route and I am not impressed.

MJ

[Spongey Brakes]

I agree with mad_jock; as somebody who is currently following the modular route in one of the large FTOs I am possibly slightly biased. When I completed my PPL and started hour building on my own I suddenly realised how much I had being relying on my instructor's judgement.

While hour building for 150 hrs in a 152 won't get you ready for a 737 sim check, it will make you stand on your own two feet and will force YOU to question yourself and make sure what you are doing is safe.

Most of the people following the integrated route have never flown on their own except from a 2km runway in the states with 100km+ vis. While this mightn't be a factor if they walk straight into a RHS on an airbus, for those integrated students who don't make the cut for BA or whoever, I can't help but wonder if they are suitably equipped to go into other jobs where they can't rely on EFIS, FD and the pro in the LHS.

[Send Clowns]

Normal Nigel

What is wrong with having Regional Pressure Setting (there is no such thing as regional QNH - you'd get a bollocking in the military for even expressing that term, and it shows lack of understanding of altimetry) on the second altimeter? For a RyanAir flight squawking 7000 IFR into the arse end of Ireland, for example. There is no point to having a second altimeter unless you use it for measuring terrain separation. The primary gives you separation from aircraft.

However, if there is a different procedure in your company, I am certain any instructor could learn that very easily. All I have known have actually been far more flexible in theier approach to flying than the integrated graduates I have known who have gone straight to airlines.

Much as I hate to defend the RAF, having been commissioned in the RN, the serving and ex-RAF or ex-UAS I have flown with or known who have few hours have been better than the integrated graduates I have been around. Sorry, but it is my experience. They have the flexibility and the presence of mind to be commanders that I saw lacking in integrated graduates. The latter knew what they should be doing, the former also knew why, and what else they could do.

How can anyone board a 737, after 3000 hours, as the first aircraft he has ever signed for?

btw, with all my recent experience in PA28s and similar, and no instrument or twin flying for 3 years, after about 3 hours handling I took a number 1 failure at 100' in a Tristar sim, with a flight director problem. I hand flew it in a visual circuit to land. I know a 767 is no harder as I have flown BA's sim, so I assume I could do the same. Instructors fly accurately, to a degree or two of pitch, every day. I never flew that well until I was on an FI course. It prepares anyone very well for flying absolutely anything, because you have to relearn teh very basics, which are common to all hand flying.

Billie Bob

My examiner failed another FI candidate on the same day I sat my test. He is still used by the person who taught me to test some of his students.

tonker

Great one.

One of my groundschool colleagues is a BA captain. Chatting to one of his fellows when he was an FO he asked how this lad had come to fly, and was told that the lad was a CEP, a cadet. My friend replied "Oh I am sorry" much to the confusion of Mr Cadet.

"Why"?

"Well, you've never really flown an aeroplane."

My friend, it must be said, was qualified on pretty much every RN helicopter, the Harrier and I believe also the Hunter before using BA for a boring but reliable pot of cash while he thoroughly enjoys teaching our students, and buzzes low level in police helicopters. In other words he really has flown, and can fly!

[Human Factor]

There is no point to having a second altimeter unless you use it for measuring terrain separation. The primary gives you separation from aircraft.

Pretty much correct. The only exception being above the transition level where it backs up the primary altimeters, particularly relevant for RVSM. During climb and decent it is set to a relevant pressure setting (generally QNH at the departure/arrival airfield).

[Maude Charlee]

Being ex-UAS myself, I can't really support the argument that they turn out the best pilots. My training was very much 'monkey see, monkey do'. I had no understanding whatsoever why I was doing what I was doing, just that if the QFI says 'do it', I do it. Although we were supposed to read our groundschool files, we didn't and nobody challenged us about it, or saw to it that we did. The emphasis was very much on the flying, and more on the handling accuracy than the airmanship. I never learnt how to navigate, except by recognising familiar ground features by sight, I knew nothing of engine handling (even though it was the Bulldog and hence a VP prop), nothing about the avionics or nav kit, and nothing at all about aerodynamics.

That said, I loved the flying I did, and the emphasis on stick and rudder skills has probably helped with my later flying.

Not until I decided to return to aviation some 10 years later and do my ATPL, did I learn anything at all on any of the above subjects. Only then did the dim lightbulb in my head illuminate on the whats and whys. Being integrated at one of the large FTOs, I can sympathise with the view that they are merely sausage factories designed to churn out homogenous products to be used as the raw ingredients at the airlines.

However, I also cannot accept the view that students taking the integrated path have limited ability or experience when compared to modular students (of course there are tossers, but there are tossers everywhere you will ever go). Most of my course already had previous flying experience, some of them well beyond 100+ hrs, and the integrated choice was something that suited their purposes, much as the modular choice is for those who go that route. We're not all 18 year old BA wannabees. As for the 'land on the grass' story, well, Oxford was my FTO and that is nothing I've ever heard from any of the FIs down there, and it certainly is SOP.

Similarly, there are many GA jobs after licence issue other than FI positions. I would be very disappointed to think that FIs consider themselves superior to the rest of us, particularly when FIs often have considerably less hands-on time per hour in the air due to the very nature of their job. As a survey pilot, my role is very much about hands-on flying, and accuracy and airmanship are the two things that prevent me meeting my maker prematurely.

Be careful about blowing your trumpets too. There are far too many PPLs chugging around in a variety of contraptions, who like a number of motorists, are a source of mystery as to where they obtained their licences. Some of the blame for their lack of ability and airmanship has to lie with their FI, and unlike the ATPL holder, these people have been specifically trained to fly SEP.

[Dimensional]

MC:

My training was very much 'monkey see, monkey do'. I had no understanding whatsoever why I was doing what I was doing, just that if the QFI says 'do it', I do it. Although we were supposed to read our groundschool files, we didn't and nobody challenged us about it, or saw to it that we did. The emphasis was very much on the flying, and more on the handling accuracy than the airmanship. I never learnt how to navigate, except by recognising familiar ground features by sight, I knew nothing of engine handling (even though it was the Bulldog and hence a VP prop), nothing about the avionics or nav kit, and nothing at all about aerodynamics.

I can't let that stand. As someone who's recently finished the whole EFT syllabus with a UAS, I've got a whole world more experience during the 60 hours doing things the 'military' way -- both operationally (nav, ATC proceedures, IF etc) and theoretically (learning the aerodynamic aspects of aerobatics does wonders for a man's understanding) than I ever did during my PPL. If you didn't get that, then that's a failing of yours -- surely as a motivated stude you read your notes? I know *I* certainly, and the other studes with me, get more than enough questions our way, and any tendency to slack would be met with rapprochement and the kind of b*llocking only a CFI can deliver...

I find this whole thread of interest as I can reliably relate to the comments in here about a specific large FTO not too far from one of the Great Universities (not Hull, Blackadder...) I'm working on the same airfield this summer, for an engineering company, but staying in the O*T accommodation, and spending a fair amount of time around the studes. There's a definite clique thing there, but that's understandable given the training course system. However, the few discussions I've had with studes various (complete with gold bars and "wings") has revealed a distinct lack of background understanding and much more of a 'monkey see, monkey do' attitude than I'd care for in someone who could potentially be charged with delivering me transatlantically...

For instance, the topic of spinning came up recently. Most of the studes I spoke to had the barest of understanding of autorotation and all it involves (admittedly, I'd rather they didn't practice spinning a 737). But even things like stalling, or aircraft dynamics, seem a mystery to most of the studes I've spoken to here. What's more, they treat even the PA-28 like an airliner -- dragging the poor aircraft in on perfect 3 degree glidepaths from 5 miles out on the wrong side of the drag curve...

Despite my relative complete lack of experience, even *I* can see that some of these guys and girls are being let down a bit, prely by virtue of doing the whole course, from ab initio to fATPL in just over a year. Some of them *also* have a bit of an attitude (one of them turned round to me and said, "You don't know what you're talking about, I've got about 100 hours!") but that's something you'd get in all walks of life, I'd have thought.

[BEagle]

MC - which UAS? Your comments don't surprise me, I regret to say. But thanks for posting them.

As a UAS QFI, I was frankly appalled at my fellow QFIs laziness when it came to teaching navigation or the use of the Bulldog's nav kit. Far, far too many of them would just poke off into the 'local training area' and prat about doing aeros and PFLs, then back for circuits. Most of them couldn't find their own ar$ehole without a mirror...

Similarly, the average QFI understanding of - or ability to teach - aerodynamics was woefully inadequate.

The 'Janet and John do UAS' kiddy books you were given were an utter joke - and well below PPL level.

And as for that CPL farm which teaches kids to fly PA28s like airliners.... But their students' attitude is 'Learn, regurgitate, dump' rather than "I'll squirrel that away for future reference".

[BigEndBob]

I had interview several years ago at Barkston Heath for instructor job, overall first impression was poor of the place.
I assume most there were ex mil.

The CFI who checked me out slammed the throttle open on the poor Slingsby. Couldn't land the aircraft properly on crosswind demo of how they did the circuit and whilst sat in instructor room overheard instructor debrief to another instructor of how it would help if student could at least draw line on a map if they were going on a nav exercise.

A lot of training depends on the individual instructor rather than the establishment they train at.

[Blackshift]

While hour building for 150 hrs in a 152 won't get you ready for a 737 sim check, it will make you stand on your own two feet and will force YOU to question yourself and make sure what you are doing is safe.

.... Spongy Brakes surely gets to the heart of the issue being flagged up here.

This is as much about the character building side of airmanship rather than solely about aircraft handling skills.

Moreover as an FI you have to be able to explain the hows an whys of what you do IN ADDITION to being able to demonstrate the process to (what is hopefully at the very least) a reasonable standard - otherwise you will simply not survive as an instructor.

You will surely become much more conscious of exactly what you are doing and why you are doing it when you are expected to explain to a curious student actions that you might otherwise perform relatively unconsciously after even the best of initial pilot training?

I think these debates often assume the guise of slagging match with each camp trying to paint its grass as the greenest because of an unspoken "jealousy" of the advantages to be gained on the other side.

I for one freely admit that I wish I had the time and money as a younger man to at least have the option of undertaking a full-time "CAP509" course (as they were called in the olden days), and perhaps even a network of contacts to land me the dream commercial job of my choice thereafter.

Well tough-sh*t I didn't, and I'm not going to get all bitter and twisted about those that did by saying that me and all my self improver mates are all better pilots.

When I think of some of the daft things I have done in aeroplanes in the past, especially at around 100-300hrs, it is hardly fair to single out guys who are trained for an airline environment for cock-ups in a relatively unfamiliar GA environment with not a lot of hours under their belt in order to justify the path of my own life-story.

I'm sure that many of them will persevere with GA to become as good as many self improvers and some even better than most. Moreover they are in all probability likely to perform better, at least at the initial stages, in a Multi Crew environment due to their comparitive lack of culture-shock.

However, I shall come off the fence at this point by GUESSING that the self-improver MIGHT have a slight comparitive advantage, all other things remaining equal, at the later stage of selection for command due to his early ingrained habits of self-reliance during hour building, instructing or whatever, in the world of GA.

So what is lost on the swings, might well be gained on the roundabouts (...although some of us have probably spent far too much time farting about on the swings for this to be of any help!)

Even if this is true, because all other things are never really equal in such circumstances, it is not necessarily very significant.

For example, I learnt all about the pitfalls of the "machismo complex" and developed decision-making skills in often quite dangerous circumstances as a motorcycle courier in my early twenties, and took those lessons with me to the world of aviation. Likewise it would be foolish to assume that the integrated training discussed here somehow discourages or even robs its graduates of their ability to excercise such transferrable skills.

The other guy up for command might be an accomplished solo yachtsman, or mountaineer, whose ability in the cockpit is scarecely likely to be diminished by the fact that he was the product of an integrated course eight years ago.

Us, and them....
....and after all we're only, ordinary men - Roger Waters

[BillieBob]

I had interview several years ago at Barkston Heath for instructor job, overall first impression was poor of the place.

or, in other words, I didn't get the job.

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Four years ago I was teaching Cadets. Now I have Cadet First Officers.

The types who were crap students are also crap FO's and it comes down to personality and aptitude. Not how they were trained.

I don't think handling skills come into it and therefore there's precious little gained by having 1500hrs light aircraft time or 200. Apart from fear.

You can see it in their eyes. Something non-standard, some moderate turbulence, a go-around looking likely because of somone on the runway, a sudden autopilot disconnect in the cruise - anything. As an instructor you've been damn scared a few times and had a few close shaves. You've generally learnt to douse the adrenalin and not panic and that usually things are OK in a few seconds. I don't think the 200hrs brigade have that and as a result can get panicky where an ex instructor wouldn't or perhaps wouldn't show it.

Thats about the biggest thing I've noticed.

Cheers

WWW

[BigEndBob]

No i didn't get the job BB.

When you are asked by the CFI to wait in the waiting room for 45 minutes, then to be asked what am i doing there by the cleaner because everyone has gone home....yes you do get a bad impression of the place.