FSA article: a MATTER of DEGREE
 

Firstly, I have no issue per-se with any flying training establishment & I'm sure that there are universities that are turning out a quality product, but this article would have to be the most poorly written, one sided load of rubbish ever produced by FSA; The likes of which is normally the domain of mainstream media.


Err...well YES Professor Patrick Murray, I bloody well would. Especially if it means that said dentist has experienced every kind of tooth problem first hand, as opposed to having read about it from the comfort of a first world capital city. And as a pilot who has flown in both I find the implication reprehensible.

The article goes on to make many more assertions about graduates being trained to airline standards, being considered "better pilots", and my favourite, that an aviation degree.... :yuk: (Bollocks)

An aviation degree is but one of several paths to a licence. The fact is that you can't be taught experience & virtually every Aviation Degree graduate goes to GA to learn their craft alongside their non degree brethren.

Be very, very wary of anyone involved in ab-initio training making assertions that they will train you to an "airline standard" ie. that you will walk from the flying school straight into the welcoming arms of an airline, or that honing ones craft in the "outback" or PNG is a bad thing or somehow redundant.


joe crazyhorse.

copy of letter i sent off to the editor
 

Dear Sir/Madam,



I am writing to express my feelings about the article on University Degrees in the latest Flight Safety Magazine. Firstly I would like to “declare my hand”. I own a medium sized flying school with 20 aircraft, 20 instructors and approximately 200 students. We have no affiliation with any University. I felt that your magazine has strayed away from safety related matters and more towards interest based journalism. After reading the article it would appear to me that a payment was made to CASA for this content, although there was no mention of it being an advertising feature. It was very one sided, and did not present the argument from “the other side of the fence”. As the purpose of this industry funded magazine is to promote safety, I could find no factual statistics indicating the increased contribution to safety of the University Trained Pilot. Your article will have a negligible effect on my business; however I was surprised to read such obvious marketing in a magazine that previously held credibility. I respectfully request the opportunity to present the other side of the argument containing some factual statistics. If indeed a payment was made then I am offering to equal that payment for an equal amount of space dedicated to industry based training. I am not indicating that I feel one approach to Flight Training is necessarily better than the other and I appreciate that they both have their merits. Perhaps such articles could be reserved for the traditional magazines and you could put your efforts and our money into serious contributions to flight safety. Very disappointing to see the downward spiral in the quality of this magazine continue.



Yours Sincerely



Glen Buckley

reply from the editor
 

Dear Glen



Firstly, thank you for your email. It demonstrates that the magazine is doing its job when it promotes discussion about the best way to promote aviation safety.



There was no payment made to CASA for this content. As a general rule, we do not run advertorial, because we do not wish to compromise our editorial independence, but if we did, it would be very clearly branded as advertorial.



Training, and the quality of such training, ensuring that the pilots of the future are fit-for-task in a rapidly-changing aviation environment, is, we believe, a safety issue, and therefore an appropriate subject for Flight Safety. The article was simply the first of a series on training, and we will be looking at other options and training issues (such as glass cockpits/workload/English language) in coming articles.



To that end, we are more than happy to interview you/Melbourne Flight Training about your training philosophy/focus as part of that ongoing series.



Thank you again for your email - and your evident passion, which we share, for aviation safety,



Margo

The FSA article on having a degree via a Uni Flight Training program can only be viewed as one thing, a FREE ADVERTISMENT.

As for the opening preamble about an outback Dentist ........... what does that have to do with flight training?

The whole article (Free Advert) is totally geared to producing an airline driver.
There are other flying positions and requirements here in Australia in case Mr Murray had not noticed.

My experience with some so called Uni trained pilots is that they simply do not have a lot of experience and that shows in the air and on the ground.

As for the topic of degrees amd what they are taught at the Uni Flight School a lot of that is actually covered in the normal CASA flight training requirements.

The article leaves a lot to be desired. One sided, inaccurate and not real coverage of who foots the total bill for a Uni trained pilot.

Are we to only have pilots who are flying on Daddy's cheque book and no real concept of what a self-funded trainee is all about.
Give me the latter as a pilot anyday.

R16

Awesome runway 16,

Just a few points,

Because it's only the Uni trained guys right? The guys trained 'the ole fashuned way' never do that stuff...:rolleyes:

In order to make that assertion, you would have to have attended and completed the very degree programs that you appear to be denigrating.

Wow, just WOW! So anyone who did a degree and flying must have had their parents pay for their flying? Do you normally specialize in gross, inaccurate and stupid generalisations?

GLEN,

At least they replied. I would take them up on the offer to be interviewed and tell your side of the story.

j3

glenb,

Maybe you should take FSA up on their offer of being interviewed and start with the scenario of a garbage collector teaching medicine at university, surely that is a parallel to the good professor pretending to be able to comment on the aviation training industry.

What would some self appointed know it all with a degree in who knows what, really know about pilots experience in the bush v the class room?
I live in the NT and I get sick and tired of these accademics who after having read a book about our indigenous population believe they have all the answers and simply come up here and screw the place up, now they are influencing aviation, god help us.

The deciding factor as far as I am concerned is the individuals passion for the job, that will determine the amount of effort put in, their ability to learn and one of the major factors, who teaches them.

The professor seems to have the commonly held view that PNG flying is a place of last resort - the place you go when you can't get work anywhere else.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

University study and the award of Degrees is about academic endeavor and in all cases of technologic/science courses there is a post Degree Award period of "indenture" practical leading up to the final ability to practise one's craft.

This is true for Medicine, dentistry, all forms of Engineering, Law,Chemistry and so on.

To expect any new graduate to be competent in the manipulative skills be it flying an aircraft or pulling teeth is a big ask.

The real difference a University Graduate should have is the discipline of learning and the ability to objectively question in a balanced way so that real rigour is used in the decision making process.

long term the Graduate will be better equipped to continuously adapt to life long learning.

Joker,

Thats all fine in theory, however it doesn't seem to translate into reality in the real world, or at least not the world I see every day.

I guess it boils down to - you don't learn everthing from books.

RENURPP,

You certainly seem to be acting your age (8). You also seem to hate Universities going by these comments:

I think you'll find he can comment.

It's 'academic' by the way. I do agree with your statement about Indigenous Australians, but that once again has nothing to do with aviation.

Must've been hard learning all that CPL theory by rote.

And just for the record, all of you who seem to think this Professor is not qualified to comment about the industry are either showing gross ignorance or are talking out your behinds.

Ex Cathay 747 checkie, CASA Delegate and ATO, one of the founding members of LOSA, current/former committee member of GAPAN, RAPAC. In addition to this, also formerly a senior executive of CASA. There is also quite a bit I have missed.

But maybe you guys a right, he wouldn't know a thing about the industry would he?

j3

This thread wasn't intended to be about uni bashing nor about the merits thereof.

It is however entirely inappropriate for an industry regulator to be showing preference to an individual business or training stream, assuming that all training companies follow the regulators syllabus. Some rather silly (IMO) claims were made in the article. By printing these claims without verification or contradiction from a variety of sources, CASA has by omission presented these claims as fact.

At the very least FSA should have interviewed some non uni flying school operators as well as airline recruiters. If not some "outback" & PNG operators.

I would suggest that airline recruitment would be less about where an applicant trained & more about experience, trainability, & personality befitting the existing workplace culture etc.

psycho,

If you read the response that Glen received from the editor, it is an ongoing series. I think it would be fantastic to hear from the different types of training. It may seem like a paid presentation so to speak, the credibility lies in the next few FS magazines. If they do indeed continue the series with the same amount of pages, then there is the integrity.

j3

Having trained both in a university and 'club' flying school, the difference between the two (airline standard flying training) is really very minor and is a bit of a glitzy word. At the end of the day, I got great and average training at both, the difference being the quality of the instructor and our interaction.

At the end of the day, it's the instructor who makes the most difference in my opinion and I have been lucky enough to have some great ones!

j3 nothing in the article about a series.

Editors response sounds like placating white noise.

$10 says that Psycho Joe and Renurpp don't have a degree in anything.

Well, you certainly never hear the degree-holders bashing the usefulness of a degree or the merits of university, do you? Funny, that.

Well from where I sit, Psycho Joe has got the right attitude, and I'd be happy to fly with him/her any day. Thanks also for pointing out the commonly held misconception that all PNG pilots are desperados. They certainly are not.

I applaud glenb for taking the time to write to CASA regarding this heavily biased article. As is obvious by their reply, some in the office of the regulator have no idea what happens out in the real world. If this is a "serious safety issue", then they have completely lost the plot.

As has previously been stated, this thread, and gleb's letter to CASA is not about the merits of degree programs; it is about the appropriateness of CASA publishing an article that lacks balance, and has no relevance to flight safety.

I have no degree, and know nothing of the article that fostered this thread.

Part of my employment contract when I first started instructing at the Space Base in Cessnock in '86 was to read and be examined on a book about flight instruction.

The book's name has long been forgotten but it was written by a couple of academics from Newcastle University, who were associated with Jim Spark. The basic premise of the book was that to be an effective instructor, one had to be able to communicate, in a common language with the student.

Given that the book had a significant emphasis on communication, I was some what nonplussed when in the final chapter I had to get a dictionary out, to determine what a word starting in X meant.

In the end, I figured that the authors had completely missed their own message, when they used a high-faluting word starting with X, instead of HAND.

What a coincidence - his organisation gets a write-up in a magazine that's distributed to every Aussie pilot. Not bad free advertising if you can get it!

Still, it should hopefully be transparently obvious to any slightly informed reader that learning about flying in the unforgiving PNG environment is something to be respected, rather than clumsily denigrated as per the pissweak sub-headline quoted above.

"A school leaver who wants to be a pilot is around 18 years of age, and while there are some mature 18 year olds, maturity tends to come with time. One way of doing that at the moment is to give someone a commercial pilot's license and get them to go out and mature in an environment such as PNG or the bush. Alternatively you can mature them in a more controlled environment. One of those has traditionally been the military, who do it extremely well - university is becoming another pathway."

Really?! From my observations, uni life is traditionally way more about doing as much socialisation as possible and minimal work. Calculating how many questions you can get wrong in order to 'pass.' Figuring out who got the most drunk on the weekend and waltzing from one party to the next while trying to get as many chicks as possible. Really good maturing going on there!

Not suggesting that all uni students are useless party animals who don't work hard mind you. But to suggest that it is somehow superior to 'real life' and real world experience is going to take some real work to convince me.

Oh, and by the way, you won't find any 18 year old, fresh out of flight school kids in PNG... :=

Really?! From my observations, uni life is traditionally way more about doing as much socialisation as possible and minimal work. Calculating how many questions you can get wrong in order to 'pass.' Figuring out who got the most drunk on the weekend and waltzing from one party to the next while trying to get as many chicks as possible. Really good maturing going on there!

Yes, that is the life I lived when doing an aviation degree. IMHO the majority of content taught in an aviation degree can be learnt straight from the recommended textbooks, part of the reason i attended 20% of my lectures yet still achieved a 84% GPA. :}

I have gone through the degree path and i have to agree with you gentlemen. The degree path only has a way of opening up the many different aspects of aviation, including the laws and regulations, structures and aircraft design. Theres no reason why a student at any other school cannot learn from the vast resources available to them.
Degree programs tend to spoon feed students but i as an instructor always tell them to look beyond all the marketing and the corporate statements that are made to lure them towards airline training. Its important for them to realise there is a different world out there too.

My point is that both paths are equally good in the experience they provide. A 150 hour pilot is a 150 hour pilot. It only matters what little things he has been taught by a good instructor, not what the overall program tends to teach ("Airline training"). You can set out SOPs and what not but what a student really needs is some quality one on one time with someone whos more interested in giving that guy/girl the best chance at someday becoming a proficient pilot. Unfortunately as more students want degrees, management prefers to cram them in to over crowded courses. That is when the problems start.

my 2 cents, newagebird

Only ten bucks? I'm mortally offended, where's your sense of conviction man. :ok:

I'll raise you your ten bucks & bet the Liberian deficit that Horatio Leafblower is a frustrated investment banker.

Either that or he wishes that he was an airline pilot so that he could validate those fealings of superiority over those of us who are.

So why do you hate your mother?....:8

There seems to be a school of thought among many (not all) uni graduates in all fields that if you don't have a degree you are not quite up there with the rest of them.

I have managed to self study CPL and IREX and had two separate succesfull careers after leaving school at Y10.

My training was completed at a 'lowly' country aeroclub, where ego's were few and fun & proffesionalism were the priorities.

I dont recall any GA company I have worked with asking anything about my training.

They were however interested how well I would get along with the average passenger and whether I can show good airmanship and fly the aircraft in a smooth and safe manner to commercial considerations.

After you finish training and begin 'learning' in the real world, it is up to the individual how well they perform and has little do with to whom they paid there training fees.

I agree that article was complete propoganda and a waste of taxpayers money

:ok::ok:'s up C180

Sorry j3, but if it looks like an advertisement and it smells like an advertisement........ well, you know the rest. That reply from the editor was nothing more than the worst case of backpedaling I've ever seen. Where did it suggest in the article that this would be a series of articles, thereby allaying our suspicions?

This Professor could be the former commander of the space shuttle for all I care, however his obvious attempt to belittle general aviation as a viable route to the airlines helps him to read like a subjective git.

I agree that there are many cliches about bush pilots being better aviators that are simply false and having taken the "bush pilot" route myself I'm forced to sometimes cringe at the things I read on here but let's face it, this article was quite obviously not without agenda.

I love that the editor believes that CASA has met its objective by promoting debate about safety, when all they've really done is encourage argument about bias in journalism.

Psycho
 

Hope no-one takes you up on that wager ol buddy.

My statement - and more particularly, your response - merely illustrate that the people you find most loudly decrying degree-holding pilots are usually not degree holders themselves and not fully qualified to comment on the usefulness, or otherwise, of a degree over the life span of its holder.

As for feelings of superiority... :rolleyes:

I don't feel superior to any person, except those that dress their prejudice up with excuses and call it "considered opinion".

Capt Claret A/Prof Ross Telfer is the name you seek - he also wrote an excellent book on how to sail small boats. He was better with small boats. :{

When have I decried tertiary education?

I do however believe that my, & for that matter your (non aviation) tertiary qualifications are irrelevant here so I've never posted them.

On the other hand you like to make it clear to the world that you are smarter than everyone else. You use tertiary qualifications as a point of defence. Your qualifications & background are largely non aviation which makes it all the more important for you to tell everyone how smart you are. This way people will understand that whilst you are not an airline pilot you could have been, & if you were you'd be better than the rest because you are you. And you're compulsively always right. Much to the quiet annoyance to all around you.

You have no argument here.

You have no point here.

The more that you argue about nothing on a public forum, the more you appear like a drunk screaming at a lamp post. The drunk will win his argument but the public will be served a spectacle.

Are Degrees Helpfull For Career Advancement
 

Like most here I have many friends in the industry who hold degrees. I do not.

Without exception, all my friends with Aviation degrees have not done any better then me or faster then me in our career advancement. We all went through training schools, Instructing, Charter (singles, pistion twins and turbines, both single pilot and multi crew) and now a combintaion of little jets and big jets (depending on lifes choices) all at the same relative pace.

Those of my firends that had non aviation degrees (IT, Management and Law) shot through the ranks at an amazing rate.

If the good Prof. holds the creds mentioned earlier, then he should flamin well know better.

Same here. Especially when a learned professor tries to claim that my years in PNG were based on "experimental learning" & not on extensive company training & sop's. Perhaps you know better. I'm always happy to be corrected.

I dunno why but we seem to live in a country where everything is Cert III this Cert IV that or degree in whatever.

I have no problem if a well-trained pilot got that training through a degree program. Personally, I've never really understood why a degree program was put together - other than universities finding new ways to enrol more students, especially from overseas.

Isn't the point here that the FSA article was apparently one-sided? I didn't read it - but, then again, I don't read anything in that trashy-mag anymore. :mad:

Ted

BTW - I don't have any aviation degrees; but I've got a couple of non-aviation ones. So I don't think I have a bias either way.

Sorry I make you feel so insecure, Joe. Good luck with the therapy :ooh:

Somehow I get the feeling that the writer Paul Wilson has as much Aviation background as the Editor! Zip....
DB

[QUOTE]
There was no payment made to CASA for this content.[/QUO

In the past, FSA often commissioned an article to be published in the magazine and pay the author depending upon the number of words. Maybe this was a case in question?

Not worth getting up set about it, unless you own a flying school not affiliated with a university.

I couldn't afford to move 600k's to the city from country NSW, support myself through uni for 3 years and learn to fly. It had to be one or the other so I went to a country school and learnt to fly.

I'm jealous of those that did get the opportunity and I have worked with a few all fine aviators, the only comment I could make was that some did not come out with many quals, I flew jumpers with one degree guy who came out of a 3 year degree with a bare cpl and an instructor rating - no ifr and no atpl subjects ! so wtf did he do for 3 years ? I expect this has been rectified since - it was some time ago.

Aviation degrees are as useless as tits on a bull.

Those who do degrees in other fields do pick up some useful skill sets and definitely have an advantage, but those who do an Aviation degree barely even seem to get a skill set they need long term - ATPL subjects, instrument and/or instructor rating - little lone something that makes them stand out from the crowd.

More than a few I've met seem to think everything should be handed to them on a plate and unwilling to put in the effort required outside driving a plane (passenger check in, clean the plane afterwards, etc.) It really just appears to be another rebadged zero to hero course.

There are some excellent pilots with Aviation degrees, but the degree did not change their attitude or drive.. they would be the same excellent pilots they are owing to their own motivation and attitude, not a bit of paper they spent three years obtaining. They get the job done, put in the effort to keep themselves current for renewals and progress through the system because they put in the effort. But there are just as many (if not more) excellent pilots without an Aviation degree who manage the same thing.

I have heard of people who held an aviation degree but still hadn’t passed their CASA ATPL exams since the CASA pass mark was higher than the uni pass mark.:confused:

Nothing against degrees, they are certainly not a bad thing, but where is the evidence to prove that degree qualified pilots are any better? I would be very interested to see a proper non-biased study of long term airline sim and line check performance (which naturally includes CRM etc) versus academic qualifications (note that degree status is not an indicator of intelligence).

I will hypothesise now that there would be no correlation. It really does just come down to the individual. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find people with a practical trade background coming out on top.

Check out UNSW. A good education for future pilot managers.

Folks,
The one thing the "Professor" does not have is any significant GA experience, and in my opinion, has the usual disdain, bordering on contempt for GA, indeed any non-military trained pilot, that is common amongst ex-RAF ( note: RAF, not necessarily true of RAAF) officers.

It comes across in this article.

Having said that, one of the shortcomings of most club/school based training is that the ground component is limited to "how to pass the exams", with little in-depth study beyond the bare minimum to pass, unless the student is a self starter who wants to dig deeper.

In contrast, most Uni. type courses cover a somewhat broader field than the bare CASA syllabus, as do some but not all airline cadet schemes.

Does it make a difference in the long run??? That is a question to which the only answer is: It depends on the individual.

Tootle pip!!

As a following up to the previous post...I might be wrong, but doesn't 'the professor' fly RAA out of Heck Field?