Only 3 years eh? In my day, if it wasn't operational, it was training and checking. All of it.

Sorry PurplePitot, you're right but, I was referring to the initial training. I don't think any pilot can argue who are the better trained and which have a higher capacity and better flying skills.
AdoniP, RAF reject by any chance?

To be honest that distinction between highly trained military pilots and modern day 'button pushers' is a rather poor generalisation that in Europe at least is simply irrelevant even if there is some truth in it.

As the programme mentioned it used to the case in the US that the vast majority of pilots came from the military. It simply worked out like that because the military supplied enough pilots and retiring to the airlines was a logical progression for many.

In Europe though there have never been enough military pilots and today that is the case more than ever as air forces get smaller and airlines bigger. Non-airline jobs that the old 'self improvers' under the pre-JAR system might have conducted prior to airline jobs have also largely disappeared with the exception of instruction which while a good option cannot be a pre-airline job for all because there simply is not enough demand for instructors.

In the face of this the European airlines and the airlines of other states which have limited GA activity to recruit from have turned to integrated training providers like CTC and OAA and with the launch of the MPL a few years ago the trend is only increasing.

The challenge of getting a safe pilot out of system which now has very little hand flying in real aircraft prior to airline employment is certainly a different one from those challenges of the past but my sense is that the industry is actually getting a lot better at dealing with this than it was even just 10 years ago. The standard of pilots coming out these integrated courses onto major European airlines is actually very good in general and the selection processes for them are quite rigorous.

I mean would I want some ex-Navy pilot who put down F-4s on carriers for years in control when landing a 747 in a 40kts crosswind on a dark night with two engines out and low fuel? Of course. But the industry has to work with the reality of the pilot supply and try and tailor its training to that. Judging by the safety records of the major European airlines I think they are doing very well on the whole. Airlines now go for decades without hull losses which is a big improvement if you think what the record was at the dawn of the jet age.

There is of course still much to be done. It would be nice to see more union strength on issues like fatigue and training that goes above and beyond the regulatory standards. The war to better understand the relationship between man and technology is slowly being won but there is still a lot of space for improvement. There are also issues like pay to fly on public transport which I think should simply be banned...I'm not holding my breath though on that one.

Although interesting, programmes like the one being discussed irritate me a bit because they take a sort of 'we are all going to die' mentality without really explaining the evolution of all these safety issues and what is being done about them. I bit more of a historical perspective on issues with newly certified aircraft would not have gone amiss. I know it wasn't the intention of the presenter but without any historical perspective on safety issues it did feel like a bit of an insult to all those who have worked for decades and even sometimes died in pursuit of making civil aviation safer.

As you say, there will be fewer and fewer military pilots available as the years go by but, those military pilots leaving the services now are being overlooked for CTC cadets! Which is wrong, that invaluable experience should be grabbed with both hands. (1000 different hours over 1000 x the same hour!)
If some scare mongering has been used to make the public aware of what is happening in the industry today then that is a good thing. More passengers should know, or want to know, that their pilot for their flight is well trained and well prepared. When I was in the military we would go looking for crosswinds to practice our techniques (as well as a plethora of other practices unheard of by the average civvy trained pilot) After spending a little time with civvy ab initios, they wouldn't even consider getting airborne with a 10 knot crosswind!!
P2F, flexicrew etc is unknown to the majority of paying customers. How would it change their perception if they knew 1 in 3 FOs at EJ for example are on flexicrew contracts?!

I think a lot would be surprised but not enough to do anything about it or change their behaviour. I mean just the other day I was trying to book a last minute flight to Berlin, easy was about a third of the price of BA. Am I going to stop using easy in solidarity with those poor flexi pilots? As much as I would like to say yes obviously the answer is no as it would be for the vast majority of passengers. If their planes were falling out of the sky then that would be a different matter but you are not going to scare the public when talking about an airline that has never had a major accident...

At the end of the day the airline industry is there to make money and provide passengers with a service that they will travel on. It is not their to provide pilots with a job or apportion fairness in terms of which pilots get to fly for them.

In view of that it is really up to the unions and regulators to keep certain aspects of the modern day industry in check. Some reduction in T&Cs was always going to happen post deregulation but for the most part I lay the blame at the door of the more senior members of the profession for not stopping the spread of contracting and flexi crew when it started out. Similarly unions could have been a lot more active in dealing with issues like P2F. On specific issues like that there clearly is a role for more education of the public...but again it is not going to have a significant impact while for the most part European aviation remains so safe. The pilot body as a whole needs to deal with that sort of thing. I make these observations merely as an experienced PPL who knows a bit about the airline industry and knows a fair few military and airline pilots...

I agree it is perplexing that this is happening because military pilots do have a lot to bring to the table but for whatever reason easy have decided to go down the route of essentially just recruiting mostly from CTC with occasional openings like the recent one for experienced non-type rated pilots.

However provided it is proven to be safe airlines should be free to choose their recruitment policies in the same way they make other business decisions. I don't really like the way the system has evolved either but more and more airlines, I imagine for a combination of standardisation and cost reasons, are going down the route of contracting out ab initio training to a selected number of integrated schools. As I posted before...one has to concede that for the most part it seems to be working...

What I will say though is that although fixed wing military pilots are getting rarer the civilian world can learn a lot from military training standards and practices. Of course cost puts a limit on that to an extent but it is good to see that civilian flight schools have been slowly coming around to the idea of including aerobatics, more upset recovery training and a lot more scenario based instruction. Ultimately the improvement in training that will hopefully improve safety has to happen in this flight school environment and later in the airlines themselves because that is where the vast majority of the pilots today come from.

no, not an raf reject thanks, it's just that your assertion that raf pilots make better airline pilots is utter rubbish.

Note you have a PPL!. Oh yes, it's "RAF" please.

Did I say they make better airline pilots?

no that's right, 'If a passenger could choose, they'd want 2 highly trained military pilots up front' doesn't imply that at all. it's what you would prefer to see in the cockpit for whatever reason.

HD what I have is quite irrelevant to this discussion, using it somehow as a putdown is pointless. And whether I capitalise RAF or not, Christ alive :hmm:

At least the facial hair stayed in situ....

Last week it appeared ,then disappeared, then reappeared with annoying regularity.

I don't have huge experience of flying with thousands of different FOs but, 99% of the better pilots were ex military. Not to say the civvy trained guy couldn't been just as capable with the same training. The civvy guys do the day to day job satisfactorily but it's in the sim and during emergencies that the differences show up. Their capacity is reached far quicker than their military counterparts. It's when capacity is reached that basic handling can go out of the window

Another bit of crap careless reporting from the DM :

Is anyone else as surprised as I am that this series doesn't seem (yet at least) to have mentioned AF447?

The explanation for the BA083 B777 incident was complete twaddle, it had nothing to do with fuel filters and everything to do with tube & plate style fuel cooled oil coolers.

Sensationalist crap, IMO.

An aeroplane engineer?
 

saw it for the first time this morning (about to go to bed) talking about maintenance issues.
what are leading edge devices for?
some real engineer should check his script

program is a load of sh1te!

The "heavy" turbulence video they broadcast (Off youtube i might add), was nothing but slight-chop and a shaky photographers hand.

Note the lack of other pax heads moving with the camera, drinks on the tray tables perfectly still . . .

Program is made to purposely scare naive passengers!

Rant over :=