Skydiving - wow that must have been fun spending your weekends - unpaid , dragging sweaty smelly skydivers around.

Yes there are spectacular parts of the outback, but when you don't have a two dimes to rub together , you don't really have the brass to do the overpriced adventure stuff that the wealthy tourists do. The spectacular bungles look like a rock in five minutes, oh but wait you will have the amazing opportunity to find true love with an indigenous girl.

In the ten years, most won't have saved a brass razzoo. Particularly now with no movement from the regionals , so very hard to even get a start at a regional.

Most are just going to be stuck in the regional abyss for eternity.

Your Jetstar mate , in the meantime did a couple of years on the A320, shifted bases to Darwin did a lot Asian flying. Took LWOP did two years at Jetstar Pacific, flew the 330 for a bit. Twelve substantial overseas holidays , owns three houses. 320 capt , now 330 capt thinking of doing the LWOP again to go up to Asia again.

Oh but you have been camping & crabbing, own zip apart from a beaten up ute & have spent years in the outback - gee you are just miles ahead.

Oh & you can also spend hours swapping war stories about the local derro in Wyndam - wouldn't change it for the world mate !

Yeah, you blokes better listen up to what Flyboat North has to say! Because based on his posting history, he has had a long and distinguished career in aviation in Australia. Did you end up finding somewhere in Melbourne last year to do your MECIR? :mad: head.

Yup, Flyboat, some people never get to smell the roses.

OH, and who said McGrath50 never got paid to drop meat bombs or never saved a brass razzo. But then again he probably didn't have a huge debt from his cadetships costs either.

EDIT: I forgot to add what a wonderful place Darwin can be at certain times of the year, or Asia for that matter.

Not everyone actually wants to be an airline pilot my friend

Having said that the jealousy on these forums towards the various airline cadetships is really quite hysterical

Be an outback drifter for ten years, traveling from one centrelink office to another as you search for that elusive "first job", after obtaining an expensive qualification , that qualifies you for nothing else.

We know that that 95% of those who start a cadetship fly for an airline. I wonder what % of those who fund a CPL make it - I would say 20% tops

The sad thing is the other 80% waste years of their lives pursuing a goal then failing, live their lives as outback "shadowmen"

% might have been a bit better 2003 to 2008 but that period was very much the exception, unlikely to be seen again.

Dream on you GA turboprop dreamer

Hmmm, I'm not sure it's jealousy nor hysteria.

Flyboat, Have you ever sat down and thought why certain airlines promote these cadetships.

I'll give you a few hints. It's not because these outfits want to give aspiring pilots a helping hand. It's not because there's a shortage of pilots.

It's all about undermining existing terms and conditions.

Yet, you appear to be surprised by the posts that don't see cadetships as a good idea?

It's nothing to do with jealousy.

Seeing conspiracies again brother

Quite simply they didn't want to hire a lot of the self paid CPLs that they took in the 06/10 period

If you attach a job outcome you will get a much wider talent pool applying. You will get higher calibre, more ability , more driven people as your pilot workforce.

What % of those who graduate top 5% of year 12 , or have just completed a degree at Good Uni would want to go beer can dreaming in the outback for ten years. Heaps of flies , very little money , surrounded by d***heads & drifters.

Very few I would suggest

Junior FO wages for two years maximum - big deal they are still grossing $85 K plus , and the course is lets face an 18 month vocational level training program.

Firstly I got paid as a jump pilot (thanks 27!). I actually earnt more doing that than my first year as a casual charter pilot. So please don't stereotype and judge. You will notice I haven't ever posted here "do not do a cadetship".

All I am doing is providing a counter balance so a kid reading this forum who just missed out on the cadetship doesn't think it's all over.

Truthfully the story I told is a composite of myself and a few friends careers. I am still 'up north' and loving it. I also have 2 good friends who were cadets we all graduated school the same year.

The Jetstar cadet is like you say, enjoying decent money, lives in the city with all his friends and takes overseas holidays. Yet when we catch up he wants to know what a C210 is like and how do I do VFR in some of the weather he see's from his A320 at Darwin during the wet. We both are loving life and both have moments of jealousy of each other. That's life. There were cadets on his course who dropped out, got 'moved on' and started with Jetstar 12 months after he did. No one experience is typical.

My other friend is a Qantas Cadet from one of the last courses before the scheme was cancelled. He has only spoken to Qantas a couple of times since he started the course and since graduating the degree has heard nothing. He's working in GA and like me loving it but doubts he will ever see the cockpit of a Qantas jet despite all the time, effort and money he put towards the cadetship.

We are all happy. We are all marching different routes. One path isn't the best. In fact the same path can yield different results from different people. Stop scaremongering. GA is still alive and well and lots of fun. If you miss out on a cadetship (or decide it's not for you) all is not lost.

The restraint you guys are showing is admirable. Flyboat' is a troll, nothing else.

Go on buddy, prove us wrong. Share with the forum your first hand knowledge and experience in aviation. Surely at age 38 you must have been in the profession for at least a decade, if not more.

People here may still not agree with you, but at least your almost manic hatred of all things not cadet may develope some credibility.

I remember as a young city kid in school, nervous about going bush, the enthusiasm showed by members on this forum helped give me the confidence to set out down that road. I wouldn't want the next generation to be put off by a one sided argument.

I see guys and girls each day who have either self paid or done a cadetship style thing. Don't see any difference in calibre, ability or motivation. So I say Bullsh*t to your statement on that.

I bet more than a few people from the outback would be insulted by your drifters, dickheads comment.

You don't have to go to the outback to be surrounded by flies, drifters and dickheads and have no money.

Wow what a disgrace from FlyBoat. You speak of all the negative aspects and none of the positive of GA. Cadets, yes they all aren't that bad but the few I've seen can't even interpret a TAF over a TTF and you call yourself professional. If you yourself are a cadet you don't deserve the salary or the honour of flying a jet with those comments. That attitude will not get you a command either! Your peers will shut you down. It's a very small industry.

FFS guys, Flyboat is a troll. He is here to stir you up and waste your time. Don't reward him by biting. Nothing annoys a troll more than not taking the bait.

Anyone with more than five minutes experience in the industry can see he doesn't have a clue what he is talking about.

j3

I think you're quite right about the troll thing.

The only reason I bother putting a counter view to FBN is that this is a thread that is likely to be read by those with less than 5 minutes in the industry and no reply to FBN's comments might be seen as agreement with them.

Nice scare campaign with the Jetstar cadets getting moved on etc. The fact is that 95% of those who started the course have moved into full time employ with Jetstar. Just the same rate achieved in BA , Luftansa, the other large Asian cadet airlines such as SIA.

Nice story again about the Qantas cadet , all abandoned by the big bad company. Just no truth in it , all those on the QF cadetship moved into employment with Qlink , a number now captains there. Also many QF cadets moved into the Jetstar program, now flying A320s. So really they did quite well as compared to a GA guy who would have to spend five years getting competitive times for Qlink - then compete with several hundred for a start.

Why do you guys get so emotive, about the whole cadetships V GA conversation ?

My view is that someone would be foolish to without any backup qualifications/experience fund a CPL/IR , and that is my view supported by hard data.

The vast majority of GA experience is an underemployment , underpaid hand to mouth existence, where looking at it now you need to spend ten years before you had competitive times to join a major airline. About a five % chance of pulling it off I would suggest - why would anybody who knew the reality of the industry sign up for that kind of deal ?

A lot of people really just aren't all that interested in spending their prime years living in remote area Australia, getting paid peanuts. If the person is a high achiever they know they could of graduated from USyd or somewhere, earning good coin in the city, building a career - why would you swap that for remote area GA slave living ?

Cadetships you are sitting in an A320 18 months after completing year 12 earning $75K to $80K - really not much of a comparison is there ?

I think most of you guys in GA know now deep down that you are not going to ever be employed by a major airline, and you resent deeply those who are.

It is an understandable reaction to dreams that well , they just didn't turn out did they ?

Cadetships are definitely the way to go for the lucky few chosen.

One thing I can't figure out is why Jetstar don't just hire Swinburne/OAA graduates, rather than bother with cadets.

Having Cadetships means estimated requirements two years in the future, but hiring graduates would probably just reduce the estimates to six months.

Jetstar don't seem to have a big influence on the Swinburne/OAA curriculum, so the training would be pretty much the same. They could just do the same testing on graduates as they do on potential cadets.

Maybe the cadetships were originally meant to be a MPL curriculum and Jetstar changed their mind halfway through?

Why bother with a cadetship when it's not MPL?

These aren't stories or scare campaigns. They are facts told to me by my friends who are QF and JQ cadets. Incidentally I don't 'resent' them one bit.

I would suggest that statistic is grossly inaccurate.

I couldn't agree more with you here, if you are sitting in year 12 tossing up between law, accountancy and aviation; don't pick aviation. It's a cruel mistress and one you really need a deep passion for particularly in GA. I personally couldn't imagine building a city career no matter how good the coin!

Why are you so bitter mate? Myself and 27, the idiots bothering to engage with you, have not once been derogatory about your career path. It's fine, for some people it will be the best option but GA is an option too and a hell of an adventure.

Unlike you I won't tell anyone not to go down one route. For a newbie, I'd suggest gather the facts (and don't believe what any one person says, not even me!), look at your life situation and your desires and go from there.

:ok:

During the early days (JQ1/2) there was discussion of a pathway for Swinburne Bachelor graduates to join the advanced course. I don't believe it ever eventuated.

Why do you equate someone having a different viewpoint to you as being bitter - it is just someone having a different viewpoint

They get higher Cal candidates applying for the cadetship higher ATARs more degrees from higher ranked Unis, who wouldn't consider the Swin Av degree because of the post grad GA career path.

Also get people with established professional careers doing cadetship in late 20s. They often have financial commits , and can't do more than 18 months without a normal income.

Swinny/OAA try to hawk the aviation degree to those who miss out on cadetship. Swin talk up the ATAR required , in reality it is quite low , interestingly they don't even ask applicants to sit the maths section of the Compass test. After all what would a pilot need maths for ? , just want to fill the quota.

Notice Griffith are still spruiking their partnership with Cathay Pacific, exclusive to Griffith students. The reality is that Cathay have closed the advanced program, and have no plans to reopen it in the short to medium term.

Both Unis say grads will also be qualified to be regional FOs - thought you needed 2000 hours myself :confused:

You keep demonstrating a certain level of ignorance of the facts, or you wish to promote only one option, I'm not sure which.

Nearly everyone I know of in GA that wants an airline job has got one, so their dreams are "turning out".

FlyBoat North, I'm not going to bother to read 3/4 of the shiiiite that you've dribbled from your mouth, however I'd just like to point out one thing.

I spent 10 years in "GA" (real GA, plus also several years flying small turbo-props), and I didn't have any problems getting into an airline when the time came that I decided it might be time. I enjoyed every year of those 10 years by the way.

I have many friends who have done similar, no problems getting into an airline as well.

Your Cadet scheme is merely for Gen Y who are too farrrking lazy to actually go and earn their career, OR, for older guys/girls who may not have the option to go out bush because of family (no problem with that, I completely understand).

morno

If you think those who are selected for cadetships are "lazy" then you haven't got a clue. Anyone of the 12 or so people that are selected out of 200-500 applicants are selected due to the fact that they were seen to have the right skills and aptitude, and also done well in year 12, something that isn't an achievement of 'lazy' people.

I could just as equally say someone who didnt put in any effort, didn't make it into the cadetship and is now having to go down the GA path is lazy, but I won't. Everyone is different, and it's ignorant to make these types of sweeping statements.

Great, another person with extensive experience in the industry giving their opinion on the merits of cadetships.

The highly selective, superior calibre, degree toting cadets certainly worked out for AF447!

Academic success is no measure of whether someone is lazy or not. Believe me, I didn't do very well in high school, yet I was more than willing to put in the hard yards to earn my career. Not just do a 12 month course and get straight into a jet that others have to work many years to even have a chance to try.

morno

Uni's , the ADF see poor school grades as either a lack of ability or laziness make no mistake. Nobody wants lazy people who at times choose not to give their best on their books. The top Unis only want the top 10% of year 12 grads.

Sure the ADF will take on people who school didn't go well for as Pilots / Officers , but in a competitive sense you are going to be behind the eight ball and it is going to take some explaining. Same for QF when they hired , vast majority really quite strong year 12s.

Everyone knows the Pilot Academics aren't much, that is why people with a year 10 education can get through ATPLs in a few months - there just ain't a whole lot there. And if you think there is - well you just haven't been alive. So Morno I wouldn't be growing that having "go the ATPLs" equates to any earth shattering academic achievement.

I think you guys are referring to pre-GFC boom-times in terms of transitioning to an airline - you talk like you can just say "I shall have an airline job now thank you". No so simple over last two years , QF zip , Virgin zip, J* - maybe 50 a year at best - going mainly to cadets as we know , Tiger bit of a trickle.

Then have a look at the market in Aust , 85 dash 8s , 50 metros , 60 Saabs , 20 Braz's , 20 ATRs , 20 Fokker 50s , 130 King Airs , 50 Conquests etc etc etc. So likely 3000 regional/corporate pilots with significant turbo/ high perf piston time. That is a lot of applications.

Then there is the ADF , graduates about 120 per year into the squadrons, which in good times mean 100 plus per annum leaving. Not so now , all squadrons significantly overstocked , aside from FJ.

Then you will also be competing against those aussies wishing to return from OS.

Quite likely the Jetstar option will go, as it is the logical destination for QF to send surplus numbers to.

Almost all of the "first airline" jobs in Asia seem to have gone now as well.

So in the current context I would think that for the less than one hundred jet jobs in Australia the hard data says there are thousands of qualified applicants. At best an applicant might have say a one in twenty chance - 5%

Couple of points.

1. I never said anything about academic success when I referred to 'doing the hard yards' in my career. There's a lot more to a successful aviation career than just reading some books and doing some exams. However, if you're a cadet, I can understand that you can't understand this.

2. The times of which I speak, are very recent.

I don't doubt that cadetships are a vital part of the industry for some people. However these so called 'cadetships' these days are money grabbing exploits that are just there to screw pilots over.

I won't waste my energy anymore, you just can't tell some people.

morno

No matter how smart you are, you still have to put in effort to achieve high results. If anyone graduates high school within the top 1%, if they say they did no work, they're lying.

I don't think laziness has anything to do with it. Whichever path someone coming out of highschool was to take, they would still have to put in effort. The J* cadetship is very demanding because is it such a short course. Just because they start at an airline long before someone working in GA does, doesn't mean they're lazy. Whether working at an airline or in GA, you're still working..no room for laziness.

FlyBoat judging the way you write, obviously English is not your mother tongue. Are you with Jetstar as a cadet? Did you pass Yr12 English or did your parents pay for your well paying career??

Bingo bongo. But plenty enough for me to be happy and confident to put my wife and kids down the back. Not...

Flyboat, by your own numbers you have demonstrated that there is a large pool of highly experienced and dedicated aviators who have done the hard yards to meet airline requirements. I'd suggest a vast majority of these men and women began their training when the QANTAS cadetship was the only "cadetship". Your argument for the excellence of cadetships may be valid in 5-10 years. In the meantime this group feel a little betrayed by their industry. I for one have had the finish line either placed far into the future some years, or placed far into the past only to be told i'm "too experienced and likely to resign too soon". Thankfully i've got an awesome setup now in GA, but still support my brothers and sisters who dream of a shiny jet future.

Flyboat, unless you are 18 or 19 then year 12 is really no measure of academic success.

Unless of course you're 38 and have achieved nothing in life other than have mummy and daddy pay to get you a job. That's begs the question, given that your parents paid for your J* job, did you get the hint or are you still living at home?

You will find that these programs aren't a money making scheme or conspiracy at all, the Jetstar program charges exactly the same as the non-Jetstar Swinburne students.

1. Science, Engineering and Technology > Swinburne...

2. Science, Engineering and Technology > Swinburne...

It is all the same , the Jetstar students do extra MCC stuff (about 40 hours) prior to doing the A320 rating.

The difference is that at the flying school it is no big secret that the "airline sponsored" cadets get the best flying and ground instructors
as well as preference for training aircraft.

Sure the CAE ratings are a tad inflated as compared to the US, but pretty much market price for Aust/Asia/Euro

So Morno - you were one of the lucky 5% who managed to get an airline job over past couple of years - how impressive you truly are , you beat all the RAAFIES with their instructor backgrounds , ADFA degrees etc etc. Sure you did :rolleyes:

When you take an objective look at the numbers - a % chance equal to the fingers on one hand after a decade of employment instability, $100K training debt, systematic underpayment, living in the outback, massive lost opportunity cost - I think you be a mug to sign up for that program.

I think most of you guys have a hatred of these programs because you are well aware that one cadet joining means one less place for a direct entry and you are starting to realize that your aspiration to fly a jet for a major airline will not be achieved.

Dont worry. When the 1500 hour FO rule kicks in our skies will be muppet free.

Not necessarily true they got the best instructors but definitely got priority for bookings when Jetstar imposed deadlines come up, shafting Bachelor students.

Come on mate, next time you are sitting around chatting to other FOs, ask them about their backgrounds. Plenty of GA guys there. The airlines aren't just for 'RAAFies' and cadets.

OK, point taken. You wouldn't be a pilot if you couldn't get a cadet scheme. I decided going through GA was worth it. It's a choice you have to make in life and just because you wouldn't doesn't mean others shouldn't.

How many times do we have to say it? We don't hate cadets. In fact I regularly grab a beer with a number of cadet pilots. Now I wouldn't grab a beer with you personally but that's not because of you being a cadet.

It's not about whether a trained cadet or a former non airline experienced pilot is a better fit.

What the FAA did with the mandating of a Min ATPL for all RPT flight decks, was to put the "Value" back into the profession.

The proliferation of Cadet Schemes in the US was a direct response from the airlines in their constant war in lowering the wages and conditions of professional aircrew. To this end they needed a way to maintain the over supply of commercial pilots. And it worked! Pilots unable to live in their home base. Pilots having to commute vast distances. Pilots on less than minimum wage. Pilots on food stamps! And these clowns (operators) could see no problem with that!

The entire notion of competing for labour is so alien to airline management, so addicted to the ease of exploitation, that what we now see, is the wholesale grounding of much of the American Regional fleet. The penny will drop however, and the operators who accept the reality, placed upon them by a truly enlightened regulator, will be the ones who will ultimately survive.

As for the rest, trust me the travelling public will be much safer without them as a result.

As for Australia? We have the antithesis of an enlightened regulator, and a breathtaking ignorance of the situation, from both sides of politics.

God help us!

I couldn't agree more. Notice how not once person complaing about the programs has actually gone through one.

You must have missed the first batch of cadets at Jetstar bleating about how they were ripped off and went to the Unions to help them out.:D Not to mention their complaints that they have to divide all their hours by 2 so it will take them longer to get their ATPLs! Not something a direct entry F/O has a problem with.

Can't remember the last time I flew with an ex RAAF in Jetstar. Don't know about Virgin but I don't think the RAAF is the happy hunting ground for recruitment staff that it used to be. In fact the last RAAF pilot I flew with went back into the RAAF because he got paid more!

Ha, great example and argument! :ugh:
FLGOFF, I assumed you were in the RAAF, no?

It appears I did. They were ab-initio cadets through Swinburne/OAA correct? As that was what I was referring to. Where can I read about this?

Pretty sure Mr Google will have plenty of background info.;)