Quantas air?

Tell us about that high IQ of yours....

As for me, I fly in country Australia building my hours and experience, have about 1800 hours and only now starting of thinking of applying for airlines, though feel I need another 700 hours of experience till I'd be ready.

I don't have a sense of entitlement and am working hard to get where I would like to be.

Oh god, is THIS what our esteemed Directors have reduced Cathay Pacific Airways to? And they dare walk through the Street behaving as though any of us owed them any respect? And then the one day PS..... Wow, these guys plumb new depths every day....:yuk:

Everyone in aviation knows that the most dangerous pilot is the one with 500 hours. Five hundred hours is a point where, too often, a combination of arrogance and stupidity outweigh good judgement....and bad decisions are made.

Speaking from 40 years of flying, with an accumulated 25,000 flying hours, here's what I think makes a great pilot:

EXPERIENCE, EXPERIENCE, EXPERIENCE!!!

You can't become a Doctor, a Lawyer, or even a formula-one driver with only a high IQ, and you can't become a pilot either. Intelligence is the starting point.....

An intelligent young wannabe should then attend and graduate from an excellent flying school (air force or recognized aviation college preferred).

A job is then attained where skills are honed and experience is gained. Then the better and more experienced one becomes, the more responsibility he/she takes on, flying bigger and bigger airplanes, carrying more and more passengers. An ATPL license from a first world country is then attained.

At this point if the young wannabe should end up upside down on a dark and dirty night he/she would have a clue on how to recover.

This prevents the rest of us in the industry from having to go into the simulator and practice stall recoveries (STALL RECOVERIES) because on several occasions an "intelligent" young wannabe, with poor training and no experience, couldn't recognize a stall and couldn't recover from it before disaster struck.....

A good pilot becomes a good pilot after years of poling around the sky making decisions and judgements, and then observing the outcome. Most times, things will work out nicely and soft touchdowns will ensue. But there will be other times when a decision will be regretted. Over the years, yes YEARS, as one hones their piloting skills, experience and understanding expand, and decisions become better and better.

Only then is one qualified to apply to an airline as an experienced pilot. Until that time he/she remains anything but qualified.

The accident statistics are there for all to study and observe. They speak for themselves.

Good post Raven!

To put it another way, you don't know what you don't know. Most cannot appreciate experience until they have some for themselves such that they have witnessed the difference it makes. It takes proper and unusual parental upbringing to accept this principle on blind faith.

I sense that most of our Indian commentators come from the upper wrung of the caste system which lends itself towards a sense of entitlement and looking down upon others. Both seem relevant to the general attitude we are reading in these posts. They disparage the system which produced decades of exceptional safety at CX while simultaneously believing themselves worthy of joining it without proper experience.

Make no mistake! Today's iCadets are nothing other than a byproduct of corporate greed which is willing to leverage flight safety for the smallest increases in profit margins. This error will manifest itself for decades to come, eventually contributing to a worst case scenario.

I really hope our C&Ters do their job properly before signing these guys to the line. Every new SO should be safe with the worst RFO in the company. Every JFO should be safe with the weakest captain on the fleet. That should be the standard. Is it???

First off I need to say that I have no time for racism and some of the comments on this thread have been at best unpleasant. That said this thread, as has been stated, is about experience or rather the lack of it with the majority of replies reflecting that.

Primed

Your comments about IQ and maths would suggest you do pretty well in both areas. Sadly though in my opinion your analysis that these attributes will make for a good pilot are fundamentally wrong. The RAF would also agree with me. I was an instructor with the RAF and I remember one of my students who was chopped happened to be a maths grad with a Mensa IQ. One of the reasons for his departure was over confidence! High IQ and great maths ability does not = good pilot material just as having no degree and an average IQ does not = poor pilot material. Your comments on the subject combined with your lack of experience would suggest that you also are quite possibly over confident. That makes for a lethal mix and thus the fact that you feel somehow ready and deserving of a seat on the flt deck of any size pax jet fills me with real concern.


shivamjoshi

[QUOTEIndians have the propensity to work for lesser wages[/QUOTE]

If you think that is acceptable then you betray yourself and other indians.

Would you put your family on a pax jet if the CN said on his welcoming address “All the other pilots in this airline get paid more than me but as an Indian I do not feel that I am worth what they are being paid”? By the way we do have Indians on the flt deck in CX already do you think they should take a pay cut because they are Indian?

The difference between you and those that have already joined on the icadet scheme is that you believe you deserve less than your British/Aussie/NZ/HK/etc counterparts. They on the other hand have accepted their lower conditions of service, but when talking to them it is obvious they do not believe they are worth less.

They like you are being exploited by CX. Unlike the vast majority of them however, you seem to believe that is fair.

shivamjoshi


[QUOTE]And since you are not jumping types, your learning is more specific to a single set of systems. In fact freshers becoming SO(s) is not nearly as bad as them becoming FO(s)/QUOTE]

That quote alone proves that you have not done any research into what your career progression would be.

So, you are not prepared to research the job you are going for, but you are prepared to lecture very experienced crews who cut their teeth in some of the most dangerous flying jobs this industry has to offer as to why you are deserving of a seat on a pax flt deck. Statistics say that with 250hrs there is a very good chance that even in a minor crisis you are likely to be a liability rather than an asset. You need to address your overconfidence and quickly. By the way CX never has let and for the sake of our pax I hope never will allow “Freshers to become FO’s"

God help us all if it really is true that the regular interviewers have been replaced. Some of the arrogance shown here is truly scary.

Off to Nigeria next and then Ivory Coast for some more recruiting. Cat E scales coming it. No housing, no schooling, you pay the company and even then the company will say that it's too much for them to afford.

More than 12 year with CX: My apologies for most of the comments made here - racialistic and not acceptable at all - it's a shame!! What's the issue if young pilots from abroad - from whatever country and background, send an application to CX? And, btw, not all the 25 000 hours pilots here are great aviatiors - sometimes far away.. experience is one parameter of many when it comes to select the 'right' people. And again: CX sets the standards and it's there responsibilty to identify the skilled ones and offer them a contract.This thread shows quite clearly the IQ level of some participants..

For you guys to think that these low time Indian pilots will make the airline unsafe.... get over your arrogant selves. Same was being said of the cadet program when it started, but how many cadet captains do we now have flying your families around. What makes you think that these Indian pilots aren't capable of being good pilots? You post as though they are joining DEC with 250 hours :ugh::ugh:.... They will rise through the ranks same way as a cadet did, and by the time they get the left seat they will be more than ready with plenty of experience under their belt.

Cathay management may also be looking for candidates who are financially capable to make the current package work in hong kong. It is quite apparent that western candidates are from countries that teach the type of financial advice that caused the recent economic crisis. Why not look to a country that is well known for its ability to create new opportunities where others cannot see them. :ok:

Well Primed, that is a very creative way of putting lipstick on a pig! Put another way CX might be saying, "Only come work here if you already have money because we are not going to pay you much." Isn't that what non-profits say? The only difference being that this company makes billions of Hong Kong Dollars every year. Inexcusable! Unless of course a bunch of idiots actually take the deal. Pull your heads out young men...

The major aspect of this whole issue - Pakistanis, Indians or Côte Ivöirians aside - is that at very time the FAA, the most experienced (and innovative) regulating authority worldwide is RAISING experience levels for airline pilot entrants, Cathay, in it's infinite wisdom, is LOWERING them.

Make no mistake, these muppets that CX is successfully luring into these seats with vague promises of accelerated upgrade times and shiny new jets, are only a dodgy meal or a faulty valve away from making life altering decisions.

This is going to end badly, and we're allowing all the pieces of this impending tragedy to fall into place. Our pleas for sanity are being drowned out by the ring of the cash register. Time to blow the whistle, gents, and make the public aware of what's about to happen. It's a real shame the media in HKG is owned by our masters.

We are all collectively responsible when the day comes to explain to 300 grieving families why good men chose to do nothing...

The FAA is also implementing rest rules that are far better for reducing fatigue problems, while "some other" authorities are doing just about the opposite.

Primed

Of course CX management are looking for candidates who think they can make the package work. Unlike you, they are not totally devoid of common sense. (I don’t care how big your IQ is you seem to have no common sense whatsoever) Why do you think the majority of new candidates are young and single? CX know that to live in HK you guys will rent together and thus for a few years the illusion that the deal is OK will just about hold. The problem will come when you want a family only then will the penny drop and will you realise just how poorly placed you are. Of course as you have said you think you will see opportunity where others don’t so perhaps you will find a way where everybody else has failed. Please let us know how you plan to have your kids educated without having to spend thousands of HKD per month. Then again perhaps your solution will be to not bother granting your children an education. At least that way you may all be able to eat something.

Perhaps you could ask the company if you could pay your own way to HK plus any hotel expenses for the interview. Maybe you could even pay them for giving you such a great opportunity flying big shiny jets should you be offered a position. I am sure they would jump at that chance.

I cannot believe you are a pilot because your posts get more farcical every day. At least the cadets already in CX know just how bad the deal is when projecting into the future hence the fact that many are already planning for when they are free of the forgivable loan.

This experienced Pilot bashing has to stop!!!!!
:ugh:

That's GOLD....!
In Hong Kong, Rock Stars enjoy Pilot status...........

There's a few pilots that consider themselves rock stars.

Now, whatever happened to Captain Toss Parker? I miss his enlightened posts.

Come back Toss, we love you

This thread is turning into 'bizarro world'.

If some of these posters here and on the Wannabes forum really are applicants, and not bored adolescents, wind-up merchants or management stooges, many of us, including the travelling public, need to be afraid. Very afraid.

Judging from these posts I would have serious doubts about the technical, practical and inter-personal skills of many of these individuals. The length and frequency of some of these missives would indicate a problem with priorities in life, and some of the posters display serious persecution complexes. How will these individuals will react to criticism, training and the unexpected, especially in the Cathay Pacific culture and global flying environment?

It may take at best, an incident, or at worst a tragedy for the company to revert to its previous very successful policy of paying 'good money for quality crew'.

What is the cx culture and environment in flight operations?.. How do they critique, correct and train line entry pilots (second officers)? Is race a factor? Do they get physical in the cockpit especially at the controls? Are people inside nosy and gossips a lot?

Agreed. Read the post just above this one...

How do we train S/Os? Beatings, mostly.
Is race a factor? Absolutely no Klingons allowed.
Do we get physical at he controls? You mean, like beatings? Yes, yes, we do.

An ability to understand the English language is a prerequisite for applying to the iCadet scheme. A sense of humour is also a must.

Prospective Cathay Pacific pilots' English lesson for the day:

'Wind-up' (pronounced 'wynde up', and note the hyphen), in the context of my previous posts: to stir, to cause trouble, to act as an internet 'troll'. A 'wind-up merchant', a colloquial term, is one who does this, often to achieve an agenda, such as recruiters and management 'moles' on a 'wannabe' thread. 'Wind up' (no hyphen) means to close or finish, as this dreadful 'iCadet' scheme should be.

'Getting the wind up' ('wind' pronounced with a short 'i') is a slightly vulgar term for being afraid, as I will if the system allows some of these applicants to operate wide-bodied airliners without rigorous standards of English, technical and flying ability, and interpersonal skills being maintained.

'Fresher': an excruciating term used mainly by aspiring pilots from the sub-continent, often in conjunction with 'gen y text speak'. In Western countries this term is normally used in the context of adolescents just out of college or high school, who are entering their first year of university.

I won't explain the terms undercut, 'Parker pen' hours, Hong Kong Accommodation, Forgiveable Loan, English language standard, competence and experience.

That will be your homework for today :8.

Forget about it Dart.

The new generation ( Y ? ) don't give a hoot for experience. It doesn't matter whether they are Indian, Australian, American etc. they think anyone can do the job no experience required. Our experience is falling on deaf Ears. :(

Capt. Underpants
 

Peace yo!......

Crack a beer, grab some popcorn and put feet up.........this will be entertaining.

Ixg888, i hate to break it to you but the other half of the battle, for someone like you, is getting your Taj Mahal sized ego through the L1 door.

Did you watch the news/see the pics not so long ago? That would answer your question :)

And another thing...

CX are actively recruiting in countries where:

Society is fundamentally corrupt and no culture of accountability exists...

Licencing authorities are rotten and licenses, exam results and jobs are bought and sold...

Recruitment is being farmed out to a third party where, again, an interview (or a spot on the roster) is sold to the highest bidder...

Fundamentalism - Muslim, sikh and national - is epidemic...

No background checks are mandated by the Hong Kong immigration or aviation authority (and therefore, not done)...

These Indian, Pakistani and Malaysian wannabes are being treated (in the name of political correctness) like any candidate from a developed society...

We are headed for disaster. I can see it already, a Cathay 747 heading at the Eiffel tower, some ash hole screaming "Allah uAhkbar" at the top of his misguided, demented voice.

Have Cathay well and truly lost their minds?

holy cow! Listen to yourself, you wuss! you talk about fundamentalism and all that rubbish. your people are bringing racism into the picture. so cut it out.

again. like the sensible guy 'smurf84' mentioned, don't generalise the entire issue here..."these indians, pakistanis, malaysians" are being treated like any candidate from a developed country??? Get a grip. there is nothing special about you. do you get that? absolutely nothing.

look at you people crying out loud like a bunch of :mad: when you suddenly see indians taking over your jobs. you tell us not to whine...but take a look at yourselves whining about hong kong labour laws, poor CoS and what not.....you just don't seem to get it all....we are not here to listen to your BS, if you thought it was working for you, rather than getting your balls together and fighting against the CX management. To hell with you cpt. underpants. look at your attitude??? and you actually put hundreds of lives in your hands when you fly???? i'm flabbergasted !! cx should know more about you. hong kong immigration should have done a proper background check on you and your friends here/

count your days ye anti-indian morons !!! :E

Yeah! My first fatwa!

Are you a Mufti?

I'm not an Indian, nor an Asian. But yes, I'm a muslim and I'm proud of it. But why this amateur anti muslim sentence? Not every muslim is going to crash his airplane in a building, tower or what the **** it is. Those who do this are the people who are raised up in the 'danger areas' like places in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and a few others. I know some great people of those places, but it is just your destiny. They don't choose where they are born, raised up and who there carers are. I went to the mosque for lessons about my religion, to learn to read the Quran (I still don't understand it) and a lot of other things. But the best part of it is: I have learnt to be a good man which respects other religions, choices from others and what the most important things are in life. Those guys who are flying the airplanes in the buildings/towers did the same but they learnt something else: no respect for other religions and choices from others. They are drilled in their brains by those Anwar's and Osama's. It isn't their choice, it is their destiny again. Understanding this will be very hard for you, maybe your disrepect, maybe your choices in your own life. But remember this: people will threat you like you threat them. Stay positive, and see the good things in the negativities. CW

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!!
 

Sorry Silverfox, but as a professional pedant I have to point out that your quote: is incorrect. It's actually Brazil, by a looong shot.

This service brought to you by "Pedants Anonymous - highlighting unimportant facts or over 150 years!" :}

Now, back to the show!

Capt Weird..and the shooter in France this morning?? Muhammed, a French national, the Madrid bombers, the London underground....

You missed that I think.

It's not going about the nationalities..

Training standards will save us?
 

I wondered when someone would bring that up.
The real question here is how is it possible that our illustrious airline has been persuaded that recruiting in these countries is a good idea.
The amount of effort and money required to bring them up to Cathay standard would be better off used in pitching salaries and conditions to candidates with much more suitable experience and culturally specific abilities.
Or is it that our standards will be lowered in order to achieve the required numbers of bums on seats

It's not about religion as we have plenty of Muslim pilots and cabin crew in cx who are brilliant. It's not about being Indian/ Pakistani or any other particular race. it's about CX being cheap, taking pilots who are not very experienced and paying them less with false promises.

The kids on this forum (I don't care where you are from) need to realise that selling yourself short now will affect you for the rest of your career. Don't be so short sighted and listen to what the more experienced have to say.

The guys bringing up race and religion, you are not helping the situation so let's stick to the topic at hand to try and get the message across. I have no sympathy for any icadets that come to CX and complain about the living standard or pay, you have been warned of the true facts not the management hype.

Because CX is struggling to find candidates from "Traditional Regions of Recruitment" willing to accept the lowly iCadet package. These candidates see the iCadet package as so bad they don't even bother to turn up for interviews.

This is unprecedented in the history of CX.

Word on the street is the GMA (Swire, non pilot manager) is behind the push to explore "Non Traditional Regions".

And there you have it. Underpants (Capt. I don't think so. Unlikely even to be a SPO.for you , Underpants, that means"System Panel Operator"). CX used to have a "Selection Procedure", apart from the racist stuff that was rampant in the early 70's, there was a continuous degree of careful selection. "Underpants", displaying very disjointed thinking, inarticulate presentations & very worrying outlooks would not have got past the very basic application screening. If this guy really is a CX pilot, we ALL need to be extremely concerned. Most likely another dysfunctional Troll. What really worries me, is, reading through this CX stuff, a dreadful image is being portrayed on a public forum. Oh, & if I need to justify myself : 40 years in the industry, 22000 hours, All jet, all heavy. Currently Head of the Selection Board. We are really good at weeding out twerps like you. For other readers; This truly cannot be CX.........can it ? Dismal.

Slowjet,

Are you implying that a flight engineer is somehow inferior? Having so much flight experience, 40 years all heavy jet, I am surprised you look down on your previous colleagues in such a way. Much better to work with 250 hour wonder boys/girls.

This truly cannot be the views of a 40 year, 22,000 hour, all jet, all heavy experienced head of selection board maverick.........can it ? Dismal.