Pay-to-fly wannabee damages Thomas Cook Airbus

[juniour jetset]

Airbus girl (nice name by the way) I think you are on to something with your post - it seems the person who this thread is centred around was alowed to slide through the system by the training captains who in hindsight appeared to have given him the benefit of the doubt, when higher standards should have been enforced.

After all, the training captains are there as a safety net to avoid these type of mishaps.

[parabellum]

F/O Kite - I think the difference, (200 or 700), is that 200 is acceptable if the applicant has completed an approved course of training where as 700 was required if one started with a PPL, got an instructors rating and built hours that way.

[Clandestino]

First, I'd like to apologize to CONFiture. It seems that my level 4 english combined with my stupefying ineptitude at critical reasoning led to entirely misplaced belief that CONFiture claimed that Airbus FBW flight controls are less than safe. CONFiture has nowhere within bounds of the PPRuNe claimed this and I am sorry for making a statement that implied that he did.

Originally Posted by DCDriver

Secondly, comparing MD11 landing accidents with Airbus FBW landing incidents is comparing chalk & cheese - most of the 11's landing accidents can be put down to agricultural, ham-fisted techniques on the handlebars and a reluctance to go around after messing it up close to the ground.

Replace "MD11" with "A320" and "handlebars" with "sidestick" and all of a sudden you'll find that what you referred to as "chalk" is actually edible, even if somewhat smelly.

Originally Posted by FlyingOfficerKite

The general impression from the above is that these candidates are 'switched on', but lack the background of knowledge and/or reactions to cope with certain situations that might be second nature to more experienced pilots.

If they are less then adept at manipulating controls, they have no place in aviation. Aviation is extremely dangerous activity and sympathy for less than competent is entirely misplaced. When I possessed "Criterion A" medical, I was checked for good hand-to-eye coordination at initial and every 5 years. Now I have class 1, all AMEs are interested in is what are my chances of dying suddenly. I'm no expert on whether general motoric aptitude can be improved through practice, but I'm very sure that it can't be practiced in cockpit with passengers on board. Also ones struggling to land C-172 shouldn't be let anywhere near multi-crew cockpits.

Originally Posted by FlyingOfficerKite

There was nothing wrong, in my opinion, with the 700 hr CPL/1,500 hr ATPL route.

Have you checked the health of general aviation in your vicinity lately? In my backwaters, GA is clinically dead. We have more A320s on register than PA-28s. There's just no way more than a couple of pilots can accrue 700 hrs, let alone 1500 flying GA. And yet, there are passengers wanting to be flown and transports' seats to be filled. I was hired to fly ATR-42-300 at tender TT hour of 193, as many of my colleagues were too. Some even went straight onto oh-so-mighty-and-jettish A320. And not a "prang" was heard ever since.

Methinks that giving full ATPL to pilots with no multicrew experience is mistake. I wholeheartedly support my local CAA which requires at least 500 F/O hours for issuing the ATPL.

We don't need experienced pilots, we need competent pilots! Experience helps but it does not equal competence.

Originally Posted by FlyingOfficerKite

Originally Posted by fmgc

So the alternative in a turbo prop. The cadet will still be just as inexperienced in an emergency in a Turbo Prop as in an A320. What's the difference?

airspeed, complexity and background experience to name but three.

Tread carefully there! I'm rated on ATR 42-300, A320 and DHC-8 Q400. Personally I found A320 the easiest to both fly and operate, not to mention that it also had the most comfortable cockpit. Granted, it has the most complicated systems, but difference is not in the order of the magnitude range. It also has ECAM, a wonderful thing that saves you from calling up the wrong checklist but is too often used as an a**e covering device - as in "I don't actually have to know the aeroplane's systems well, because ECAM will tell me what button to push". I'm current on Q400 and my Vref can be pushed up to 146 kt - and that's in proper landing configuration, no gusts or system failure additions here.

[PJ2]

Clandestino;

If they are less then adept at manipulating controls, they have no place in aviation. Aviation is extremely dangerous activity and sympathy for less than competent is entirely misplaced. . . . . I'm no expert on whether general motoric aptitude can be improved through practice, but I'm very sure that it can't be practiced in cockpit with passengers on board. Also ones struggling to land C-172 shouldn't be let anywhere near multi-crew cockpits. (My bolding)

Absolutely correct; Well stated.

Methinks that giving full ATPL to pilots with no multicrew experience is mistake. . .

We don't need experienced pilots, we need competent pilots! Experience helps but it does not equal competence.

Again, absolutely correct.

Excellent, clarifying contribution, Clandestino.

PJ2

[D O Guerrero]

So what exactly has changed? Lots of airlines, including very safe ones like BA, have been putting their sponsored cadets with 200 hours or so in the RHS of jets as big as the 707 or 757, and in a few cases the 777, for decades.
I don't really understand why people are getting so upset about what happens today?

[juniour jetset]

Do we have any stats out there on how many aircraft, cadets (say 200 to 1000 hours TT cadet pilots) have damaged? and when does a cadet become not a cadet?

I wonder how as a group they compare to other groups?

and how would we categorise these different groups??

e.g. cadet FOs, Non cadet FOs, Senior FOs, Captains, Training Captains, Training captain examiner ??


Do we have any stats to make accurate conclusions on who buckles the most airframes? ... I would love to know if anybody is in the know with the real numbers.

I'd hazard to guess that each category (like drivers) have their own pitfalls that can get them in to a situation - eg. the young have little experince and can't see the risks like the more experienced can. Whereas the older experienced operator is more prone to complacency.

[CEJM]

D.O.G, you have beaten me to it.

It is made out on this thread that it is a 'new' thing invented by the low cost or charter airlines. However BA was probably one of the first who had 200 hours pilots in the right hand seat of a jet. Long before Ryanair and Easyjet came to this world.

[parabellum]

So what exactly has changed? Lots of airlines, including very safe ones like BA, have been putting their sponsored cadets with 200 hours or so in the RHS of jets as big as the 707 or 757, and in a few cases the 777, for decades.

This isn't about airline sponsored cadets who have been through a selection procedure that included aptitude tests and would become the future captains of that airline, (and those airline sponsored cadetships still had a chop rate), D O Guerrero, this is about people who are able to throw a huge chunk of money at becoming a pilot, circumventing a whole lot of natural experience steps and never having their aptitude fully tested until they are already well down the tracks.

[CABUS]

In this forum I keep reading comments stating that pilots that have 700+ hrs would be better suited to flying big jets than those cadets with minimal hours. In my opinion this is far too big a sweeping statement. It totally depends on the experience and selection of both cadets and 700+ hr chap. For instance I dont believe that someone with 700 hrs of instruction would be any better pilot on the Airbus that a cadet when it comes to the TR and line training. I agree that flight instruction gives the instructor excellent monotoring skills and allows for his/hers confidence to be built up but I dont believe it makes someone better suited for flying big jets because it is not a two crew environment and it is easy to get into bad habits and have standards slip. Also there is a vast difference between A pa28 and a 77t bus. I do believe that working as a Safety pilot could give some experience and this is what I did but there was no training and it was a mixture of a two crew and single pilot operation with once again no real resemblance to flying a big jet commerically. I flew for almost a year on the Chieftain as Safety pilot and it was great fun but looking back if really didnt help with rgds to my Airbus TR or line flying.

I would also like to say to those of you who havent flown into Kos it is the kind of approach that in a bus has the opportunity to get out of hand very quickly, especially at night. This is due to some variable winds over the Td zone and at night the rwy looks like its in the middle of a black hole and can give the feeling that you are low so you get high and then the rod can get out of hand. With rgds to the 321, this a/c in my opinion is a stretch too far, yes the wing loading is better but it can be a handfull if you are not used to flying it for ANY new bus pilot. I flew into Kos a few months ago with one of my companies top TRI/TRE's and he smacked it in and that was in the 320 so it would have been much heavier in the 21. I think we should stop using this landing as an opportunity to slate pilots who paid for their TR's and saying that their are not as good as a CPL with 700+ hrs because that is incorrect. I am sure that most guys with low (700ish) hours would have had a firm landing in those conditions in the bus poss even worse that the stated case. I would also like to state that Thomas Cook cadets are paid a wage plus allowances throughout their training.

[britannia66]

The person to blame for this incident was the training captain who allowed a co-pilot, with a history of training problems, to land at KOS at night. Anyone with experience of the airfield knows it can be a nightmare, and certainly not somewhere to gain early landing experience in a large aircraft. This accident happened in the crewroom before departure!

[FlyingOfficerKite]

CABUS

Yes, I take your point.

But often (no sweeping statement intended) it is likely that the 700 hrs will have been gained over a period of time which will have enabled the pilot to gain valuable experience of aviation as well as the ability to operate the aircraft.

An analogy is that of a learner driver passing a driving test in a week on a 'crash' course.

The candidate may be competent at operating the vehicle, but with vitually no experience of 'driving'.

Driving training and testing is another vexed issue - at least pilots are not allowed to fly at night/in poor visibility or in the airways without further training.

The 16 year old daughter of a friend of mine received a moped under the 'wheels for work' scheme. She was granted a provisional licence by the DVLA and undertook 3 hours of instruction. I spite of warnings to the contrary, she went off on her own on a busy main road and was knocked off the bike by a passing car on her first trip. Broken fingers and a damaged foot - plus the moped needs repairs. I know this is off the subject a bit, but who are these people that consider this training sufficient?! No wonder, on average, one moped rider a working day is killed on UK roads every year.

Experience is gained, not bought, no matter how intelligent the candidate or efficient the training.

KR

FOK

[Say again s l o w l y]

Spot on FOK.

Gaining experience in aviation via instructing or air taxi work, is about far more than just flying skill. In fact it has nothing to do with it at all.

It fills me with dread when I think that there are now a new generation of Captains whose first real experience of being in command of an aircraft and making decisions with little support is on a multi-engined passenger jet, with passengers on board.

Frankly, it's mind-boggling.

[Jim Croche]

This is all about competence - in both seats! The trainee needs to have a minimum level of competence and the trainer beside him also needs quite a lot of it - both as a pilot and as a trainer especially in knowing just how far one should let a trainee go in screwing it up before intervening.

Numerous airlines have taken "cadets" with 200 hrs, put them into the RHS of a jet and trained them without problem. Some of these cadets have been through the airline's own cadet scheme and others have been self-sponsored but generally 99% of them have done well and have gone on to become, in time, very good airline pilots. Equally, thousands of "self-improvers" havce done exactly the same. The only thing that matters in the beginning is competence - the experience comes later - often as a result of a firm landing or two. Experience is what you get - just after you needed it.

The 320 is a particularly difficult aircraft to conduct line training in due to the lack of visual cues regarding the trainee's control inputs and the requirement to press the takeover pushbutton in order to prevent dual inputs to the controls. This is not so easy at very low level and is almost impossible below 50 ft or so if the trainee is getting it hopelessly wrong.

How many very experienced pilots have got it wrong at the last minute and crunched it on? The big problem in this case appears to be the fact that the student had a less than stellar record and that this training appears to have been allowed to slide, perhaps past where it might normally have been stopped. In this issue, the fact that the trainee was paying for line training may have been a factor influencing the decision to continue with his training despite a poor record. However, the problem on the day was a simple human failure of not intervening in time. I have no doubt that the line trainer in question was doing his best to teach the trainee how to land it. They just got it badly wrong on this occasion. There but for the grace of god....

[overthewing]

Can I just be clear about this? As a passenger, I may be putting my life in the charge of one experienced pilot and one who has essentially bought his/her way into the right-hand seat?

So, if the captain has a stroke or a heart attack, I will be trusting myself to someone who has not been pre-qualified by the airline as a person of sound judgement and skill, the kind of person they would pay to employ? My plane may be at the mercy of a co-pilot who the airline has limited reason to trust as a sole aviator?

I appreciate that my co-pilot must sometimes be a newbie on his/her first 'big' flight, and must hope that they don't find themselves flying the thing alone. But I'd like to think that the airline had some reason for selecting and investing in them, other than the nice fat cheque they could afford to write.

[Say again s l o w l y]

Yep. Why don't you write a letter stating how this puts you off using certain airlines, adressed to the CEO. Only when enough people start doing this, will this practise ever fade.

Oh and at least on someone's "first big flight" there is another safety pilot in the cockpit too.

[FlyingOfficerKite]

Ditto and do

[Hotel Charlie]

Oh and at least on someone's "first big flight" there is another safety pilot in the cockpit too.

See that might make the ticket cost a little more than £ 10 so: "no thanks it will probably be ok anyway"

[postman23]

Can I just be clear about this? As a passenger, I may be putting my life in the charge of one experienced pilot and one who has essentially bought his/her way into the right-hand seat?

There exist more data on experienced crew cocking it up than the kind of pairing that worries you. The safety pilot was mentioned a few times, I am sure that if you cough up an extra 4500 pounds, the company will send that extra man with you on that flight .

For instance I dont believe that someone with 700 hrs of instruction would be any better pilot on the Airbus that a cadet when it comes to the TR and line training.

Well spoken Cabus .

The person to blame for this incident was the training captain who allowed a co-pilot, with a history of training problems, to land at KOS at night.

Bullsh#t, an incident is never to blame on a single individual, secondly 1205Z tends to qualify as daytime.

If you want top service in modern well-maintained aircraft with well rested and satisfied crew with tons of experience, I suggest taking a oneway trip in the time machine. Don't forget to program 1985 before departure. You get what you pay for, this is an industry issue which is stronger in a cut-throat competition on overcrowded markets. Nothing to do with the skills or experience from a single individual, be that the trainer or the trainee.

[CONF iture]

Clandestino
I do salute your gesture.
Gracias



Jim Croche
Your comment tends to support the CAA published notice.

The 320 is a particularly difficult aircraft to conduct line training in due to the lack of visual cues regarding the trainee's control inputs and the requirement to press the takeover pushbutton in order to prevent dual inputs to the controls. This is not so easy at very low level and is almost impossible below 50 ft or so if the trainee is getting it hopelessly wrong.