Im in an unusual situation
 

G'day Fellas, first post for me and need some direction

So here is my situation, I just got scrubbed of 2FTS at pearce with about 150hrs with an even split between CT-4/PC-9 (15 command, 30hrs sim IF), and had 30hrs (dual) civie before I joined up. Im interested in getting a CPL and continuing flying in GA, however going about this is the difficult part. I have a couple of options:

1# Remain in the RAAF doing a random job for 3 years and get my hours up slowly, or transfer to army (5% chance of that happening).

2# Get out bite the bullet, get a loan and get a CPL

Would my previous military instruction be considered an advantage to getting my first job after training? Also how much is age considered an issue (turning 28 this year) with regards to getting a job?

Further Q's does anyone know flight training establishments that have dealt with a guy in my position before? I know that there are a few of us floating around, tracking them down seems to be the main issue.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Cheers
Elwood

Go hard at it now if you can.

Elwood,

If you can handle doing a job in the RAAF for a few years, it would be a great way to earn some good coin to pay for your flying. Just make sure that flying is your focus and do it every chance you get. Let Ronnie RAAF help pay for it!

check your Private Messages.... good luck

I'd say do whatever you can to go team green. Do your time, join CHC, & see the world. :ok:

Elwood,

You really can't beat GA. Pure Freedom, make your own decisions, reep your own satisfaction for achievement, access to a huge range of toys limited by your own imagination.

I's borrow for your CPL and go for it. Your age is still but small.

Cheers,
L :ok:

If you have a burning desire to fly then get out and beg borrow or steal to get your CPL. If you kind of want to do a bit of flying but would be happy enough... stay in and make some money.

Your turbine time will help a bit but like it or not people will wonder why you got scrubbed but on the upside you'll have more hours under your belt since then and so some more examples of your suitability for the job. (I know it's ****house; there are probably a hundred guys who should have been scrubbed and weren't and vice versa but life isn't fair.)

Once you've got a reasonable amount of time expect that your turbine time will possibly convince an employer you're already working for that you're worth putting onto the next machine a bit earlier.

Just my 2 cents,

FRQ CB

Elwood,

I was in your position 4 years ago :( I know how you must be feeling at the moment.

In short though, I decided that sitting behind a desk was not for me. Finished off CPL and Instructors rating whilst still in and financially secure. Then I got out, instructing full time.

Would I prefer to still be in, probably, all I ever wanted to do was flying Herc's or C17s. However, I have had some great adventures in aviation since being scrubbed. Some great trips around Australia building hours or teaching students.

Drop me a PM with the questions you have, I'd be happy to help.

Stretch06:ok:

As a former RAAF QFI I saw several students that were scrubbed on Pilots Course who went on to become highly experienced airline captains on big jets. Some of these RAAF students were scrubbed because they had the bad luck to have lousy instructors whose instructional "technique" was to shout and scream to their students. In those days instructors were not held accountable for student failures and no questions were asked. Hopefully that has all changed but the main thing is to put that all behind you. 150 hours of RAAF flying is a good start to a civvy pilot career. As someone advised you earlier, staying on with the RAAF in another mustering if that option is available to you, helps build a good bank account and a secure future for as long as you wish to stay.

But if you want a flying career (rather than just recreational flying) then the sooner you start the better. That means leaving the RAAF now and going into full time training towards a CPL and instrument rating. The financial risks are great but the RAAF flying training will have helped you greatly with confidence and ability. You would not have got to 150 hours in the RAAF without being a pretty sound pilot. If you are totally enthusiastic about flying as a career then sitting behind a desk in the RAAF at your age is not the way to go. At least with your current flying experience you will be able to spot shonky instruction in a flying school before you get up to your ears in debt.

I sure hope the RAAF aren't wasting more tax payers money because too many guys have passed so they start scrubbing people for stupid things. 150 hours is alot to then get scrubbed.:mad:

I'd say hit the up CPL while it's all still fresh.

So using that logic, if we have a student who hits their capacity limit toward the end of the course, we keep them anyway because they have come that far. Then we would have "qualified" pilots out there who haven't met the standard flying multi-million dollar airframes. How would the taxpayer react to that?
The ADF trains to a standard which is rigorously maintained despite the best efforts of beancounters, politicians and students with lawyers.
While it is true that the majority of suspensions occur early in the course (desirable for many reasons), some do get suspended toward the end because they can't handle the more complex sequences.

If I were you I would seriously consider looking down the path of the Cathay Cadetship.

I personally know of 3 former 2FTS students that have either completed, or in the process of completing the course and not far off an FO slot.

Apparently as far as the Cathay course goes, you are just like everyone else trying to get a slot off your own merits, however it is my understanding that even though you may not be a 'winged' military pilot, you are still a known quantity (or so I have been told by those who sit in on the interview process).

Flight Training Adelaide runs the course on behalf of Cathay. I would get in touch with them.

I'm a blender driver so a fairly out of touch with the fixed wing world, either way hope this helps. Good luck.

Thanks guys
 

Thanks guys, I was not expecting to get so many replies so quickly! Alright so my situation has changed slightly, being sent back to the newcastle/sydney area in the next few weeks so im going to have to chase all this up when I get there. Again the question is who has any experience in that area with regards to guys with my experience/no qualifications. Im certainly keen to get a CPL and get a job but its just what timeline I choose. Ill be checking out the cathay cadetship, thanks havick.

Not really, guys get scrubbed all the time with more hours then this... even met a poor guy that got scrubbed with 3 rides until wings. Sometimes the fickle finger of fate is determined to shaft people no matter what, or people just run out of stamina/capacity. Its a very cut throat business, out of the 18 people that I started BFTS with, only 6 now still in the game with a lot of big hurdles to go!

Cheers
Elwood

The RAF run the most expensive flying school in the country. They also have a high failure rate and appear to have avery expensive and inneffective preselection system, or poor instruction. Lots of good people do not complete the course.
Such results would not be tolerated in civilian life where value for money and accountability are inportant.
I would suggest you stay where the garunteed income is and get civil licences and do job search in your own time before killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Well, where do we start?
1. RAF or RAAF? One is in the UK, the other in Australia
2. “Ineffective”, “important”, “guaranteed”. Spell check is wonderful thing.
3. Yes, the ADF does run the most expensive flying school in the country. Quality costs.
4. Yes, compared to civilian schools the ADF does have a higher failure rate. The ADF require graduates who have demonstrated the potential to learn at a required rate. This is so because once they progress to the expensive and complex operational types, the ADF does not want to (nor can it afford to) waste time going back over basic techniques. I would imagine the tax paying public would take a very dim view of sub-standard pilots flying increasingly complicated and expensive airframes.
5. Yes, some good people do get suspended from ADF pilot training. The fact that they were suspended from ADF pilot training is not a statement on their character, it just means that at the time they weren’t suited to the military way of doing things. Some of them go on to become very good operators in civil aviation. Good on them!
6. The fact that the failure rates on ADF pilots course would not be tolerated in the civil arena is irrelevant. The ADF is not training civil pilots.

CSD, as long as the cadet is scrubbed for operational reasons and not personality clashes with the instructor at the time....I work with a guy that got scrubbed from BFTS because he said "umm" too many times doing an impromtu dog and pony show..scrubbed , that's it, don't come back...strange way of picking if some has the apititude to adapt quickly to different situations.

Even though you didn't finish the course, getting the same level of knowledge and skill as you have now would take some effort in the civil world. Even though the PC-9 is a crap platform for preparing you for the RAAF's real aircraft, it's still a much better platform for learning IF than a 30 year old duchess. Plus I can't imagine how I would have gone trying to gather the knowledge in the civil industry that the RAAF rammed into my head during groundschool.

If you stay in it might help you get the cash together, but if you are the kind of person who works hard at the work they are given, you might find it hard to get the time and continuity to learn your flying at any reasonable pace. A lot depends on what job they give you. As others have said, if you can get a desert deployment, come home with a bunch of cash in the bank, resign and 6 months later you are in your first GA job with all your basic quals done. That's IF you get the right job in the RAAF.

If you want to fly, get on with it now. You will hurt financially for about 4 years while you get the time together (this doesn't have to be the end of the world, especially if you are single) and you may even have a great time. By the time your RAAF buddies finish ROSO, you'll be a Jetstar Captain earning $40k a year more than them.

And what happens if too many guys look like passing the course?

OZBUSDRIVER.

I find that comment impossible to believe. There is absolutely NO WAY someone would get scrubbed for saying 'umm' too many times.

What usually happens when people tell you why they got scrubbed, is that they leave out a number of actual factors. I am not blaming them for this, it is a human trait to often 'hide' some of the factors, and it can be personally and professionally embarrassing to say "I wasn't good enough" or "I couldn't do it".

If you were to look at this guy/girls 'hate sheets' I'm POSITIVE you would find a trail of evidence behind the real reason they were scrubbed.

The RAAF has scrubbed people for Officer Qualities in the past (nothing to do with piloting skills) however this is exactly the same as any company that sacks a worker for inappropriate behaviour.

On the point of scrubbing people 'so close to the end', this occasionally happens because the system is trying its best to get the student through. Allowing them to continue to receive training right up to the point where it is no longer possible to continue.

The QFI's are (for the VAST MAJORITY) not the 'old school' QFI's of 20 years ago. All are trying to get the students through, but as mentioned by CSD, the RAAF demands the best, so it is a hard course that requires meeting a certain level in a certain time, no apologies are made for this.

In the civil world, companies will keep taking your money no matter how bad you are; I know of one company that continued to take money for a student who took in excess of 50 hours to go SOLO.

The one thing you can be sure of, is that it is never 'one thing' that causes people to fail. They fail because of a repeated inability to make the grade.

With all due respect to your work mate, I would not believe that he got scrubbed for too many 'ummms'

Hey everyone, let's play pick the current/ex RAAFies :}

I'm just waiting for the best of the best comments, I guess they're implied. Cue, the 'you're just jealous' comments. :}

Thank God! The traffic jam at the holding point would be HUGE!!!!

Hey elwood,

I know and work with guys who were scrubbed from all three arms of the forces. Having spoken to some of them and others in regards to the level of difficulty and methods of training, I do not think you will have any problems, as you got through to PC-9's and judging by your hours, past the IF stage.

I am not sure how long you had been in the RAAF, or whether you had done any flying previous to Flight Screening, but civillian flying, is markedly different from the RAAF environment. The commercial pressure will be something alien to you, but nothing you can't get used to. Flying in a straight line vs screaming up the Avon valley...they are vastly different, horses for courses. I'd much prefer to do the straight line thing, all things considered...

This is the difference I am talking about. That 30 year old duchess at the flying school won't be a shade on a PC-9, but it will more than likely be the nicest GA machine you will fly until you start flying twins or get into the airlines.

Just remember, there is a big difference between wanting to fly and wanting to fly for the RAAF...

I wish you all the best

j3

No such thing as too many graduates. The ADF can estimate fairly closely how many pilots will graduate, but that's all. If it's good course, more pass. If it's not a good course, less pass. The training system is not told to fail students just because it looks like there will be too many for the operational units to convert - but that's another story.:E

Yep. Proud of it.:ok:
Well...........you said that!

On my "scrub ride" at BFTS I was a bit of a mess, when we got back I knew I had failed. I spent a bit longer putting the aircraft away, walked around it slowly (it was the last time I ever went out on the flight line), took a lingering look around and then did the slow walk to the debrief.

The testing officer asked me to shut the door, invited me to sit, then asked, "So how do you think that went?". I said, "Frankly, Sir, that was embarrassing, and I wouldn't pass me." He seemed somewhat relieved that he didn't have to break it to me.

I had been given plenty of opportunities to get it right, and yes it was near the end of the course, but it was clear that it just wasn't working. I made the mistakes. Me. No blame on instructors, or the system, just me.

To speak to some of the other comments:

Instructors are fairly well monitored and complaints against them are taken seriously. Students have to read and sign the "hate sheets", so the student shouldn't be surprised at all if their performance is noticeably poor. Instructors have bad days too, and sometimes unfair things happen, but the higher-ups these days seem to be a bit more aware of that and will take positive action. I've seen at least one case personally where a potential scrubbing was overturned by an outbreak of sanity behind closed doors. The student went on to finish BFTS and is now at Oakey transitioning to a very nice helicopter.

If the whole course is good enough, the whole course will get through. If they all suck, the "system" will not hesitate to scrub them all. Defence is trying desperately to feed pilots in at the top of the funnel while they pour out the other end into civvie jobs or just out, so if anything they would be trying to keep more students in the training. Having said that, let me quote the CO:

"I can take any idiot off the street and teach him to fly, given enough time and money, but I don't want any idiot, I want pilots that get it right the first time, every time. I'll put up with you making one mistake. Under special circumstances I'll even put up with two. But if you need more than that to succeed as a military pilot, then you are not the pilot the military is looking for."

I didn't appeal my Notice To Show Cause, I just quietly packed my things and did my best to get on with my life. There will always be the "what if" moments, and I hope the crushing sense of failure dims more as time goes by, but life goes on, the bills have to be paid, so you do what you have to do.

My advice to the original poster is ... at 28, if you are relatively debt free, get out, buy a swag, do whatever you need to do legally to get your solo hours up (you'll need about 70 command nav hours to get your 200 hour CPL), then keep going from there. Don't "plan on" flying a bit here an there, then go and get settled into a job or a place so long that you look back at 38 and wonder what happened to the last ten years of your life.

And don't get any girls pregnant.

And read the thread about pilot wages. Do not add to the problem.

Captain Sand dune
 

I apologise for thr typing errors in my post, which you correctly pointed out.
I do not apologise for the remainder of the post.

If thats the case then he better forget about using human pilots, he might also want to read up on a copy of Bob Taits Human Performance and Limitations. Seriously, these people think they are so high and mighty and that the sun shines from there arse, i wonder what his one mistake in life was?

Thanks Sand Dune,

So were you a knuck or just a wannabe knuck...

j3

Options
 

Hi elwoodb,
I really feel for you, being scrubbed must have been a bitter pill to swallow, but your attitude is inspiring and will get you through.
The most important thing is - just sit on your hands and do not make any hasty decisions. You are part of a big family that will take care of you, and you have a secure income.
To keep away from a boring desk, you could consider Intelligence or ATC, rather than Admino . Staying in will allow you to do to continue your private flying and you can do your ATPL groundschool through TAFE. (I did, it was great and I passed all subjects first time.)
Keep faith and be lucky!

Neppie

Errr, why?

Elwood
For what its worth, I would stay in to feed your habit. There is some very good advice offered to you on this thread. As the industry is still in a lull at this stage and maybe for a while longer, my view would be to stay in if only 3 years. You will only be 31 which is still a pup in my eyes :)
Like another said, don't sit behind a desk - you can become an ATC or stay with aircrew as, what do they call them now, Air Tacticians or Air Combat officers. This will keep your mind stimulated, current and close to the action while you advance yourself in the civilian world. You will need a steady income to do all this. A GA job will not fall into your lap, and it would be hard yakka unless money is not an issue for you.
The 3 years will fly by and I have met plenty of Navies in my time that have done this very same thing and have done well out of it - and they had a ROS of 8 years.
In your enthusiasm, you don't want to be caught with your pants down - think logically about it all. I was in your shoes 40 years ago, and went back to a regular civilian job while paying my way. Took me 3 years but I did not owe a thing to anybody and the school I trained with offered me my first instructing job, and I went on from there. Those days the pressure was really on for the young & pretty to make it into an airline job, over 30 was considered way too old. Its a different ball game now where plenty of pilots flying now in very good jobs started learning to fly at age 30. So give it some thought - don't throw away the RAAF just yet. Stay in aircrew if you can. PM me if you wish....
Good Luck. :ok:

Wish2be

a great post. Well done on your honesty and willingness to post on such a traumatic event. I wish you all the best and am sure that with an attitude like yours you will go a long way. All the best.

Because the ADF is not a business, and therefore is not concerned with turning a profit. Their primary concern is producing the required number of pilots of the required standard.


Good God, no!:eek: I'm a pilot!

If you haven't been part of that system it's difficult to appreciate the level of performance demanded of the pilots. Think of it this way ... these are people entrusted with defending our country. Do you want people who can think and make the right decisions under pressure, or do you want people who have REPEATEDLY shown themselves to be unable to do that? (because you DO get more than one chance to get it right)

On the advice about staying in and going ATC or ACO - these are also high-pressure, high failure rate courses, and both things I investigated before discharging into a civvie job. I made the decision that I wasn't ready to put myself under that pressure and drag my family around the country for another two or three years. As it was, I moved five times in two years. If the original poster is single and relatively debt free, I advise doing whatever it takes to get into a paid flying job sooner rather than later.

allthecoolnamesarego - Ta.

elwoodb
this is turning into a boring thread,it should give you some idea of what you are up against already.

there is no golden goose

ball sack and determination then come back and tell us how you got on.

good luck

Just to be a myth buster. I have flown with ex-military pilots from all over the world in a civilian airline environment. An environment that enabled rapid promotion to command and at one stage had a near 50% failure rate.

Ex-RAAF pilots can be very good. Some are absolute stand outs- pragmatic and with uncanny, high levels of SA. I would say this pragmatic approach makes them a few notches above ex-RAF but there is more to it than that.

But. There are a good proportion of battlers too. Guys that need to work hard at their civilian airline flying even though some are from essentially "civilian" aircraft such as VIP aircraft and non-tactical transports.

If you base your standards on low cost carriers and the minimum expectations they have. Then ex-RAAF must look very good. And because of this, to the author of the thread, piss aviation off due the low standards and pay of proliferating budget carriers.

Captain

Sounds like a good reason to outsource the whole thing then... maybe the taxpayer would get a bit more accountability and better value - and better pilots if the process was not so focussed on achieving 'the standard' by rejection. No-one wants you to make a profit but we do want you to be good at what you do... If you find it nescessary to reject so many then maybe you're not so good at what you do?;)

The financial and human cost of doing it your way maybe needs looking at!

It is a business. The ADF is run by government, for the purposes of government, and it is becoming more businesslike everyday. The costs of 'Defence' are soaring while the pursestrings are being tightened. The ADF will increasingly have to prove that every cent is spent wisely and there must be reasonable return on investment. If this doesn't happen whole capabilities will disapear. Certainly training will be outsourced, our FJ cabability will shrink considerably, as will our Army helo fleet (this is well underway).

I know a broken rotor who failed his final flight test at Oakey and is now a GSO. This after about three years and millions of dollars. My former boss (Army) who is now a Sqnldr in the RAAF, described AAvn and ADF pilot selection as a "basket case", due to an inability to provide enough candidates and courses to meet operational requirements.

Driven by financial pressures, the ADF will radically change the way it does business in the next decade.

Elwood,

For what its worth my advice is to stay in, get paid a decent salary and fly as much as you can off your own bat. By earning more you will be able to afford more. Get yourself more multi time early, get a jet rating as soon as possible then apply to the locos in Aus and overseas.

Perhaps the best advice I can give you is to speak to your instructors. While they may have been hard on you during training you will probably find that they will go out of their way to help you succeed in a new path. They probably have good contacts around the country in various flying fields as well.

On a tangent and following on from some of the comments directed at mil flying training. I am constantly amused by those that have not been through the military system and yet feel qualified to comment on its suitability. I believe that the only people that can give an honest comparison of military and civvy flying are those that have experience of both.

I am ex military, now flying civvy. I am extremely grateful that the training I had (RAF) was tough. I am thankful that I was put through the ringer, and that my colleagues were as well. I am thankful that some of my fellow students of the time were chopped. Why so happy about this? Because I have been to war, I have been shot at, and I have had to have the ability and the confidence not only in myself but also in the guy flying with me to not just stay alive, but to get the job done.

Someone made a comment earlier mocking a statement by a military flyer about not accepting more than one mistake. Well I agree with that military flyer. Im not perfect, nowhere near. But in certain flying situations there simply isnt room for making mistakes. If you do make one, and it doesnt turn out to be your last, then you better fix it very quickly and not make it again.

Does talking like this make me sound arrogant? Cocky? Maybe. But I am still flying having been through situations that civvies just wont ever be exposed to. So again I say thanks to my instructors and a system that pushed and tested me to such high standards.

Blah

blah blah blah?

Yeah, seems appropriate! :E

Dr :8

Hey guys, as for the raaf stuff all I know is that they are certain it works resonably well (although there is some rumbling about it from the really old guys about the changes made), guys get scrubbed that can complete course they just circumstances just dont permit it. We were out doing stuff in training that no other airforce does, such as turning rejoins in the FORM phase. They are also training guys to be single seat pilots that in theory (not practice) that can take the step up to the hawk, or other platforms so that in combat they can keep themselves and the ground troops alive!

wish2bflying: mate I know that feeling all too well, but only after failed rides, I never failed a scrub ride. I got scrubbed on a marginal, I had failed rides (and passed the re-fly's) gradually increased my warning's until a CO's warning. I got marged and the CO sent me on my way, not much I can do about it, a little annoyed I never got to fly with the CO or CFI so the decision was made purely of my hate sheets, even though my instructor and flight commander wanted to keep me flying and on course I still got scrubbed (both had flown with me).

Many thanks to everyone for the advice, the RAAF might not be an option, global downturn means for the first time in a long time they have enough recruits. Really dont want to do ATC or ACO the roso's are just to long to be not flying! Have a small amount of time to get myself sorted and work out which way to head, thanks for all the advice!

Cheers
Elwood