BOAC

As mentioned on that thread, and triggered by the CGH AB crash - but not specific to it, I would like to air my views on current 'airline training'.
The pressure is on to get co-pilots through the system and into seats. They receive the basic minimum training to allow them to 'pass' the line check.

It is becoming increasingly common to find a co-pilot who is 'lost' without a (737) magenta route on the map, or an extended centre-line to a runway with a Vnav profile available. The 'old' concept (I grew up with a map and stopwatch, and getting 'lost' at 480kts focusses your skills) of where am I, where is 'it' and what am I doing about 'it' seems to have been lost. More and more there is no preparation or even fore-thought put into energy management and the possibility of shortened track miles unless the Vnav tells them. 'Plan ahead' as a concept seems to have lost ground. It is common now also to find a 'P1' rated co-pilot who has very little clue about what being 'P1' really means.

This is not, in my opinion, the fault of the trainers themselves, but the 'pressure' they are under to produce the sausages.

Now a brief glance at the CGH crash: all the way through the AB history we hear how damn smart it all is - and it is, and I'm certain Fly-by-wire will have saved a few hulls which may have been lost on the old 'direct-cable-connection' types. However - are we being seduced into over-reliance on the wealth of automatic features and information, and is the apparent 'experience' some have had of the throttles not being closed on landing (extremly basic flying?) down to a perception perhaps that these superbly clever automatics will look after it?

I'm not suggesting that 'reverser inop' should even be considered as a 'training' item for the AB, but maybe we are missing out on basic airmanship/flying skills in the training syllabus? Should there be some sort of formalised post final line-check training programme - I know BA had it when I was there? It need not be expensive, but can done on an opportunity basis if necessary. It just needs a folder with 'training items' to work with which the co-pilot can carry. A few sample items that particularly come to mind which 'line-training' nearly always fails to cover, as well as 'awareness', would be HF usage, fuel planning and Wx radar technique.

Open to the floor.

LEM

Yestarday night, on a very short postal flight, our destination was not in database.
I told the copilot to "build" it in the supp database, but he forgot.
So we took off, and probably because of the lack of destination, the FMC "froze", did not accept any more route input.

I was grinding watching the copilot as control cleared us directly to final, from 150 miles out.

His descent planning was bad, I had to suggest the old rule of altitude times three... and his approach was a mess.

Being very familiar with the area, and cavok, I let him do...

Well, we managed to land... eventually he said this short flight had been more stressful than a sim session.

All this because of the lack of a magenta route.

When these poor chaps fly with me, they know they will be able to fly basics...

But unfortunately, the situation is hopeless.

Moderm man is fascinated by automation.
Il the 19th century the problem was: God is dead.
In this century it is: Man is dead.

It's already too late.

I would personally kick these guys' butt all the way to Zaire, to start as bush pilots as I did, young Commanders with 400 hours total, a map and a compass and a stopwatch, instad of being put on a 737 right seat from the beginning, but...

What do you want ot do, it's already too late.

And not only in aviation.

Read the great Erich Fromm to see it more clearly from a humanistic point of view.

A37575

The problem starts in their type rating training in the simulator. This is regardless of the background experience of the "student" - ie straight from CPL course, or from typical piston twins.
They are strapped into the 737/A320 simulator and right from the word Go, they are hit with the automatics. Their first take off is with FD and AT on and as the aircraft gathers speed, they are left behind still gaping at all the info the instructor is throwing at them. The ADI and MAP are a klaidascope of coloured needles and lines. Acceleration indicators streak ahead of the ASI while curving worms point the way in a turn. The AP is engaged with Lnav and Vnav - and all this for a simple climb at 15,000 ft in the local training area. No wonder these enthusiastic young people soon become automatic zombies.
Forget MAP or track up. Let him have HSI mode only with a VOR on it and if the aircraft has an RMI, ensure the student knows how to quickly fix his position by cross checking on VOR/ADF needles.
Surely it is better for the simulator instructor to devote the first two sessions to pure flying skills - not automatics skills. That comes later. Forget AT and FD on the take off - just give the students a crack at steering down the runway using rudder pedals and AT off. Lift off raw data to 15-18 degrees, drop to 10 degrees for flap retract and back up to whatever body angle needed to climb unrestricted to 15,000 ft. Simple basic aeroplane flying. Freeze the simulator on the way to let the student get his breath and use the time to let him sit back and take a look at every instrument to see what it is doing in the climb. These include the engine instruments - the pressurisation dials (remember Helios?), the cabin temp - the hydraulics and whatever they are doing. Five minutes later resume the raw data non-automatics climb. A few steep turns. Then the instructor says I have control and sets the simulator on a five mile final using position reset and now the aircraft is set up perfectly and the student can have several go's at a raw data non-automatics visual ILS.

Then a few circuits when he has reached a reasonable skill level. No FD, no AT and no AT. And so on. Next period set the aircraft (simulator) at 35,000 ft straight in approach using DME v Height - no automatics - no FD. Basic training in a profile descent is vital. It may take 20 minutes but worth its weight in gold. After it is clear the student can now hand fly like an ace it is now the time to introduce the goodies bit by bit - MAP, FD use, AT throttle use etc.

LEM is right. We need to allow the student to fly the aircraft - not "manage the automatics" on his first or second simulator session. The adage about learning to crawl before learning to walk, comes to mind.

west lakes

Though different industries this may be of interest.

The H.S.E. have revise some 1994 regs. governing management of constructions sites to try & reduce the death rate. One of the changes is in the section where clients assess contractors and their employees as to their ability to do a job safely.

Roughtly one of the reccomendations is that experience is to be taken into account when making these assessements.

Just a thought

Dream Land

Well as long as I am flying with someone with a sense of humour, I will do my best to challenge my new FO's, by that, I'm not talking about making them look bad. Just the other day (APU inop) I let the FO do the engine start, doing all the ground coordination, engine starting, everything went fine, maybe not SOP, but I think he will better understand his job with a role reversal from time to time. I know there will be many that disagree, my position is not as a trainer.

BOAC

A quick plea to ask that we try to keep this on the 'big picture' stuff and not on individual anecdotes (of which I'm sure there are many)

Dream Land

Unfortunately it is the big picture here, the cadets here go to training for eighteen months and end up here on the line, training from that point is called experience. When I had 500 hours flight time I was flying a Cessna 206.

skiesfull

Perhaps the problem is partly because 'airmanship' is a dirty word. Airline management would rather spend the training budget on CRM and situational awareness courses, (both very educational, but rather long-winded), than make simulator time and line-flying time available for skills enhancement. If the idea is to employ a newly graduated MPL holder and make him/her an 'assistant flight-deck manager', which is obviously at low cost to the airline, then airmanship and basic skills will become a thing of the past. Look at the runway incursions, the attempts to take-off from a taxiway, the number of poorly flown final approaches and deep touchdowns that result in overruns and just maybe the emphasis on CRM skills should give way a little to teaching good basic skills. But then I'm a Dinosaur!

PJ2

BOAC;

Since the institutional rout of the airline pilot profession began some years ago and was ramped up in earnest after 9/11, the heretofore inherent respect and attendant remuneration and benefits of the career have been cut away to bare bones.

Today, training days are unpaid days at most major carriers. Simulator training including bi-annual checks and licence renewals are done on days' off, as are any annual recurrent briefing days. I know for a fact that training footprints are under extreme beancounter pressure, literally with a clipboard-holder peering over shoulders at times, watching for unnecessary costs being incurred.

Add to that, the "desecration" if you will, of the profession by airline managements bent upon "breaking" the profession's (perceived) "stronghold" on an airline's pursestrings through traditionally "high" salaries accompanied by a perceived professional arrogance - all prime targets for wet-behind-the-ears MBA's fresh out of school with no notion of how aviation works and absolutely no concept whatsoever of the principles of flight safety, (never taught to airline executives) but lots of drive to prove oneself by impressing upper management with big ideas on how to reduce costs and play to the shareholders.

The result is, as friends of mine who are in the recruiting and training business have observed, candidates with the ability, drive and intelligence are taking a look at the profession, it's potential, the relative lack of job security and most of all the way it has been treated by managements of all major carriers and they are, by and large, selecting other less onerous professions in which to grow and prosper.

Certainly, most choose aviation out of love of flying and not the pay and benefits (notwithstanding being away for almost all important family days, etc...) but a pilot used to be able to house, cloth, feed and educate a family at least. When the salary for an experienced First Officer on an Embraer or Bombardier, a candidate who has already spent perhaps a decade in the field with at least 5000hrs and spent about $100,000 in university and flight training costs, gets to fly right seat for $37,000/year if that, while classmates with less time in find professions paying $100,000 within years of starting (typically in business, law or dentistry etc), then managements can expect that such candidates will become fewer and perhaps even of lesser quality while those who would have made fine pilots simply give the profession a miss and go elsewhere. These are not pure industrial issues which may be dismissed under the semi-darwinian notion of "you get what you negotiate" - there are far larger, more fundamental issues at stake for the profession.

To me it is a long-term flight safety issue that is unfolding here, and, along with other aspects of the industry which we can all see, some of which is mentioned here, may in time, actually reverse the spectacular reductions in accident rates which have thus far been accomplished by very good if not dedicated work by flight safety professionals.

The trends will take some time, perhaps decades, to build into a pattern and by then these original infrastructure issues will be "invisible" to managements because change occurs so fast today that institutional history and knowledge of the past is non-existent within an airline and "original causes" will have disappeared down the memory hole. An increasing accident rate will be a mystery to anyone without this historical understanding.

The other very significant pattern is the de-regulation of safety oversight itself. There will always be human-factors accidents. What is driving compromise and what, in my view, will change the accident-rate trends is the "Cost-control" mantra which governments increasingly face and which are being solved by "getting out of the regulatory business". Safety Management Systems is a concept which downloads such oversight responsibilities onto the operators.

We are at that precise junction at this moment (the fork in the road, if you will), and are starting down the pathway to reduced oversight, individual airline audit programs which will be audited themselves by the regulator...in short, a for-profit business is being asked to self-regulate and monitor it's own incidents and flight safety efforts all the while maintaining a "healthy" enterprise driven solely by production pressures. In an enterprise where there is disagreement between flight safety professionals and the "Suits", the outcome will almost always end up with commercial pressures dominating.

In such a scenario, preventative safety strategies such as FOQA and ASR programs which are designed as pre-emptive programs, will suffer support and struggle for resources because they are not "profitable" and cannot "demonstrate income". Such pressures may provide fertile ground for a "Reversion to ignorance" in terms of eschewing preventative strategies while favouring the less-onerous, and used-only-when-needed investigative strategies. Such approaches only prevent the second accident however - all we need do is examine the present situation in Brazil for proof that this approach is alive and well.

So long as the flying public is tolerant and quickly-forgetful of the horrors of last week's accident, aviation enterprises will take the cheap way out, while doing just enough to tick the box and avoid the worst of any criticism including the attention of the regulators. Manufacturers have done remarkably well in assisting the landmark increase in flight safety through technologies such as digital radar, reliable engines, INS>IRS>GPS-navigation technologies, GPWS > EGPWS, TCASII and so on, all of which have added to the bottom line of the operators who have embraced such technologies. But the human aspect remains in all forms. Managements long-intoxicated with automation and miriad tech-solutions make the fundamental error that "computers" will look after everything and that investment in difficult-to-justify human "resources" continues to be difficult to justify to those who see, and seek the bottom line.

The two factors mentioned here are related. It will be interesting to see how the next decade or so unfolds and how these factors are handled.

To me, the rest of the story is details within these larger forces now well-ensconced within our industry. Only time will tell us if we have resisted sufficiently as a profession.

BOAC

A good 'state of the nation' address, PJ.

Here's a dilemma for discussion, following PJ's post, regarding the over-reliance on the 'automatics'.

Over the years I have struggled myself to become proficient and watched others struggle with the FMC page this and that, the modes, the buttons etc. The acquisition of these skills takes some time and effort. Is it perhaps correct that the new co's be turned out of the machine in the limited time available reasonably capable at handling the 'autos' rather than 'good' pilots in the basic sense? If so, and with the steadily diminishing 'skill' level at entry, where and how are they going to acquire these more basic skills? Do they in fact need them, or do we look statistically at the inevitable hull losses caused by the lack of, and say - that is acceptable?

Visual approaches are one further 'missing' skill I am finding. They can all probably fly the 'textbook' simulator visual, but put an airfield on the nose at 5 miles at 90 to the downwind and - gosh, it isn't set up in the FMC. So we fly a 20+ track mile ILS. Again - does this really matter, or do we accept the rare occasion when an a/c might be saved by a visual onto a runway and revert to an acceptable statistical hull loss rate, putting to one side, of course, the marginal cost-savings generated?

It is, in my opinion, going to take a radical re-think of (or in some cases introduction of) 'on-line' training to monitor and see the necessary skills built. Where will the pressure for this come from? Do we need them, or is 'automation' going to become so reliable that they will be a 'dying art' - no pun intended.

Lucky Strike

Following magenta lines.............

This from accident report No:4/90 - Boeing 737-400, G-OBME, near Kegworth, Leicestershire:

"From the start of the descent the cockpit workload was high as the pilots received and acknowledged ATC directions, notified their situation to the operating company, broadcast to the passengers on the cabin address system and completed the descent and approach checklists for a single-engined landing. Some time was lost as the first officer attempted unsuccessfully to programme the flight management system (FMS) to produce the correct flight instrument display for landing at EMA. Such reprogramming of the FMS for landing at a hitherto unspecified diversion airfield is unusual and rarely if ever practised. From the CVR it maybe inferred that he possibly attempted to enter EMA as the next en route point without first selecting the route page and entering it as an arrival airfield. It is therefore recommended that the CAA should ensure that flight crew currency training in simulators includes practice reprogramming of flight management systems, or any other such systems which control key approach and landing display format, during unplanned diversions so that they remain practised in the expeditious use of such systems"

At the time this accident report was published I was flying an electro-mechanical, non FMS equipped aircraft. I assumed at the time that when flying these modern 'glass cockpit' type aircraft; unless one programmed the FMC then it would be impossible to land the machine.

Now I am current on that type, B737 classic, and know better. Why did anyone even bother trying to programme the FMC? Why not get radar vectors to ILS at EMA, switch to rose ILS display and press approach when on an intercept heading for the ILS?

However, the purpose of this post is not to re-open old wounds or criticise the actions of crew-members on the day. It is to illustrate that pilots are just as bamboozled by modern equipment they don't fully understand today as they were 20 years ago.

Caboclo

Proper training would be great but in it's absence, a couple years experience can be helpful. Correct me if I'm wrong, but my impression is that the majority of European airline pilots are ab initio types who go directly from the classroom to a commercial jet. In the US, those tend to be the minority. Most people at least spend some time instructing first, and many fly cargo in small, single pilot planes first. Starting at 1200 hours they find themselves all alone, flying approaches to minimums at both Big City International and Podunk County Field, in planes without autopilot, GPS, or HSI and with the DME MEL'd. A few companies even hire 600 hour pilots for VFR only jobs. This segment of the industry obviously has a relatively high mortality rate, but the the survivors definitely know a thing or two about flying. While JAA ground training is far better than the FAA's, if I were an employer I would certainly prefer a Yankee freight dog over a Euro ab initio. Regardless of the quality of training or the kind of flying, the best way to judge how much of the training was actually learned is to put the guy in command and watch how he makes decisions. So tell me, is my impression of the European industry correct, and if so, why? Is the lower end of the industry under-developed?

Dream Land

From my point of view, this is exactly the type of experience that is useful. I feel the schools that put out the ab initio's do a good job of training, pilot's can probably out type me on the FM, some of the weak areas I see are items like, cockpit discipline, like the one where someone should be looking outside :, I wish I had a dollar for every time I see one of these wiz bang (I know the SOP's) FO's, types in the new wind direction and velocity when they are the flying pilot on a three mile final.

A37575

Had coffee and chat with a friend now flying the 747-400 with China Airlines (Taipei). The QAR policy has many pilots up for a "friendly" chat with management over perceived transgressions - however minor - picked up on the QAR. The result has been captains insist the autopilot is locked in to the ILS for every landing until 100 ft below DH, and then clicked off. In other words it is a last second manual landing where in theory they (management) will have a hard time pinning the captain for an unstable approach pinged by the QAR.

In simulator training (type rating or cyclic), most is conducted on automatics. Even with engine failure after V1 with the aircraft nicely under control, the teaching is to get the autopilot engaged as soon as practicable. While not decrying the safety factor of automatic flight, there is a need to give crews the practice and thus the skills required to quickly dis-engage the automatics and FD displays for the time it might be appropriate on line to do just that.

The Boeing 737 FCTM discusses this point by saying "Automatic systems give excellent results in the vast majority of situations...when the automatic systems do not perform as expected, the pilot should reduce the level of automation until proper control of path and performance is achived....early intervention prevents unsatisfactory airplane performance or a degraded flight path....reducing the automation as far as manual flight may be necessary to ensure proper control of the airplane is maintained...the pilot should attempt to restore higher levels of automation only after aircraft control is assured.

It is on record that errors involving misuse of the automatics, followed in turn by the inability of the pilots to revert to manual handling skills in order to recover a safe flight path, continue to be caused by pilot incompetence. Rarely do pilots receive adequate training in simulators for these eventualities. How many times do we see conclusions in accident reports that specific simulator training may have prevented a particular accident? It is my experience that safety managers rarely take the time to read accident reports of other operators to see what could be learned from them and then implement simulator training to that end.

BelArgUSA

Present day airline training... Permit me to close my mouth, and say that I am glad to retire soon. It went from excellent to bad, to worse. I went from classroom 727 flight engineer instruction through 747 check-captain and examiner in a span of over nearly 40 years with airlines.
xxx
Opinions mentioned here by some of you gentlemen, is comparison of FAA licensing concepts and European style training. My opinion about the FAA, is that it produces proficient Cessna and Piper pilots... sadly, not too many airlines operate C-150 long haul routes. Not joking here, I know one pilot that has a ATPL single engine rating... oh sorry, that is on a C-172, must be a "heavy" with that 4 seats-configuration... (!)
xxx
Pilots holding an FAA ATPL have NO idea about airline aircraft flying, other than reading charts of 727 performance, terminology of zero fuel weight or maximum 30 days flight time limitations. All the rest of the training, flight training, is about Cessna and Piper machines.
xxx
Then, who provide the training... Flight Instructors... These "airline academies" and "air colleges" have flight instructors teaching future airline pilots, who themselves have no airline pilot experience. In the FAA world, flight instructors, are rather inexperienced, low time pilots building time hoping to reach a minimum "experience level" to be hired by an airline (if you call 1,000 hrs instructing in a Cessna as "experience")... In my early days, instructors were highly experienced with thousand of flight hours, retired from the military or the airlines. And you did learn a lot from them... In my new hire class, with PanAm in 1968, ex-military pilots were 2/3rds of the group...
xxx
European training is excellent in academics... As I am originally from Europe, and while training in the USA with the FAA curriculums, I had manuals and publications from the UK/CAA and books from the ENAC (France), and I never failed to supplement my studies with that material.
xxx
Airline training (shall I dare to say "real airline training") for a new hire was then 3 months long, from endoctrination, to line training, oftentimes as flight engineer. And we received a small salary, during that training, with motel paid by the airline, and per diem... Nowadays, you pay a fortune for your CRJ training in an "airline academy" (with a nice name attracting many customers) and you pay for your motel and meals, for a "3 weeks quickie" and maybe you "might" be hired by an airline... anyway, you PAY for the training, that is what counts for the school, and the airline (shall we call it "regional airline", which you hope to leave soon for a major air carrier). If you are not "good enough" to qualify for that regional airline, as a "reject", you might qualify as an instructor at your "air college", teaching CRJ systems, because your total experience is 45 minutes flight time in a CRJ...
xxx
In the late 1960s, ab-initio SABENA training in Belgium, was 27 months long, and the first position after training was F/O CV-440...
xxx
With my current airline in South America, we hire pilots with any ICAO CPL/IR/ME. We only select applicants with a turbojet type rating, a Citation CE-500 rating is OK, but we prefer pilots with 737/DC-9 rating. Yet if rated on the 737, you will spend 3 months of training with us to become F/O 737. We have 7 weeks of classroom training, with yes, basics of high altitude operations, aerodynamics, turbojet engines, or navigation and other basics... lots of things that "ATPL" pilots never studied, or forgot...
xxx
We used to hire pilots with no jet experience, long ago, but we had a high failure rate in training. We now require the type rating on a turbojet aircraft, our new hires are nearly 100% pass rate. And yes, we pay a salary during training, and motel, and per diem...
xxx
I believe there is a definite crisis in the concept of airline training. It may be (for the USA), ever since the major carriers decided to dump their local services into associated regional airlines, that operate jet aircraft such as the CRJ. After all, these local operators were merely FAR 135 operators, who now adapted theirselves to basic FAR 121 requirements, but far from being succesful with training standards.
xxx
Asking for my opinion, I would recommend the "ab-initio" training concept, performed with the airline itself.
xxx

Happy contrails

PJ2

A37575;
Sadly, that's how FOQA data is used by the majority of Asian carriers. Use it like that in North America and Europe and FOQA is dead at that airline. There's no learning and no practice-for-proficiency in the procedures you mention but there is no percentage in the hassle of "being caught" by FOQA either - as such, it isn't a safety tool at all and no change can come of it. One may argue that engaging the autoflight system on the ILS certainly keeps the approach stable enough but there are still many non-precision approaches around which demand hand-flying skills as well as good IFR skills. Airline managements infatuated with "automatic flight" and the "reduced need for training" have no clue what they're talking about.

ssg

Could it be that if the airlines hired more people with experience and less people that 'just got along' they might have less problems.

You know it's all fun and games for many pilots: get to go flying, the travel and all that, but I think many forget there are a few hundred passengers in the back that actualy expect a trained, professional to get them from A - B.

I squarely put the blame on the companies that hire low timers. They don't want to pay enough to get experience and they want to hire buddies and not pilots. It may make for a pleasant work environment but it's leaving much to be desired as far as safety is concerned.

Caboclo

And yet, where do you get that experience if everyone requires a type rating? Kind of a catch 22. That's why you need the lower levels of aviation, to give the newbie some experience, and force him to use what he's learned and make smart decisions with minimal co-lateral damage when he screws up. Training is great, there is certainly a lot of knowledge required for airline flying, regardless of whether that knowledge is acquired during private pilot training or during airline indoc. But eventually you have to get kicked out of the nest and fly.

FLCH

Going back to the thread, it's been my observation that airline training is governed by the cost constraint put on it by the bean counters. Over the years at my carrier (20 years), we've moved from the highly experienced ground instructor explaining the ins and outs of a particular aircraft, followed by written exams and a 3-4 hour oral explaining systems to an examiner, up to today where we have computer based training, no classroom sessions and a computer final exam that is multiple choice instead of an oral. We (our airline) is turning out pilots who complete training on Boeing jets in 6 weeks or less. The emphasis is heavily biased towards automation, which teaches new pilots almost rote memorization of switch positions during normal operations. Some pilots are so mechanical about automation, that things can go wrong very quickly as they don't have a solid background as to why things are happening if something out of the ordinary exists. I'm not bashing technology dependent pilots at all, it just a natural progression of technology that takes away the human brain thinking that is essential for flying an airplane. It's up to us as pilots to not let our basic flying skills give way to blind automation.The problem has reared its ugly head enough times to where one year our sim session was titled "Back to basics" where we would lose our FMC's and would have to fly a non-precision approach to minimums as some new pilots did not have a full grasp of basic airmanship. Later on in the session we all had to fly visual approaches using nothing your eyeballs and the VFR prompt in the FMC.
Another element of change that I have observed is lack of cockpit discipline, not that I'm for barking out orders to my First Officer and being an ass about it, but maybe in this pc world where we are afraid to say what needs to be said for fear of hurting someones feelings can lead to some serious consequences. One thing is for sure the atmosphere in the cockpit is changing, some part due to technology and some part due to airline economics, and it's up to us pilots to keep the aircraft flying safe and sensibly as pilots (and not systems managers as some in the industry would tag us). By the way about 2 months ago I flew with a brand new F/O on the 757 and had a total FMC failure, we had to dodge thunderstorms all along the eastern seaboard and had to do holding while the traffic cleared out of the NE corridor, all while this was her first domestic trip on the line and she did do a very good job.

BelArgUSA

FLCH, good points...
xxx
What I gather here, in Pprune postings by future air carrier pilots, is the attitude that changed in 40 years of this industry. I remember the way airlines hired and trained, with competition in wages and perks to get applicants in the mid to late 1960s... and what it is now.
xxx
I am fortunate enough that my airline still handles training as it was performed in these days. Our 737, 747, MD-80 and A-310 training is still done in the traditional way, but... the 747-400 and A-340 get it all on computers as you describe it.
xxx
Another thing strikes me, is the attitude of today's young pilot generation, who "buy" their training ("in effect, "buy" theirselves a career") and insist they were the source of all the aeronautical experience that Orville and Wilbur did require for their first flights. The ability for Daddy to lay down $50,000 for their pilot training is not a yardstick for their ability to fly an airliner. They might just do OK with a Cessna or a Piper...
xxx
Sobering fact, for the "wannabees"... 50% will unfortunately fail to become a F/O for an airline, exact same failure rate as medical doctor or lawyers... dreaming to be a "rich airline captain" is not a qualification, and airline pilot high salaries are things of the past. My salary as 747 check captain and training manager would make you laugh... but it is better than F/Os with "US regional airlines"...
xxx
While some two-thirds of "wannabees" here in our forums, are short of being obnoxious with advice from experienced airline pilots (and some are definitely obnoxious, hiding in anonimity behind their PC screens), but as you see them at the interview, these same "lions" and "wolves" are acting as sheeps, and ready to hug the interviewer, kiss his hands or his shoes...
xxx
My pride as instructor, or check captain, is to have a 100% passing rate, I only ask, that they trust our curriculums, to lead them to success. We select the best applicants, not by "diplomas" of these aeronautical academies with prestigious name. A licence is a licence, it does not matter to our DGAC that the new hire comes from "Jo Bloe Flying Service in Podunk", or the "Superior Aeronautical College"... A CPL/IR/ME is a poor preparation to be candidate for the RH seat of a 737, so we insist on a jet type rating as first level of selection.
xxx
I have seen F/O trainees in 737 or MD-80 simulators unable to fly a non-precision approach, or circle-to-land maneuvers. Some believe that they can still "land" (on a 6,000 feet runway), as they reach the MAP point/time (located say, 500 feet above a runway threshold)...
xxx
I would urge any aspiring airline pilot to read and study two books when they start training for jet type ratings. One is "Handling the Big Jets" by D.P. Davies, (a lot on the subject of 747s), the other is "Fly the Wing" by Jim Webb (subject airplane is DC-9 primarily)... Both are on my bedside table, under my Playboy magazines...
xxx

Happy contrails