Good plan...

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Slezy, It is a choice between an office wearing blues (with the Equity/Diversity/Staff Skills/Etc etc ) or an office wearing normal clothes outside the sheltered workplace; and what is more, the office will most likely be in the same City for the duration of your Kids' schooling

AA, NAV's in charge comment was supposed to be banter, Got you hook line and sinker though!!

Point taken.

Centaurus,
Not meaning to have a go, but a couple of things you said surprised me.
Firstly, I did my training in the mid 80’s. Reading your post it appears that not a lot had changed from when you were around to when I was on course. I too was subject to the “screaming skull” style of instruction. I consider myself fortunate that it was in the Macchi, so he couldn’t hit me as well! Fortunately my FLT CDR recognised this and gave me a change of instructor which did me a world of good.
As a student the feeling I got was the majority of QFI’s considered their tour as a necessary evil, even a “punishment posting”. This attitude is very easy for a student to detect, and rather discouraging. Fast forward to today and I can say with some confidence that the majority of QFI’s want to be there and conduct themselves accordingly. There is far more empathy towards today’s students compared to the “good old days".
As I’m sure you remember the ADF is after a graduate that can learn at certain rate. The front line units rightfully expect a graduate pilot to convert to the operational type with a minimum of fuss. I’m sure the Australian taxpayer has the same expectation. Giving a ride or two extra to the syllabus (I hate that word “curriculum” – fcuking EDO’s!) to “get them over line” is rarely a good idea as it just prolongs the inevitable. The student eventually fails, but after much more cost, effort and angst to all concerned.
Not sure how it was in your day, but the instructor, the FLT CDR and the CO are very much accountable for suspending a trainee pilot. ADF pilot’s are not scrubbed without good reason. That was true 20 years ago when I went through, and I’m pretty sure the same was true in your day whether or not you perceived it that way. There would have had to been a trend of poor performance, and a judgement (after all, that’s what we are really paid for!) made that the student would not hack the rest of the course or an operational conversion. Yes, sometimes the wrong decision was (and sometimes still is) made. No training system is perfect. That said, I still reckon we do a pretty good job.
Not really relevant. The ADF is in the business of training military pilots. When the ADF scrubs a trainee pilot it is not inferred that they will not be a good civilian pilot.
With respect, that’s your opinion. Were you appraised of all the facts concerning a scrubbed student? In my experience it is no surprise to the instructional staff that a student has been suspended. In your stated example it seems the “top brass” actually trusted the CO at time and let him get on with his job without the constant micro-managing and arse-covering from up above that goes on today. I bet the front line units didn’t complain about your CO's decisions!
I like to think that we’ve improved in that department!
As stated before, suspending a student is not a procedure that is treated lightly. The matter is comprehensively examined by all concerned (instructor, FLT CDR, psychologist, CFI) before the CO makes the “D”. The CO in turn may have to answer to the higher chain of command. I don’t know how much more accountable the system could be.
What we try and do now is change instructors at the completion of every phase e,g, after GFPT. Are you saying that in your day a student was allocated the same QFI for his entire time?
The present suspension process is quite comprehensive and as objective as possible, however in some cases it does come down to gut feeling – or that rapidly diminishing quality called “judgement”. After all , isn’t that what we’re paid for?
These days a suspended student may redress the system. I know of one student who employed a QC (at his own cost) to draft his submission! This process places a considerable administrative burden on the unit, and quite often results in the original decision to suspend being upheld. In the rare case that a suspended student is reinstated, it quite unusual for them to pass i.e. the inevitable happens at even more time, effort and cost.

Here, here... I totally agree Capt Sand Dune. Having sat before the Fltcdr, psych, CFI and CO, and having to explain every single score I gave a guy leading up to his scrub ride, there is no doubt the RAAF has a thorough and accountable system when it comes to scrubbing a student. The most difficult time in my RAAF career was agonising over whether I should give that guy the fail that I knew was going to lead to his suspension. It is not an easy decision and not one that any QFI I know has taken lightly.

Loiter1 and Capn Sanddune
 

Agree 100%, unless you've got all your ducks in a row, with all the correct paperwork done and all the remedials you can give done, even a student who (without seeming to be harsh), is a danger to himself and others has got a reasonable chance of having another go at it.

Saying all that, I think I get more nervous waiting for my students to finish tests and pass them than they do! If you're not there to instruct and try to get them through, you shouldn't be doing the job. So how the 'screaming skulls' of yesteryear did it I'll never know:confused:

One final point-:mad:ng EDO's

I do remember one fine fellow gloating "The more of you I scrub, then the greater chance I have of getting a flying job for my next posting." :eek:

We were so relieved when he then left for an airline job...

PAF,

What? In the land of milk and honey? You are joking right?

VI

Good contribution VI
Well thought out and you have done immense credit to yourself.:rolleyes:

wasn't out to do myself any credit... just making a point.

thanks for the compliment however Capt Johns...

VI

Milk and honey?
 

Anybody who thinks 2FTS is in the land of milk and honey is living in the past.

These days it's a very hard working sausage machine where every cog in the machine is worked to its maximum theoretical potential, with little regard for that which cannot be measured.

And now they want many more sausages? :eek:

Pearce: Land of milk and honey.

Tamworth: Land of cows and bees.

ruprecht.:)

Well with 40 QFI's and the average QFI flying twice/day (poor possums!),
2FTS is the land of milk and honey compared to BFTS. Twice as many students but with about half the instructors.

More sausages? We'll see!

Bl**dy hell, here we go again:mad:

The Ivory Tower has requested all SQN commanders conduct an informal poll to find what would keep experienced pilots in the RAAF.

It seems that every few months or so some senior officer comes up with the same "bright" idea. Alternatively they could just look through their files for the last poll and find the information themselves!

In any case these polls/surveys etc come up with the same result, i.e. if you don't promote me and/or post me to one of the plethora ground jobs out there, and keep me flying, I'll stay. It isn't always about the money.

Left after serving about triple the ROSO of when I joined.

Money? Sure that played a part.

Lack of future flying? Nope, didn't have a ground job, flew the whole time and frankly was looking forward to a little break. Had been offered future flying jobs - in fact looked like flying for another decade ish but it played no role at all in our decision.

Ridiculous mission creep on extra requirements for deployment and general service "currencies"? Yep, very annoying taking up such a significant amount of time that doing your job to the standard you expect of yourself became impossible.

Lack of experience in units acquiring new aircraft? Frightening. To say the least.

Moving around? Absolutely a factor.

So, like most people, a combination of factors added up to a decision. Everyone will have their own combination and make a decision.

Can (or will) the government afford to keep people in? I don't think so. Can they afford not too? I know they will do everything within their power to get away with it as cheap as possible. The DOD got away with some things after the events of 2001 (with respect to pilot retention and recruitment). It looks like that is now going to cost the Defence Force. Big question is, what price will it pay? I fear it may be more than loss of operational capability.

Seems a waste to just let the expertise and experience walk out the door.

I don't understand why the government won't create and promote an air force reserve program to keep the expertise (relatively) on tap ie "x" amount of days per month / year etc for crews who have left for civilian life.

Is it cost?

Is it a case of an attitude of 'once you're out - you're out"?

There is a RAAF reserve. Do you mean a similar system to the US?? If so we are waaaaaay too small for that

Do teh RAAF reservists go back to flying Hornets, for example?

I meant more in the way that the Swiss deal with their civil/military for example, their soldiers spend 3 weeks p.a national service.

Obviously, different scheduling required for pilots - but a similar general (no pun intended:8) idea.

Way too small control snatch? With a little creativity the RAAF could probably crew the BBJ fleet with reservists and just have a PAF (not you Pass A Frozo) SQN exec. Without too much effort you could possibly extend that expertise also to the Wedgetail and possibly even the KC30B.

With that same creativity (and a bit of sharing between the respective airlines and the RAAF) the only thing the RAAF would probably need to train and check would be RAAF specific skills such as formation flying and type specific issues related to the aircraft role in the RAAF.

I find it surreal that a lot of my tax dollars are spent on teaching a youngling the military way of committing aviation only to send them to the BBJ or 737.