Met up with a former Alteon gentleman recently. Talked at length about the initial good old days and the challenges of dealing with pilots of all ethnic background and different levels of experience. Brought up this subject as I guessed a few Alteon guys were somehow insinuated to have tendencies alluded to on this thread.

Well he intimated that that they were indeed a couple who are closet green eyed monsters through and through. He mentioned one particular guy who was awfully jealous that a third world chap was made chief of the A330 checker group and did his utmost to disparage the poor chap at every turn. And that the A330 wasn't even his fleet! Then when a ex Honduran guy was made head of his fleet's checkers the hidden knives were all over him...the poor chap lasted less than 4 months! The strange thing was this particular goes all out to come across as a docile lamb who wouldn't hurt a fly and would always " reject " the offer to head the fleet's group of instructors but HE WOULD GO ALL OUT TO KNOCK DOWN ANYBODY WHO HE " judge " as inferior to him being made the chief. This piece of work would be a great specimen for a great psychoanalytical study!

Hopefully some do gooders will pass on this thread for his reading pleasure. As some hobos who walked around got it right, repent the end is nigh!

No chicken sh*t. Heard about this piece of work some years ago at BFI. Can never fathom the mentality of such people.

The shrink may gone bonkers too!

Actually it is not too difficult to fathom such behavior. It is largely due to repressed sense of inadequacy and lack of self worth. Most of them have previous failures they themselves suffered and they then imposed failing grades on others to feel that they were actually not that bad when they themselves failed!

This thread got to me through several emails and some of those smart arse email senders thought it was very relevant to me!

Well, I had been a hard nosed ass kicking check airman in another life. I had been tough and I minced no words during my debriefings. However I do not deliberately knock someone down for no reason. Going through my notes, I had never ever failed someone due to one particular poor item if he/she had demonstrated good performance overall, unless it was something resulting iin a crash or severe damage. I would then give a poor grade with a recommendation for further enhancement training during the next recurrent proficiency training.

There was a few occasions whereby I did amend the failing grade like the poster Mr gerago did. It wasn't too difficult a task if one had the trust, credibility and stature that the company and regulatory body respect. I had no compunction whatsoever in undoing my mistakes when it was fully justified to do so.

Will I make a deathbed confession? Not likely. I sincerely believe I had corrected those mistakes I had made unless there is evidence to show otherwise. I hope this will put an end to those do gooders who emailed me to save me from a death bed confession.

Wow, you ain't a skygod but your user name is INTIMIDATING!

Tipsy, would that be the canuck wannabe " ian killinghog " in scottish? Seems like his stents haven't given way yet!

Well, well, well...so your stature was such that the company and the CAA would acquiesce to your request that the failing grade you awarded be amended. Good on you and I am sure you think that makes you feel good. This kind of sound rich but it is better late than never in correcting your mistake.

However, bear in mind that flying especially flying in command has a lot to do with confidence. A pilot's confidence is often badly damaged, if not destroyed by failing grades especially when done maliciously. I have seen friends whose confidence plummeted drastically on account of arsey checkers like you; hence my advice is that checkers bear that in mind before they embark on their jehovah moments.

So true, AA. Got a mate who had just a bad day, not a disatrous sim check at all ( I spoke to the checker as well as the f/o ) but the anal checker deemed it fit to fail the guy because " he expected more, not just acceptable standards. " The poor bloke ( who already had some other stuff bothering him leading to the seemingly bad day ) was shattered and he was never the same for a long long time. It was only when he moved to another airline that he fully recovered his full confidence, becoming a superb trainer and checker.

Some years ago, a colleague was failed because he allegedly botched max crosswind landings. He did not fully remove the crab during a B777 sim check and the resulting T-7 " twisting shaking thingy " was deemed a bad landing. When he protested that such a fail grade was grossly unfair that would affect his career, the best the checker could come up with was, I quote " I have been failed thre times before and I am now a checker, no big deal! I will arrange your recheck ". I am no psychoanalyst but isn't this some kind of psychopathic behavior? Like, say, a psychopathic abuser who now abuse women because he was badly treated by girls in high school?

Most experienced B777 TREs are aware that the aircraft is very shaky when there is residual crab or drift. In fact during one of my line training flights, I made such a crosswind landing and it seemed so bad that I convinced the instructor to log it, just in case. Well, the QAR report that came later indicated that it was a non event! Are you sure that sim checker was suitably B777 qualified?

AlGoreng, I suspect he was alluding to some Alteon simulator checkers who were ex-B757 and really believed the T-7 to be a supped up 757/767. These blokes have never physically flown a triple wheeled bogie B777 before and they think the sim is 100% accurate. Poor dimwits but they make lives very difficult for others with their anal retentive attitudes that they know best because they qualified as checkers in the sweat box.

Sympathy for baba's ex mentor as seeing him at his deathbed one will certainly pity his condition and his regrets. We will all have our regrets but it is hard to deal with those once we are aware of our less than noble actions against those we had wielded some power over.

I know personally of a few of such characters, and I am sure they will certainly wince and grimace should they ever have the good fortune of reading this thread.

Babablackship

It is hard talking to him as you want him t be happy. I would suggest visiting him again, let him talk of the bad bits and then once that is all over, get the topic back on some good bits that you both remember. Take some photos, books, ? log book ? etc in but keep them hidden until the time is right t change the subject. The photos / books etc will then give him something to focus on, physically and mentally.
I also like onetracks suggestion of writing letters to the people.
Since it unlikely he will know where they are, offer to do some
searching and post them off to them, then post them to some
address where they might get returned to you, might not.

At least is his mind he has tried to correct a wrong.

Somebody mentioned the way out by seppuku or harakiri as a way out. Sigh, that way of bushido is only honorable if there is no other way out. As babablackshiep's old instructor is still breathing, he has other honorable ways to make amends. He can write to the affected pilots' airline or the aviation authorities explaning his gross error...I am sure his signature and examiner licence number will be recognised.

He is still able to make amends...do something! Crying and confessing is good but really doing something about it will be precious, not only for himself but for the people he had wronged.

I personally had the misfortune of getting one such idiot trying to teach the finer points of the Carnarsie VOR 13R approach at JFK! He had never ever experienced operating into KJFK let alone conducting the Carnarsie approach in his sorry looking B757 but had the haughtiness/skygodliness of criticizing our not fully aware of the physical landmarks along the approach course prior to the turn onto the final approach. And all based on the sim visuals! Good lord! I am no ace and in the sim( night scenario ), I was eyeballing the lead in lights, the runway lights, the threshold lights and the Vasis. I had no time for the high ways, hotels, race courses, etc. Because of the quarteing crosswinds he had given, I landed precisely albeit without fully decrabbing which led to the twisty shake of the T-7. I had an earful during the debrief..luckily he couldn't fail me because that approach was not in the check profile but he indicated he would if it was. I protested that if the landing was out of limits the sim would have recorded a crash ( this was before the upgrade to the sim; previously the sim would indicate a " crash " if the side Gs or vertical Gs was beyond limits ); he brushed it off as was " his " call. I would say he is a prime candidate for deathbed confession.

It amazes me how the regulatory bodies can allow someone not originally fully rated and never physically flown the aircraft to be made instructor and check airman. For newly launched aircraft type, it is the manufacturer's test pilots certifying the factory instructors and checkers before they are let loose to train and check the customers' pilots. Likewise the customer airlines' flight ops trainers must have physically flown the aircraft before they train and check their trainees. Modern day ZFT level six simulators are nice and dandy, but absolute duds in replicating actual aircraft handling. I had done initial line training with ZFT pilot trainees who display " zero feel " for the aircraft, flying around like robots chasing the magenta line!

In new aircraft types just launched I supposed it is common that the instructors/TRES would have minimum stick time on type before they are let loose to train the line pilots. I have just read the thread about the Boeing pilots delivering aircrafts and training pilots at their customer airlines.

However for an established training centre such as Boeing Training in Korea it is indeed a shame they allow ex B737/757 jockeys who have no stick time on the B777 to instruct or check.

Many suns ago in the early 2000s when I was still in KAL, there were 2 AMPA pilots manning their B777 Check and Training...they were absolutely great trainers and checkers, truly competent and professional beyond reproach. They had thousands of hours training and checking pilots of Boeing customer airlines. They understood the difference in the handling characteristics and fidelity of various simulators world wide as well as the differences between simulators and actual aircrafts.

They left after Boeing set up Alteon bringing cheapie non type rated blokes who had no clue as to the actual B777 handling characteristics. Things went downhill and we had checkers tailoring their " failing quotas " to fit KAL's " proficiency training through fear " programme. Those unlucky enough to be picked or happened to have a slightly bad checked item would be failed no matter how well they had done overall. Of course they picked a few " problematic " Koreans ( non Air Force Academy alumni ) to be failed; but somewhere along that route, a couple of expats ( those who had embarrassed either KAL internal divisons or Alteon with their previous arguments ) would also be taught a lesson.

I am not sure how is it now with Alteon in KAL as I had left it a number of years ago. However I understand from former colleagues still holed up in SEL that there certainly isn't any change for the better. The concern here is money; non rated cheapies can be recruited for a song. Likewise Boeing AMPA pilots lose out to non rated pilots to ferry the B787s to QR and LAN.

KARMA?
 

What you have stated above is not biblical. If you quote the bible, please don't re-interpret it, unless you're a biblical scholar. Are you a biblical scholar? I think not. This was your opinion. You should rephrase your title from "THE DEFINITIONS" to "MY TAKE ON THINGS."

This pommie canuck should long be put to pasture! Have never come across such fake and insincere piece of work. Teaches rubbish during his sim sessions.
People just get fooled by his fake niceness.

Very true. This is the guy who teaches pilots to shut the fuel control switch off immediately upon an RTO in case of an engine failure without reference to the checklist because " you might get a fuel leak ". At the same time he lambasts you for not following the ECL to the letter in the case of an engine surge whereby you continue the memory items of auto-throttle arm switch off (affected side ), thrust lever ( effected side ) idle down to fuel control switch ( affected side ) cut off IF THE SURGE CONTINUES even though the fuel control switch to cut off is not a memory item in the engine surge non-normal checklist in the ECL.

Likewise he lambasts pilots for descending down early to the visual circuit altiude once cleared for visual approach. He expects you to fly his " Vancouver visual " approach way of keeping a 3 degree flight path because of noise concerns. " Keep high at 3000 ft or above and maneuver for a visual 3 degree glide path ", he admonishes! Well that is a local YVR requirement for a day of good visibility! There are airports in other parts of the world whereby for ATC purposes you should get down to circuit altitude pronto. Likewise where there are some cloud banks, one should get down to circuit altitude early to continue to maintain visual contact with terrain and airport environment. Well I guess he is so proud of his " Vancouver " way that he judges other pilots' visual approach techniques as unacceptable.

I am surprised that Alteon keep such instructors and checkers; what is even more surprising is that KAL agree to keep such retards around the training center.

He was just teaching his own techniques and preferences. We have this kind of dinosaurs all over, full of themselves and their self declared much vaunted procedures.

Absoluely amazing that Boeing/Alteon recruited such non rated pilots as instructors and pulled wool over their customer airlines.

The sim is a good tool to check on adherence to SOPs, procedures, etc. However we all know that the sim can never replicate the handling characteristics of an actual aircraft. However good the visuals are, they are synthetic. A instructor/checker worth his salt surely knows that and will duly factor that in his assessment of the checkee.

This thread makes great reading for all pilots. Much as I sympatise with babablackship's mentor, I think that are many of his ilk out there who indeed need such a wake up call.

I know this guy, a real vindictive chap but seems extremely nice to those who have not seen his bad side. Once I had a session after he had given sim PT to some guy. He was complaining to a fellow Alteon guy(my checker ) about his earlier trainee...it seemed that he was pissed that the trainee, a south east asian gentleman, had remarked that his ( the instructor's ) conduct of a sim exercise was negative training! He sounded peeved and vengeful.

What I learnt later was that it was a CFIT exercise. The trainee was vectored and put through a high descent rate towards the terrain, the goal was to
induce a " terrain, terrain " and subsequently a " terrain, terrain, pull up, pull up " GPWS warning. However with the high descent rate coupled with the fast reducing radio altimeter reading, the trainee stowed the speedbrakes first. And just as the speedbrakes are stowed, the GPWS warnings came and the trainee made the standard recovery with full power up, autothrottle/autopilot off, wings level, pitch 20deg up, then recomfirm speedbrakes stowed, etc. He was lambasted during the debrief that he had the procedure wrong! He MUST HAVE THE POWER UP, AUTOMATION OFF, WINGS LEVEL, PITCH 20deg, then only speed brakes!

The trainee argued that he was just stowing the speed early because by the high terrain closure rate he sensed through the radio altimeter, he had instintively stowed it earlier out of sequence BUT HE HAD SUBSEQUENTLY ENSURED THAT THEY WERE REALLY STOWED. The instructor maintained that was absolutely wrong! Follow SOP! The trainee then argued that in real life flying, he would NEVER EVER leave the speedbrakes deployed with such a reducing terrain closure rate as indicated by the fast reducing radio altitude, remarking that the exercise could be negative training. That must have riled that 757 hero! I was not sure if language problem ( the trainee was some south east asian chap ) was the case of the remark of negative training making the instructor upset, because the trainee might not have articulated it very well.

I understood the trainee's contention but I guessed there was miscommunication as the real intent of the exercise was to activate the GPWS warning, then recover. So I think instructors should be able to communicate their intent well before hand to avoid being " badly stung " by comments of negative training by a perceived upstart!

Written by Namor...Absolutely correct, seat of the pants and great airmanship! I have had sim sessions whereby the F/O keep on charging down with full speedbrakes deployed despite my pre-emptive warnings about " altimeter alive " and excessive altimeter reducing rates! Once I took over and recovered from the impending CFIT before the GPWS warnings and was alo chided for it. I agree, it is absolutely NEGATIVE in establishing a certain mindset!

[quoteWhat I learnt later was that it was a CFIT exercise. The trainee was vectored and put through a high descent rate towards the terrain, the goal was to
induce a " terrain, terrain " and subsequently a " terrain, terrain, pull up, pull up " GPWS warning. However with the high descent rate coupled with the fast reducing radio altimeter reading, the trainee stowed the speedbrakes first. And just as the speedbrakes are stowed, the GPWS warnings came and the trainee made the standard recovery with full power up, autothrottle/autopilot off, wings level, pitch 20deg up, then recomfirm speedbrakes stowed, etc. He was lambasted during the debrief that he had the procedure wrong! He MUST HAVE THE POWER UP, AUTOMATION OFF, WINGS LEVEL, PITCH 20deg, then only speed brakes][/quote]

What the checkee/trainee did was absolutely correct and prudent!

If the objective of the exercise is to give an unexpected GPWS warning and checking if the checkee/trainee recover correctly, what the check airman should have done was to create a " glass mountain ", triggering off a sudden GPWS warning. Besides the " glass mountain " there are other means of triggering the GPWS without getting the checkee/trainee to do a deep dive! Sheesh.

Negative training?
 

I thought the term negative training applies only to weight training! And it is supposed to be good and highly effective!

I guess this term must have negative connotations so much so that the forementioned check airman got so peeved.

I would consider the frequent re positionings, slewing and " fast double speed " to be negative too! Too often the gyros between my ears toppled beyond recovery from the constant repostionings so much so I actually gained nothing from the training exercises. I just become plain robotic to get the exercises over with.

Heard from a reliable source that KAL is conducting an audit on the alteon geriatrics. Seemed like they are finally coming around to addressing the complaints aired aeons ago!

Amitabh, I believe the term negative training is also used loosely in aviation parlance albeit to indicate undesirable effects as opposed to that for weight training.

Blokes with thin skins and big egos have no place in the training business. Bruised egos can wreck havoc to other people's careers and well being.

It makes me wonder why a reputable entity like Boeing does not employ psychological testing to weed out these silent killers.

Was alerted to this thread by a friend who said I should post my experiences with some Alteon checkers.

Some years ago I was rostered to assist as F/O for several foriegn captains consecutively over several days. I was not under check but acted as copilot to several expat captains. 2 of the captains bungled some of the check items and generally performed quite poorly but still passed. One other captain did very well eccept that he landed a bit long (about 2500-2800 ft) passed the threshod during a dual hydraulic failure case. He was given a real dressing down even thpugh it was a 13123 ft runway. As we ran out of time, it was marked as incomplete...the company considered it as a fail and he had to do the whole check all over again. Another captain did very well too, and because he did well the checker keep moving the " goal posts " so to speak...items that were recommended as waived by the previous instructor were ignored and still conducted in the check. Well he breezed through that, so the checker made some ingenious things so he finally ended with a hard landing. I knew the checker played dirty because when we did the approach preparation we had fuel to the effect of landing some 50000 lbs below max landing weight. When after the so called " hard landing ", my side vision caught sign of a fuel quantity increase of some 49000 lbs more than we had calculated. The increase in weight must have accounted for the " sudden drop " at close to touchdown! I pointed that out, but the checker just hushed me up by saying that he had configured a reset of the simulator for max landing weight for the next exercise. It was complete bs...it was our last item and so when I pointed that out, he said he is just setting up the sim weight for the next instructor taking over the sim as a courtesy!

Why did I bother to write this....because the 2 expats who passed even though they performed below par were westerners. The other 2 who had a hard time were from third world countries. I just lost my respect for that checker; my complains to our training manager was a waste of time as he said it was the 2 third worlders's misfortune and he did not want to rock the Alteon-KAL relationship when no Korean captains are involved. I was just a lowly co pilot, so I couldn't pursue the issue any further.

Now lest some people doubt my account, so be it...it is just some people just can't be honest about their fellow ethnic groups's misconduct.

All ethnic groups have the unenlightened ones with their skeletons and demons. Some of the Alteon folks fall into that category. During my time in the Land of the Morning Calm, I had met mostly professional and diligent instructors and checkers from Alteon. Sure, there were a couple of jerks tending to be racist. How did I know that? Well, there were times when we foreign captains were paired up for sim training on the right hand seat as KAL prepared for the local pilots' strike. On two occasions I was paired up with some Asian bloke who performed better than I did! Surprise, surprise...during the debriefing, all sorts of little trivial faults of the poor bloke were harshly pointed out whilst mine were scarcely mentioned and that was only after I volunteered to own up to my own boo boos!

I was an old fart by then and I had ditched all those self aggrandizing attitudes, smugness and superiority complex. I just made light humour of the
two episodes, knowing that somewhere along the line the guys who still hold such complexes somehow get their come-uppance. This thread should be suggested reading for lots of guys venturing to teach, train and check in multi ethnic or multi cultural environments.

about 8 years ago, I had a PT/PC training session with an Alteon checker. I was co pilot. My cpatain was a Canadian fella. He was all over place with the engine V1 cuts; the instructor was was ever so patient even though he did sound a bit exasperated towards the end. Despite that chap going off the runway a couple of times, it was still a satisfactory check. well, some weeks later I was on simulator co pilot job again...this time, the same instructor but the non caucasian checkie had a hard time eventhough he never had any of the errors and blunders like the earlier guy. I was peeved at the unfairness and discrimination. I talked to the later captain at lodging a protest but he said that it would be futile. The Alteon checkers never fail a Korean countrymen of mine UNLESS they had prior clearance from our management pilots. The failees are normally the ones out of favor, not of the same clicqe. All those talk of superior fairplay are just hot air.

Oh oh, that must be the one with name like fish fry, big fry in a small frying pan??? I know that guy; I am not going to add anything adverse, but just to say that being paired up with him in the sim was no fun. Pretty embarassing even st.......
Alas, these things happen. We live in a real world, not some kind of true to God fairness utopia! Well, I heard he is out of KAL, so you can breathe easy.

I know that what I am about to suggest may not be very practical but I strongly feel all check airmen need to undergo psychological testing or assessment to ascertain whether they are genuinely up to the task.

In my younger days as a lowly first officer, I had come across many specimens who might be great machine operators but absolutely lacking in people skills. However due to old boy's networking they were made checkers making life really miserable for those not of their mindset or skin colour.

This does not mean we should take political correctness to the extreme. However, those gungho kick ass type certainly have no place in the check and training department in any professional set up.