Cathay SIM Instructor
 

Hello.
Anyone with knowledge about this contract willing to share info?
Thx

They will have you doing 95% night work starting 23:00 or 03:00. No mention of that in interview.

CPA training ctr
 

I’ll answer a question with a question…

why is there such a high turnover of sim instructors?

ffs! It sounds awful. But fairly representative of my miserable time at CX in the 90s. less about training, more training by checking.
But that was then, I hoped it had changed.
obviously not.
shame

20 plus years ago but is the guy who looks like Captain Obvious with a pipe hanging out of his gob in the SIM still there?

I doubt it - he'd be 80-odd years old by now, if it's the guy I'm thinking of.

I have seen a video from an instructor attending a standards meeting of the Head of Flying Training handing out beers at 3pm in an official meeting at Cathay City. Various training mangers sat there drinking beer before going back to work in the office. In an airline with recent bad publicity of pilots turning up for work this is a pretty bad example to set. They are trying to instigate Evidence Based Training when half the instructors, mostly entitled institutionalised seniors who have been there for years, have no idea how to do a Competancy Based Assessment. The level of safety and competence for a national airline is appalling, it will not be long before a serious accident happens unfortunately, which is why so many are leaving.

what on earth has a office meeting with a few after work beers got to do with any of the other stuff you mention?

He said, ‘Various training mangers sat there drinking beer before going back to work in the office’.

As an aside: ahh, ‘mangers’. A howler I recall from a senior manager’s missive during some unpleasantness a few decades ago :hmm:

At least the old Valiant pilot and the extendo-pointer with which he would rap you over the knuckles is long gone :}

And of course the Screaming Skull. Didn't like the way Asians would stop walking on the moving walkway as soon as they stepped on and thunder up behind to glare down until they moved aside. Very embarrassing for the rest of the crew. I believe he returned as a sim instructor. God help his victims.

again so what? Almost all office workers will partake in a lunchtime beer at some point during the week. Who cares as long as they aren’t getting hammered? They aren’t flying planes so what rules are they breaking?
if you want to join them then go for it; get an office job

The "Screaming Skull"... Not the easiest person to engage with, but once you knew him you appreciated he had experience, skills and knowledge. In fact, he had a heart and and understanding of the job and what it required . I was once on the receiving end of his rancour...survived! A good man in my mind. Cathay long had a need of his kind....and still does.

Oh, the irony.

Stockholm is far away from HK but not far enough not to cause Stockholm syndrome.

SS was certainly part of the "old cx". On that note, does anyone sensibly suggest that the "new" cx is better than the old ? Maybe people like SS understood a thing or two about aviation, and how to keep an airline on the rails. Not certain you could say that about the operation today.

Perhaps, given his position he should've taken the time to learn a thing or two about people too, being able to understand both isn't mutually exclusive.

SS knew all about "people". He just didn't suffer fools and incompetence. If you couldn't do your job properly, you would be on the wrong end of a career defining event. Every good airline needs people who could cut through the cr*p and protect the airlines operation and reputation. I understand that we have now had a generation of snowflakes who seem to need a bit of hand holding, but ultimately it will be proven that people like Jmack were right in their application of standards and operational excellence.

on another note...a post I made back in March of 2108...almost 8 years ago:

In case it isn't perfectly clear: make for the lifeboats asap, as this ship has struck the iceberg and will sink. The management are sitting on the deck playing their instruments, but their feet are already getting wet. There is no saving this airline, as the management have no credibility, no honesty, no morality, no competence, no vision. It is dead. If you have any other option, take it while it is still available. Otherwise, you will find yourselves (and your families) in an impossible and horrid situation. Then, you will only have yourselves to blame.

Sadly, this has proven to be the case. Does anyone else believe CX will ever again be a "career" airline...?

Trafalgar I don’t necessarily disagree with the essence of what you are saying. Having also gone through the school of hard knocks and worked for Cathay in the ‘old days’. Including somehow surviving the command course. However I had built up a carapace of (much used word now) resilience having been battered into shape in a prior airline, Britannia Airways. The chief trainer of aforesaid company after a particularly fraught simulator session had assessed me as ‘foxtrotting useless’. Harsh but fair I suppose. In terms of cx and the individual concerned with the amusing sobriquet you are not wrong in that he is highly knowledgeable. My take is that there should be some middle ground. A little courtesy in the professional context is not out of place and I also agree that a few of the newer generation can be a little ahem, over sensitive. Essentially there is no place or should not be for the brutal debrief laced with profanity which has occurred in the past. Probably a good thing.

I think the S S at one time or another had to apologise to most of the station managers in the Asian network. The impression I got of him was of barely controlled rage. His background suggested a very good pilot ability but he was one of the few ex fighter pilots who seemed to have difficulty in adapting to a team environment.

I had the SS as my relief F/O on a HKG-YVR At the end of my 5 hours rest I returned to the flightdeck to find that NEITHER of the two F/Es would speak to him and the other F/O (ex Lightnings) had decided to "keep his council" On the return trip he was PF into TPE at night and had to be "helped" around the visual approach to avoid a go-around.
A few days later I was summoned to see the Fleet Captain to explain why I had been showing the SS some operational documentation from a previous airline - and I was told to desist!

So, my impression was that he was a bit of a politician and a man in a hurry to rise up the hierarchy - which he did of course.

Yes I never did understand the need to machete your way up the greasy pole @ Cathay. Why? As mentioned a toxic set up unfortunately culminating in the shocking 49 episode. Loved the old days, great to have experienced the Kai Tak excitement but shocking the road downhill. Shame

Captain Obet has retired.
I thoroughly enjoy his Youtube videos.
He comes across as a very decent instructor and skipper!

SS learned his CRM skills in the RAAF on the Mirage. I think that says most of what needs to be said.

Ex Mil. Liked Boats. Wore one trouser leg up on one side. Very funny hand-shake. Blonde. Blue eyes. White skin...................none of those ? Silly me. Probably a bloody nische bloke.................

Oh, hang on. There was also something called the "Old Club Act". I mean. I have no idea what folk are on about.. Never affected me. Got jobs wherever I applied and everyone luved me.

Oh. Hang on.

Fkn hell some of you blokes are piss driven geriatrics. Just nonsensical ramblings about what used to be, while on the second bottle of plonk.

Thanks. A pss-driven Geriatric, rambling on nonsensically, on the second bottle of plonk (by o9.33, Cyprus time). Is the what qualifies to be called a "plonker" ?

Back to the opener though. Will add all the aforementioned to my CV and apply for CX Sim Instructor. Success looks likely. At last.

Sick of this absurd idea that the only choices are yelling like a maniac or letting standards slide. Surely there is no way of having a respectful adult conversation while still saying what needs to be said...

In 1993 while working for Virgin Atlantic I took the TRE course @ the UK CAA. A veteran ops inspector who was the course tutor said never use emotive language when briefing and in particular debriefing training events. Wise words although in fairness common sense would agree. Always be professional and respectful even when delivering not so great news. There never was a place for the SS style of training.

Unfortunately the simulator training department is comprised of too many old boy network instructors, some with emotional and social problems and pre dementia. They are too afraid to retire because their institutionalised egos can not face the fact that when retired they have no status apart from being just another old man. As such Cathay training will not ever be modernised. It is very sad to think that a person is what their title says rather than the humility, virtue and character that they posses. A standards meeting consisted of 40 mins of complaints about not enough pens or paper in the toilets, some bitching about the contract from entitled training captains, the Canadian STM talking for an hour about his health problems or some other randomly useless information. Almost nothing about how to improve quality and safety in Training. For a National Airline it is an absolute disgrace of a department. Now sit back and wait for the Cathay Pacific old boy management internet trolls reply with a bunch of lies and discreditation to save face in a rotting airline that has lost an enormous amount of talented people.

No I thought they spent hours discussing what the set of barbecue tongs in the washroom were used for.

I recall many years ago, seeing those tongs, and thinking “What the ever loving f@ck are those for?”
Best I could imagine was to grasp the shaft of the toilet brush, so that one didn’t have to touch the shaft with your bare hands.
Second option was that, where one had given birth to an oversize navigator, that failed to negotiate the u-bend on the first flush, that one could tong-fu said recalcitrant floater into more manageable size pieces.

Either way, there was no way I was ever touching those damn tongs.

Pref Expat : You might like my post, of this morning, over on Rumours & news, about 'Knowing your aircraft systems'. Thread has morphed a bit but I think we are talking the same language.

The old club of misfits have held a tight grip. Stories will abound but I larfed, quite a lot until falling to the same sword, stuff like;

One guy, claimed at a BBQ, that he thoroughly enjoyed seeing people who were afraid of him.

Another I crossed with; favourite phrase in debrief was "Yes, well. I think we'll stop you there " !

As a new joiner, introduced to one who terrified recent recruits. During coffee break, he held court telling us a story of a "Big mouthed recruit"" who thought he was God's gift needing a lesson. Chief Whip informed the "Training": dept ; "Give him to me, I'll f--k him" !.................CHarming..........................

I'll bow out with my fave though;

Checker would ask candidate ;"What does your Mum call you ?". Of course, needed to repeat the question as several replies would be like " ër, sorry, whaat was that ? er, what does my Mum call me ? etc. Checker would persist and soon to be Failure would yield with ;""er, well, Cuddles, actually."

Examiner would smile and say....................." WEll, Cuddles,................You failed" !

CX training was, in my view, always pretty toxic.
Less about training, more about point scoring and c0$k swinging.
But then, back in the day a lot of captains were like that too

Not sure which airline you actually worked for. I found most of the training at CX required a very high standard. You studied, asked questions, and you either passed or failed in nearly all cases based on your ability (not saying there were outlying examples...but the no airline can claim perfection). There were certainly "characters" in training and management, but the vast majority of pilots survived, upgraded and thrived. I suspect comments on this thread are largely generated by those that simply didn't come up to the high standard expected. Up to the current era, CX and their reputation for excellence was deserved, and largely nurtured and protected by those you wish to denigrate. In 30+ years, I never came across anyone such as you describe. I think the problem actually lies elsewhere...

It's a thing called leading by example, professionalism and institutionalised organisation safety culture that Chinese don't know about. Yee ha, who cares the money is great and a few tail strikes mean nothing in terms of safety trend analysis, when you have a young Asian girlfriend half your age sucking on your wallet as well to help you through your mid life crisis.

You must be really fun at a party.

That's nothing... After Cathay lost all their best pilots during the covid debacle, the way they treated us, and the loss of a liveable wage in Hong Kong, B scale, the trash they have been recruiting to eventually fill our seats is going to be the cause of a big massive airplane shaped smoking hole in the ground.

It's only a matter of time before Cathay has a hull loss.

Well deserved.

I feel sorry for the passengers, and the pilots who chose to remain after the degradation of our 'permanent' contracts.

I'm so bloody glad I left!

There is life after Cathay! Took me a while to mourn my Cathay career, but I'm far far better off now.

While I agree that Cathay is now a joke. How bad are the recruits that a hull loss is inevitable? My understanding is that the training standards are still high and Cathay is probably recruiting the same calibre of pilots that Singapore, Eva, Starlux and the Equivalent airlines are or are they only attracting very low quality pilots now? Is there a much higher chance of Cathay having a hull loss over Singapore or EVA? If so then that is rather concerning.

All good points well made difference with CX is
The general experience level is low and getting worse
Which airline that purports itself to be a legacy carrier yet a pilot who has been here less than 10 years is in the top 40% of the pilot group because anyone with the marketable skills and the desire is going somewhere better.
Coupled with a punitive promotion into training for returnees. Also coercing trainers into passing people from ‘managers’ All verbal not in writing