How Many Mates Have You Seen Chopped??
 

Anyone else getting a bit frustrated with seeing mates get chopped from flying training who could have made it if the system had shown a little bit more understanding to them?
Has the system always been so strict or is it a sign of the cash strapped times we now live in? Just wondered if things were any different in days gone by...

The Airforce is getting smaller, so they can afford to be more choosier (pardon?).

I think you'll find it was always like that - perhaps even tougher. Try reading "First Light" by Geoffrey Wellum and you'll see that, even in 1939 when we desperately needed pilots, the chop rate was far higher than now.

Mind you, to be "chopped" from pilot training in 1939 apparently had a distinctly more permanant meaning. Their expression for being suspended from training was to be given a "Bowler Hat" - and that was very common indeed!

CofG, I'm sure the heartache and hard decisions on retention/chopping (or scrubbing as we call it) are the same in our system - having seen it from both ends, so to speak, I'd ask a couple of questions:

As a student on course, how do you know how well your mates are doing? From what they say, as you don't fly with them (or at least very rarely on later mutual sorties, if you guys have those), nor would you be in a position to assess their performance if you did.

How do you know how much 'understanding' the system has applied in any particular case?
Again, from the "chop-ee's" side of the story. In my experience, the system does all it can, generally, to pass people, if they are trying hard and performing reasonably.

This isn't to say that injustices don't happen, or personalities don't come into it, but although frustration at seeing your friends and colleagues dropping by the wayside is understandable, it's not well justified in most cases.

Nah, it was harder when I went through etc.

Some 35-40 years ago the CinC Training Command stood up at a CFS Dinner and stated "there are no bad students - only bad instructors". Thereafter no students could be failed.

The result was an increased accident rate and a large number of pilots who were unsuitable for aircraft captaincy.

When I did it, on my courses 43% of EFT went, 52% of BFT, 43% of AFT, 14% of TWU and 11% of the OCU. The overall attrition rate was 37%.

Then when I was Operational, I knew well 10 guys killed before they reached their 30th Birthday in peacetime accidents, I had dinner with 3 of them in the week before they died and watched one walk out of the office at 0730 never to return.

Maybe that is why the chop rate is so high!

Out of about a dozen, we lost one or two at Basic. Including a self-suspension. But back then everyone received basic training, not just the pointy-heads.

On the Gnat we lost 3 out of about 9. No-one was killed on our course, but most people had an emergency at some stage.

At TWU we lost a couple who asked to fly helicopters....they never did. Another guy stoofed in. The rest of us got through, but several were on review at times.

Bucc OCU was appalling. 2 out of 3 pilots chopped, 1 out of 3 navs. The surviving pilot was a re-tread from Canberra B(I)8s and was also a QFI; of the navs only one was brand new from training. At the time no crew with both a pilot and nav straight from training had passed the course for the previous 2 years.....

Later, the Vulcan OCU was a much happier organisation and everyone breezed it. But on the course ahead of us, a pilot was chopped because he couldn't handle being out over the ocean miles form land with only the crew to help. He could fly the jet OK - but bottled the solo to 15W and back.

The argument is quite simple. You start with the basics, you are given loads of assistance and plenty of time. Then the pace quickens, the works starts to become applied. Then it becomes both advanced, intense, and applied and the loading increases.

Usually all the students cope except that the good ones do so with ease and the less capable struggle. This was true earlier too. What we are seeing is a sort out not by skill, as few have that at this stage, but of capacity.

The same process continues on the OCU and even the Op qual phase on your sqn. If you role change after your first tour the chop process can start again only this time you keep your brevet.

What we have found is that it may be bad at the time when you are chopped but later the pressure comes off and the stude is actually much happier.

BFTS - 20 started, 3 scrubbed and 7 back-coursed for various reasons ie med, weather delays etc. The 3 scrubbed were all good blokes where personality/attitude would not have been an issue.
As I understand it, from the student point of view, you have to have the ability (hands and feet, push and pull) but what makes you passable to the next stage is your spare capacity to deal with other than ops normal stuff. The QFI's are not unrealistic at all with their expectations, they too 'have a bad day' every now and again.

Beags, what exactly was it about the Bucc OCU that made it so difficult to pass - ac a bitch to fly, instructors, studes not up to the role?

I joined up after the last Bucc units had been re-roled / disbanded etc, but even now I hear the rumours about the chop rate on Buccs. Guess that says something!

I completed a course (we called it Selection, with a capital S) on a chop rate of 97%. 273 whittled to 9 in under five months...

Maybe someone who's been through flying training in the past 20 years might like to comment on the above situation...........:hmm:

Caz.

That would be at about the same time that the CAS stated, when I was a Gp FSO, that there was no such thing as an accident, there was always a reason.

Sometime around late eighties/early nineties the Army sent letters to a bunch of people who had failed flying grading (on the Chippie) saying that following a review, they had in fact been assessed as suitable for Pilot Training. It was a move purely driven by low student numbers and IIRC, just led to a higher failure rate on the subsequent course (anecdotal evidence, admittedly) and further validation of the value of flying grading as an assessment tool. Been a while since I've been back, but do the RAF/RN use grading or does UAS etc meet that need?

I read an Army report by a psycologist who determined, from accident records, that pilots fell in to 2 categories. 5% were naturals the other 95% could be taught. Most accidents happened to the latter group (ie greated accident rate). When the 5%ers had an accident it was usually because they were not 100% fit.

She then concluded that experienced and qualified instructors could tell after a few minutes who would pass and who would fail. They then had to spend weeks and hours work in proving that they were right all along.

On my nav course we identified the failures at the meet and greet. One got through the first phase only by careful scheming and got chopped immediately thereafter.

One would be stude claimed I had been prejudiced, lazy, and merely copied a colleagues write-up. True I had used exactly the same words (but that is because we listen to each other during sims. When we went back through his reports, only 5 or so, we found the identical remark on 3 of them. Each one was a safety altitude bust!

Had he not complained we might not have noticed

and another one bites the dust

Wwyvern,

As the OED defines accident as "an event without apparent cause" he possibly had a point. I suspect, however, that we can both think of occurrences which would fit the definition.

C of G
I think Arm out the Window has got a good point when he says that you don't really know how your mates are doing...you just hear their crewroom bragging.
I remember going through an airbase somewhere near Sleaford many moons ago and wondering at why on earth X or Y, seemingly our Course aces, could be chopped. Several years later I returned to the same base as a QFI and some of the Spec Aircrew QFIs were still there.....so after a few Friday night beers in the crewroom (remember them?) questions were asked about X and Y and guess what....they were nowhere near as good as they had led us, their mates, to believe.

Having been rotary instructing since the '70's, there is no doubt in my mind that the input standard is no where near what it was (RAF students had to pass the 120 hour JP course to be able to fly anything) and the lack of motivation of some of the students now is appalling. BUT, when a stood struggles now he gets far more hours and help than 30 years ago. Some of this is down to the 'compensation culture' where a few failed students have sued for their failure. So, if you fail, it's 'cos you aint good enough!

A good point to remember, is that the schools are there to graduate pilots, not fail them. The cost of training a pilot is huge, in the terms of money time and effort. The Instructors spend a lot of time trying to get students through each phase, so they will not be failing any one unless it is absolutely neccessary.

Go and see your local saftey equipment workers, they usualy are pretty good at picking who wont make it through.