Does MPL threaten operational safety?
 

CASA proposed the Multi-Crew Pilot Licence (MPL) some time back, following an ICAO recommendation. It's now in the draft legislation stage, which is very concerning.

While the MPL is probably not a major issue for 3 or 4 crew ops, I have HUGE concerns with these inexperienced pilots being licensed to operated in the right seat of 2 crew ops. It's bad enough that new intake pilot experience levels are dropping, which is noticed in operations by all concerned. Add to that the fact that graduates from so-called cadet programs are placed into highly demanding regional operations to cut their teeth, where they make all manner of mistakes and are a constant burden to the skipper. What's gonna happen when MPL holders are in the right seat, and they've not even had ANY flying time, except in a simulator??? Why are airlines being forced to adopt the role of flying schools? Are airlines, particularly regionals, gonna be some form of craiche, where we send our kids to learn to fly???

MPL is ultimately gonna be another cost-cutting argument. What's the travelling public gonna feel about having pilots up front who have never flown a real aircraft? I can only imagine. What do all we who have to fly with these people think? If CASA and the operators won't listen, let the public know!

Whilst i'm personally not in favour of the MPL (for very different reasons) i really do not believe that operational safety will be comprimised by these pilots. The way it has been implemented so far does not mean zero flight time (not sure what casa's been proposing but in europe there has been some flying). Stirling of norway (yes they have gone under but that was for different reasons) was very complimentary of the abilities of their MPL students. They did have significantly more experience of multi crew operations than someone coming out of a normal method of training. I did a 'normal' CPL/IR and the difference between what i was trained for and what i'm now experiencing in actual commercial ops is like night and day.

Maybe the Question Should Include "Any Further"
 

Personally not a big fan of MPL, but I'm also not a big fan of "frozen ATPL."

Some clarifications. The MPL is not recommended by ICAO. ICAO merely requires that it be recognized as a valid license for intl ops. There are plenty of CAA's that haven't approved MPL in their own licensing schemes, and haven't indicated that they're close to buckling under to any industry economic or political pressure to do so.

And it's not "no flight time," but merely another reduction in required actual flight hours. Too lazy to look it up in Annex One, but I believe there's still a core flying component of around 100 hours that has to be accomplished in an actual aircraft. Personally, I don't think there's a tremendous difference in piloting skills between a 100-hour and a 250-hour TT pilot. It's really the brainwork that's being expanded in that timeframe, along with a bit more precision that the repitition of the mechanics of flight will give.

Add to that the fact that MPL's receive an additional 200-400 hours sim training on-type, and it's arguable that they will be better qualified than the 250-hour right-seater.

One the safety side, if anything, you can take comfort in the fact that they won't be conducting any commercial operations without adult supervision (right-seat on MCA and no single-pilot ops). And you won't be dealing with them punching holes in the clouds in a Cessna, Piper, or Diamond for anything but supervised training.

On the employment side, it could be said that candidates going that route are trading their future job prospects for a shot at the Boeing or Airbus. Since this was an idea pushed by IATA during a boom-in-growth period, it will be interesting to see how much traction and acceptance it manages to gain and maintain during the period of slow-no growth or service reductions. Its attractiveness to the carriers will remain low cost workforce, lowered training costs, and an even greater measure of indentured servitude than they enjoy with the sponsored ab initio crowd.

Fatigue and bladder control is a major issue. You wouldn't want to leave one by themselves for a moment.

Absolutely agree, especially with locked cockpit doors. Ergo, it's a safety problem. And who's going to get any sleep with a junior F/O and an MPL 100hr wonder up front for 4hrs on R220 or west of?

Time in, is gold.

Here we go again....

I often cannot believe the "tunnel vision" displayed by some people when reading posts here on pprune.
The MPL is a new system, and like all licensing systems before it, it does require development over time. The current frozen ATPL system was not as it is now in its embryonic days in the 1950's. I know of someone who, circa 1960 had a NZ CPL with the the majority of his (low) hours on Tiger Moths. He was invited to interview with BOAC no less, was accepted, then trained for the UK IR on BOAC's "in house" de Havilland Dove, then straight on to a Britannia 4 engine turboprop! I'm sure he was a "burden" on the Captains to start with, but so is EVERYONE while they get their first few hundred hours on bigger/faster aircraft. When i first flew a jet, at 365 hrs tt, it was like a brain transplant and it took me a couple of hundred hours to get totally comfortable with it. All experience is useful, but it it most useful if it is RELEVENT experience. These days, with FMS, autopilot/autothrottle (99% of the time as encouraged by SOP's) then experience in a sophisticated sim of the actual type to be flown in service is much more relevent and therefore useful. If the captain, sitting next to one of these "100 hr wonders", as they have been referred to, feels uncomfortable then maybe he is in the wrong job...It is A PART of his job to instill what is called airmanship, its the master/apprentice setup. If he is unable to do this he has no place as a training captain, and if he is purely unwilling to do this then he is being lazy and selfish.
The main problem with the MPL is the fact that it is operator specific, and anyone going thru the programme is then tied to one airline for a considerable time. This inevitably invites erosion of T&C's and also the risk of the carrier going under, leaving the MPL holder with a useless qualification. This is the way the airlines wanted it and it is this that needs to be changed. It is a battle of VESTED INTERESTS. On the other side is the VESTED INTERESTS of CPL schools, who make a good living out of providing training on clapped out Senecas etc, treating the pupil like sh*t etc. MPL will cut them out of the loop.
The MPL needs development, but it seems there are people against it because they have the attitude that because they trained a certain way then that has to be the best, or they stand to lose out financially. The airlines are for it, but only if they can keep the restriction of being tied to a particular airline, apart from that they don't really care how the pilot was initially trained. MPL holders will do just as well as the 250 hr integrated course graduate or the 1500hr Cessna instructor "self improver".
Quote: "Time in, is gold".........errmmm not necessarily. I've flown with pilots in the past who have thousands of hours and still can't operate an aircraft properly. Now THAT is scary.

I agree with most of what Private Jet says re the "product", the MPL is far more relevant to the modern cockpit than the CPL/IR - Frozen ATPL.

There is much misunderstanding about the MPL and one of them being that the MPL holder is tied to that operator. An MPL holder can change types AND operators with a full type conversion course with the new operator.

Unfortunately the first MPL students graduated just when the latest aviation dip started and at the moment there are many high hour pilots available. Low hour frozen ATPLs are having problems finding jobs, not just MPLs.

While I have no doubt that the MPL pilot in the RH seat of a big jet will have superb skills at monitoring the automatics and press the right CDU buttons with great aplomb. But what will always concern me as a passenger down the back is the dark and stormy night event when suddenly the auto pilot clicks off and the radar screen is full of big red stuff. Will our MPL go heads down and dive into furious frantic button pressing, when the priority is to hand fly the aircraft to get in back to an even keel with real black night instrument flying - especially when the flight directors have gone crazy and become meaningless. It may never happen of course but put yourself as an experienced pilot sitting nervously down the back taking wife and kids on a holiday and up front things are looking decidely grim with one captain and one inexperienced but proven highly competent button pusher. But of course it would never happen, would it....

Imagine being the captain of an ocean liner or an aircraft carrier. Can you ever imagine the Second in Command of these ships being in that appointment with the equivalent of a bare MPL.. It would never happen.

Yeah, but that 1% tends to be much nearer to the ground.....

YouTube - A320 Plane Almost Crashed During Crosswind Landing Germany


You cannot just wish these situations away. Somebody's got to click it off and put it down. And sims don't get you ready for situations like that - I base this on 23 years experience and 10 simulator schools.

Huck....i agree with you (and i've done a few "messy" landings in my time, One occasion @ Luton with rotor turbulence off the Vauxhall factory will haunt my dreams forever!), but practicing landings in SEP's and MEP's doesn't really prepare you to do it in a jet either, especially, i imagine, in an Airbus, avec la sidestick...
Loking at that Ytube vid, i think the CAPTAIN should have made the decision to throw it away and go around an awful lot earlier than he did, the aircraft there is obviously unstabilised at minimums, but thats a whole different topic!!

When talking about MPL, I think the right term to use is "low timer". MPL is just another way to make low timers fly multi pilot aeroplanes. You should not compare a MPL pilot with an experienced pilot, but with another low timer. Where the normal CPL only has 20 hours of MCC, and the MPL Pilot has 60 hours MCC before going on the TR, and the typerating is 60 hours instead of 40.

The further problem with the MPL is that he is a EXTREME "low timer"! While a simulator is fine for learning procedures, it does not give a pilot the same "air sense" as a real airplane. The MPL graduate does not have enough time in real airplanes to qualify for a CPL or an IR!

While virtually anyone can sit in a modern airliner right seat, read checklists, and monitor instruments during routine operations, it is the times when equipment fails or real emergencies exist that the MPL will be at the greatest DISadvantage! His experience and air sense will be so limited as to significantly decrease the safety margin built into the current system.

The problem will be exacerbated in the future when the now-new MPLs are at the point in their career when a traditional FO is ready to upgrade to Captain. The MPL will not be qualified, because he will not have the CPL/IR or ATPL, and will not have the PIC time (since I am not familiar with the "PICUS" concept, I can't say whether the Europeans will count that as real PIC time) to qualify for either of them!

IMO, the MPL concept may make short-term financial sense for airline management that wants to grow quickly in new markets, but does not make sense as a long-term solution.

Quote: “....that they won't be conducting any commercial operations without adult supervision (right-seat on MCA and no single-pilot ops).”

Wrong!

There are three reasons to have a second pilot in larger aircraft. They are: to divide the workload, to serve as a safety check, and to safely land the aircraft single pilot when the other pilot croaks. Note the third! This has happened far more than the public and some pilots realise. Whether one pilot has died, succumbed to food poisoning or suffered a mental breakdown is irrelevant. The safety of the aircraft and its occupants then depends on the remaining pilot.

No amount of time in a simulator or dual in an aircraft can show how a person will react in a real emergency when they are the ONLY person there who can save the day. That is why in the major aviation countries - USA and Canada - pilots have to work their way up the aviation food chain and accumulate several thousand hours of experience before they get into the right seat of a Heavy. Those who are unable to handle real as against simulated stress and emergencies will have been weeded out long before this stage.

Lesser aviation countries should follow the example of the majors instead of compromising safety for profit.

Hello!

I really like that :) I see if I can get a pin made for my uniform with "Lesser aviation country inhabitant" on it. The passengers will love it.

But back to topic: How remotely small is the probability that both the captain is incapacitated and the aeroplane suffers a major damage to its systems? Near zero I would say. Most heavies are autoland-capable so even the most inexperienced Multi-Pilot-License holder should be able to get it down in case the captain leaves him alone.

Greetings, Max

Last I knew, MPL certificates/courses were targeted to entry-level airliners -- 737 and A320 -- not "heavies." Also, autoland capability is not on any MEL list as a "no go" item, AFAIK.

You don't need major damage to any systems to set up a plausible scenario. All you need is an incapacitated Captain and weather near Cat I minimums over a wide area -- like Europe in the winter! the additional stress of flying "alone" may well overcome an inexperienced pilot's ability to act rationally. Now expand that to a country without a significant commercial aviation history, with rigid procedure-based training, but is adopting the MPL paradigm and is rapidly expanding its commercial aviation -- like China...

So, by logical extension, you must log a real emergency to be in any flight crew position on a large jet.

By further extension, that may include those with 200 hrs, and exclude many with 20,000 hrs.

I think you miss the point of what exactly the MPL training is for, and what the intention is in replacing the current CPL/IR method. Bear in mind that many countries have 200 hr crew operating safely under the CPL/IR or old ATPL systems, and have done so for many years.

We should all bear in mind that as individuals, one only ever experiences one type of training, hence I am sure that most are predisposed to argue only for that which they have experienced - open your mind to other arguments.

The debate is, I feel, in the implementation, and not in the concept per se.

Hi all,

I'm not an expert in the field of Flight Crew Licensing, but reading this thread has prompted a rare posting from me. Namely, what - if any - interaction will MPL holders have had with ATC prior to taking their place in the RHS? I know from my own experience that ATC can be somewhat daunting for new pilots.

This could be very interesting in terms of CRM.

So what basically has happened is that someone found out that today`s airliners are so modern that to pilot one you do not necessarily need to ahve that many hours of flight time (in the air) as long as you can demonstrate that you can program the FMS and read checklists... :} The airplanes fly themselves and can land themselves as long as they are progammed properly. So what you get is a young programmer with an interest in aviation. Sound slike a lot of guys in their early 20s :bored:. You don`t actually need a commercial pilot since the aircraft are so highly advanced - at least the new production aircraft are.

But whatever happened to the "what if`s"? Remember those questions we got when doing our licenses? Is the level of automation so high that the need for a pilot (read; pilot, not programmer) is almost gone?

All this is fine and dandy until something hits the fan at Mach 0.8, or on short final for that matter, and you need a pilot with stick and rudder skills to pull it off.

My 2 cents.

Private jet;

I think you make some excellent points. For example, in my new-hire course of 16, the "time in" ranged from 250hrs to 4500hrs with an average of 1500hrs. We were all placed on the DC8 or L1011 as Second Officers. If one had military or corporate time, they went directly onto the DC9, all with good success and nothing more than the usual that aviation has to present.

The notion of apprenticeship" is what I meant by "time in". The guys with low time (I had 1500hrs) were put into the "back seat" of the '8 or Lockheed and we watched "how it was done" for a number of years. Movement was governed by the seniority system so moving up was a function of many factors and not just experience/time in. Some of us sat in the back for a year and a half, (long enough, believe me) and some sat at senior bases for 15 years in the back - other priorities, I guess.

The key is, on "Day One" when we actually handled the aircraft, all the ancilliary stuff like company procedures, policies, "the way it was done" was in-hand and we knew what the crusty guys in the left seat did when they didn't like what was going on and we adopted that learning.

The gentleman with 250hrs had as little trouble flying the airplane as those who had higher time - it was a non-event for him as it was for all the others, even as though individual differences meant different levels of initial difficulties which are inherent in all complex systems.

The second key here is, all we had to do when transitioning to a flying job was to learn the airplane, re-learn flying skills and put the thinking we saw being done "up front", to work for real. I/we certainly were challenged in the first few months but we had a lot to fall back on.

Today, international carriers at least have an "RP", Relief Pilot position and while not nearly as engaging as the Second Officer (Engineer) position, at least it is an opportunity for learning where the candidate is a legal part of the operational crew.

A "100-hr simulator wonder" has nothing to fall back upon. BTW, I use the term "100hr wonder" to criticize the undeserved respect and legitimacy offered the MPL candidates' level of experience and "expertise" thought to be brought to the profession and cockpit. It just isn't there.

Regarding your comments about "vested interests", (in capitals, so I must assume you have an interest in this beyond mere opinion), and the notion that the MPL is taking business away from the "clapped out Seneca operators",...well, perhaps, perhaps not. That isn't a notion that either occurred to me or that I am motivated by or interested in. Anybody with sufficient hands-and-feet time and basic instrument training can fly an airliner. September 11th was sufficient evidence for that.

To take that comprehension of what "airline pilot" means a bit further, and keeping in mind the remarkable advances that computerization of airliners has made with concurrent increase in safety, the mistake we in our profession make is to "make it look easy".

Manipulating an airliner, is, in fact, easy with a bit of practise. The serious error made by bean-counting managements who increasingly do not know that they are actually in the aviation business is, they take this "automation phenomenon" to mistakenly conclude that "airliners fly themselves" and airline pilots are, to use John Glenn's pithy aviator's statement, merely "spam in a can" and are dispensible or, if they are THAT necessary, we can "put a resource, cheaply and quickly trained, in the cockpit to accompany the one experienced pilot."

Truly, that is what the "MPL" conjurs for me and many who see this not as an aviation-related initiative, but an initiative driven by money not safety, and by these fundamental misconceptions of what it takes to fly an airliner in as complete safety as possible. QED.

As a captain (now retired) for a major North American carrier, my only concern, and you would know this already, was the competency of my crew when the going gets tough. Like the brain itself, we use about 5% of the available "power" but there is a lot in reserve when "flight or fight" must be brought to the fore. Same with "time in" in aviation.

The MPL Program can't possibly teach such things because neither fear nor "readiness" in aviation can be taught - it must be grown through experience and that is what "time-in", especially as it is meant in the US and Canada where I entered the aviation system so long ago, means.

Thanks for your thoughts on this...well worth reading, imo.

PJ2