RexBanner - I am one of those who utterly reject our current recruitment policy and see the lack of a 'broad church' approach as a real failing. There is no doubt that we are missing a trick in only recruiting cadets - we need a broader recruitment base including turboprops, instructors, military, helicopters and other non-Airbus rated jets. I came from a mixture of the first 3 and have unquestionably benefitted from exposure to the wider world. However, it would not be fair to characterise our operation as being 'ILS to ILS'. In the last year or so at easyJet I have done day and night VORs, NDBs, PRNAVs, visual and circling approaches. In addition we operate to what is widely recognised as some of the more challenging Cat C airports in Europe with narrow runways, high terrain etc. Arguably, our Gatwick operation offers the widest variety of flying and destinations of any airline around. Sure, we cannot offer Kathmandu, but we can provide just about everything else! By the time an easyJet FO gets a command he is a fairly polished individual who has a wide exposure to a substantial number of difficult destinations. Virtually all our new Captains come through Gatwick, thereby increasing their exposure to the hard end of the scale. We are far from perfect and I agree we should have more widely experienced pilots as a matter of policy, but we also have a lot right in terms of what we put our aspiring Captains through.

@ Doug The Head
 

Well said! :D
They say it's bad but they don't mind...

You're right meerkat,

I'm a DE ex Military Captain but with only 2000 hours I can't get a sniff anywhere, even as an FO, thanks to the young pilots who are willing to prostitute themselves to fly!

Where are all these cadets coming from? How do they get together £80,000+ in times when credit/loans are scarce and how stupid are they to take the risk for only a 6 month contract flying for money that doesn't cover their loan? As a DE pilot, if they don't dry up soon, I'm changing profession.

During my time - when commencing training - HSBC gave us unsecured loans for the full amounts including living expenses. The only risk was theirs. Whilst at CTC for my 'meet and greet' people were turning down monarch for easy, easy for monarch, laughing away CityJet and Flybe and even holding out for a specific type rating. So off my colleagues and I went with our training. :mad: Lehman Brothers couldn't see what was about to happen, ING couldn't see what was about to happen, America couldn't see what was about to happen. You get the idea don't you? So there we were, balls deep in debt, balls deep in flying training and we were bent over a barrel. That's how we referred to it, that's how CTC referred to it and that's how our friends, lawyers, mummies and daddies and everyone else referred to it.

Here's the first bit of bad news for you - get some hankies for it. No one else can or will be held responsible for your decisions. You chose to join the military - you chose your path, I chose mine and everyone else chose theirs. Given that none of us have a crystal ball - a minimum of 90% of the outcome is down to luck. Some people spend their careers on the crest of the wave and some get smashed into the reef on the first flurry. Here's the second bit of bad news for you - easyJet, Airlines, aeroplanes and passengers don't need your experience. You'd require alot of retraining, coaching, guiding - An A320 type rating, possibly multi crew training, training towards airline flying (flying to strict SOPs with in a tight FDM envelope), you may be a little over confident and need that retrained out of you (Contrary to popular belief many of us are described as having good attitudes and a healthy appetite for the job). You may quickly become a little ungrateful. In all of that take 'you' as impersonal. You aren't the 'plug in and play' opportunity you think you are. Here's the final bit of bad news for you - no one gives a :mad: about your problems in the civilian world. In the military there is plenty of team spirit, unity, clear direction, help and guidance towards the career and doffing of the cap. Out here, particularly in this industry, no one cares. Everyone is out for themselves. They all have their own families, own debts, own problems, own divorces, own hang ups and own motives. There is no rank or respect.

Please take what I've said with the greatest of respect. I respect your military training and I know that not just anyone can pass it. This is life - you only have one - live it.

I completely agree about there being a certain amount of luck involved with the choices you make. I also agree that, during my 5 years commercial flying, you can't trust the guy sitting next to you not to bury you to get where he's going.
However, you have made my point for me, companies don't give a sh1t about experience, if it's not in the type they operate. How many more accidents do we need to witness before military flying training is treated as a commodity? I'm not saying military pilots are better than civilians but I don't know one UK military pilot who wouldn't have dealt correctly with the Air France 447 crash for example.

Remove the english language from some of the UK pilots and you will find nothing more.

How many laguages are you able to handle my friend?

With the greatest of respect again - and not wishing to take this thread off on a tangent - the Airbus is a special machine. It's Fly By Wire for a kick off. Have you flown FBW? That coupled with a very heavy aircraft, a very dark night, over the sea, tiredness magnifying the startle factor and more computers than PC world screaming at you that you're :mad:ed makes me think you couldn't possibly say that you'd all handle it. Only as a result of these poor peoples deaths and their mistakes have my colleagues and I had detailed training on it. Now, in hindsight, if it happened to me, I too am very confident I'd have handled it safely. AP off, ATHR off, 2.5 degrees pitch and 82.5% N1 at typical cruise weights. I'd be extremely gentle with the side stick too. I know because of these poor peoples mistakes. A chinook, a Lynx, A Tornado, A VC10 or an Herc don't perform, handle or react like a fly by wire Airbus. Many pilots who have flown all of the above have confirmed this for me. So don't be so sure!

Anyway. This industry - the industry I have tailored my life towards and one that I probably have the most experience in of all the industries I've been in has to be the most unfair, unreasonable, unmeritocratic pile of **** I've ever had the misfortune to experience. By the very nature of it's seniority driven promotion for a start. The job is a pleasure however. One really does just have to get lucky - and once lady fortuna has cleared the way keep your mouth shut - which is why it's nice to come on here and vent! If you were a military pilot you'll have seen the sign 'Winners never quit and quitters never win'. It has rung in my head from the moment I begun flight training.

B @ B: last time I checked I think you will find that the Tornado is in fact FBW!

As indeed are many modern military types.

Well blow me down with a feather!

To be sure, what I was saying was that with Airbus training I don't think you'd necessarily perform better than anyone else when faced with the exact sane situation out of nowhere for the first time. I could be wrong. Individuals might but as a group who knows.

Let us all bow down to the side stick jockey, you shouldn't need training to be able to fly an aircraft straight and level. Good old stick and rudder skills :ok:


2000 hours military flying, single pilot, 250' off the deck at insane speeds, finding a target, then getting back to base........

or 2000 hours over the Bay of Biscay feet up, reading the paper.

Tough one this :ugh:

Some may argue that the last point actually is transferable to airline flying.

You beat me to it

Flaps...
 

The Easy that parked two stands down from us today with it's slats / flaps still extended - is that just a c0ck up (I did it once so I know it happens - my after landing scan is so much better now!) or a sign of a Flexi Crew newbie or leaving & not caring?

It could be because he read his Ops Manual B and realised that in high temperatures it is a good thing to do to avoid a certain Air Bleed warning.

Bish...
 

Don't fly AB and haven't heard of that. What is it exactly? I don't regularly see them with flaps / slats deployed though, so it was definitely out of the ordinary. It was +26c by the way.

Very possibly they were left down following a bird strike so that an engineer could carry out an inspection.

B&B,

FBW is irrelevant ( I'm guessing you have never flown a jet without FBW). Just fly pitch and power = performance.....it's not rocket science. Most if not all ex-mil would deal with this scenario....and no I am not ex-mil!