Command Training - fair play or brutalisation?

[3 Holer]

I have heard there is a Command School run for one day from this training outfit in Melbourne.

[galdian]

Lots of good, thoughtful and insightful postings.

Personally it all comes down to the attitude of the Flight Management of the company regards the type of personalities they promote into training/checking roles; too often it seems predicated on a boys club mentality although even with that occasionally individuals surprise you and rise above their (perceived) mediocrity.

The sim is a great tool - used properly, like all tools it has great benefits; damn shame airlines only use it for 60% +/- of its potential, all that money paid for potential never used.

Always believed should be small C, big T, also a component (not assessed but later maybe discussed between the professional pilots as food for thought) of some stuff you never hope to see or experience, or maybe an accumulation of events to ........see what happens.
But ALWAYS not assessed, for experience only, results not recorded.

Sadly as ALL airlines run by accountants now the ability to have spare time in the sim to run non-required type rating stuff (oh the cost, the cost!) must be minimal. Go the accountants!

Such a great resource - at best poorly utilised, at worst wasted.

Now - what about the pleasures/joy of line training!!

[Tee Emm]

Thank you for your replies. Unfortunately there seems little point in further discussions as the thread has been hijacked to a point that is embarrassing.
The moderators must have taken time out for a cuppa.

[Much Ado]

No I was out exercising..we don't live on here...but your point is well made.

And Kurtz is having some time off to reflect on 'the horror' of his posts.

[Tee Emm]

we don't live on here...but your point is well made

Sorry about the cuppa thing! No offence meant. Thanks for the action. I hope the posts continue. TM

[Centaurus]

So often "Captain God" sitteth on the left side of the flight deck and you-know-who sat on the right...................or in the simulator the Trainer.............(the pseudo checker) was there asking "look-how-smart-I-am-questions" and loading the simulator to pressure cooker status.

Now isn't that a great learning atmosphere

I must confess that I unknowingly did that, and I cringe to think of it fifty years later. At the time I was a young 25 year old QFI (check and training in airline parlance) entirely responsible for the recurrent training and type rating training of the pilots of a Lincoln squadron based at Townsville. The squadron had seven of these large four engine bombers plus a Dakota and a Wirraway single engine trainer. It was hard work but I loved it. Being keen I thought every other pilot should be keen too - right up to the Wing Commander CO who had seen death and destruction in the war.

The Rolls Royce Merlins on the Lincolns were not all that reliable and engine failures were relatively common. Simulators probably hadn't been thought of then so I had to simulate engine failures by pulling back the throttles of one or even two of the four engines. At the time I felt it was essential that every pilot should be able to safely cope with an engine failure and I pulled an awful lot of engines. I worked entirely unsupervised because that's the way it was in those days. You were posted in as a squadron QFI and the CO expected results which meant command upgrades as well as type ratings on newly graduated pilots with a bare 220 hours total time all on singles.

I was mortified when some years ago I ran into a former pilot of the squadron and the conversation turned to the good old days and he told me that when I trained pilots on the Lincoln we hardly ever had all four engines going as I was always chopping engines during session of circuits or instrument flying. To me, then, it because I genuinely thought I was giving good training - although now in retrospect I realise it was overdone to such a degree it caused resentment among crews. Worse still it was quite unnecessary at the time. The amount of rudder pressure to hold an engine failure in the Lincoln was significant and holding rudder against two engine out on one side was very heavy going. I guess I am responsible for all those old pilots limping into medical clinics around Australia cursing the bastard that stuffed their knee caps! I hate to think what mayhem I would have caused if we had had a Lincoln simulator. Having said that, it was never career busting training - not like the grim sessions some of us have experienced in the airline environment.

A friend of mine was undergoing conversion to the early C130A RAAF Hercules where they had a C130 simulator at Richmond. His instructor a QFI liked to up the ante by introducing more emergencies which were entirely unlikely to occur in real life. On final approach with two engines failed the QFI failed the last of the available generators and watched keenly for the pilot's response. By now the pilot had had enough of this chirade and promptly and quite deliberately rolled the aircraft inverted and went in vertically. This action had a dramatic effect on the simulator electrics and the result was the sim was out of action for several days while the technicians repaired the damage.

Simulator instructors and check pilots are often equally guilty of overloading pilots during type rating and command upgrade training in simulators. Whether or not their actions are deliberate or simply the result of over-enthusiasm in the job depends on the man's personality. Either way, they are rarely held accountable for their actions because in the civilian airline world they have high status and are untouchable. As one conributor (Gunshy 67) wrote, it wasn't until the educational experts were brought in to watch the trainers in action, that they were brought to heel.

I well recall one tension filled session where the pilot undergoing recurrent 737 simulator training after two years away from flying was brutalised with an engine failure with severe damage at VR - followed by severe turbulence on the initial climb and during flap retraction with an asymmetric flap thrown in.
All the time he was aware of the instructor furiously scribbling notes while looking over his shoulder.
Or: engine failure at VR, fuel filter by-pass on live engine, pressurisation failure en route to holding for the single engine ILS with 2000 metres and electrical fire on final.
Or: In a 737 simulator, double flameout and forced landing at 1000 feet after take off due "fuel contamination." After take off reset the pilot undergoing the command training was subject to yet another engine failure after take off with severe vibration. During climb after clean up, the pilot was given a fire warning on the remaining engine. The pilot was required to attempt to relight the previously high vibration engine while simultaneously shutting down the engine on fire. The check captain was a well known personality with a penchant for stoking up the pressure.
I am sure readers can add their own experiences and perhaps simulator instructors and check pilots reading these may pause for thought before enthusiastically and purposely creating overload situations which they themselves would not tolerate if applied to themselves.

Check pilots are not qualified psychologists and they have no idea of the intense feelings of real resentment they can generate in a pilot undergoing command upgrade training where the sequence of non-normals are both unfair, ill-applied and unnnecesary. It doesn't help knowing job security is on the line.

I remember being told that "students may forget what you have taught them and may forget what you said - but they will never forget how you made them feel..... "

I am sure many readers of this thread will identify with that statement.