Waco, allow me to answer your points.

Highly selective, highly demanding, airline sponsored cadet programs that led to a career position are in no way comparable to the majority of self sponsored pilot training programs found today. "Self sponsored" pilot training programs are not cadet programs in the traditional sense and their quality does not begin to compare. For that reason, I personally refer to them as pseudo cadets- Hamble or KLM graduates they most definitely are not.

Aircraft of yesterday were far more demanding, but cadets were only one small stream of several that met the crew requirements of most airlines. Overall, that meant that the experience levels were much higher then than they are for some carriers today.



I am not familiar with your back ground, but you seem (like many) to labour under the delusion that pilots are a hindrance to safety rather than an aid. The hard fact is that professional pilots make decisions every second of every day that prevent hazards from becoming incidents, incidents from becoming accidents and accidents from becoming deadly. These positive actions vastly outweigh the relatively small number of deadly mistakes that occur. Perhaps you would have to be a pilot to appreciate this.



Perhaps, but unlikely I think. The developmental costs, the huge liability and the complexity of fully automated commercial flying would not out weigh the overall benefits of just properly training crew. I am somewhat incredulous that people even suggest this when I consider the number of serious incidents in which the actions of the crew have prevented total disaster. It`s not possible to engineer away everything that may go wrong. When I was a kid we were all supposed to be floating around in our own personal pods in 2001. Time will tell.

Pilots come from a wide variety of backgrounds. For myself, two years of initial flight training, four years of aeronautical engineering followed by 16 years of continuous training and evaluation in airline and corporate service. I know the same dedication in any other field would have yielded success, the medical field included. It is not always treated as a profession, but for some operations and some of us, it most definitely is and comparison between professionals is valid.

To be blunt, in my experience, 5-10% of pilot applicants have the right background, intelligence, aptitude and "grit" to be accepted/hired by me (when I was in a position to do so) , the acid test being "would I allow my friends and family to fly with this individual". The fact that other operations have a remarkably higher "success" rate makes them foolhardy, ignorant or stupid in my opinion.

That's fine, you are welcome disagree.

we have been down the road of pilotless aircraft on this forum before, the threads are there and we can take that issue up in those threads.

drones may be acceptable to teh regulatory authority in UK airspace, but they are drones, and do not have hundreds of humans in them or tonnes of freight, they will not be flying in Class A airspace and will be restricted in the areas they are used and will be of a size that if they do go tango uniform in flight they wont be taking out part of west london, a housing estate or an office block.

you only have to look back to 2001 to see what a commercial airliner can do to an office block in the US, or just a bit further to see what an aircraft can do to a housing block here in Europe.

pilotless aircraft is a distraction and thread diversion from the subject matter of the thread, please feel free to discuss pilotless aircraft in the relative threads.

I have only read the opening post, and would appear someone has been naive, with lack of homework.

It seems this is a common occurrence, come on guys wake up. :ugh:

I agree Cat3C. I made a lengthy submission yesterday showing my interest since 1962. The post has been deleted. Er, Mods, any reason ?

I did suggest that because of the lack of funding by airlines, the greed of the Training Organizations, the dumbing down of education levels in the UK & the dumbing down of standards compared to the fully sponsored Cadets of the 60's & 70's, a huge shake up was necessary.

I suggested the same solution that I offered in 1962.

Must have upset a Mod.

On thread, give it up. Dreadful Training routes to the illusive RHS of a shiny jet operated by a worthwhile operator make it a no-goer for anyone considering this once great profession. Do something else & with much higher earnings, pop along to your local Flying Club & enjoy the fun.

Agreed. I suggest that the increased automation is leading to a situation where " single pilot ops " could become a reality.

The RHS could become a "monitoring" position. They could have minimum training to push the correct buttons to get aircraft on the ground in the event of an incapacitation.

Having seen some interesting transitions from air to ground in the last year or so I would suggest we are almost at this point.

But there were some differences! A Hamble cadet would join as Second Officer and spend a lot of the first two years or so line flying observing from the jump seat and being supervised by a Captain and Senior First Officer who between them probably had 20,000 hours of experience!

You also had a restricted take off and landing card to start with - only by day in light crosswinds in CAVOK with supervisory Captain and then with extra training the restrictions would be progressively reduced.

Compare this to the newbie cadet now who is thrown into the RHS of a two crew aircraft after minimal training!

By the way I was a Hamble cadet - the 18 month course there was second to none and included 50 hours in a basic Comet simulator (what we'd now call MCC I guess). Not everyone passed the course - if you didn't come up to the required standard (which was well above the minimum for a licence) you got the "chop". Hamble was designed to select and train future airline Captains - on the whole they did a good job.

From Lindbergh to Mars
 

One should be cautious in approaching this Dream motivated job.

Robert Mugabe...And if the next time something like the QF32 happens (and it will eventually as techology is constantly pushed to the limits) and the crew only have an FO who could push buttons....???

My point is that button pushing is the norm. Unfortunately the accident you mentioned demonstrates that when the buttons cannot be pushed the modern generation were found wanting. Lets not speak ill of the dead however and but for the grace of god and all that.

I am just suggesting that when automation gets better and more reliable the FO will be squeezed much the same way the flight engineers were made redundant by technology.

Where that leaves career progression who knows. When it can be demonstrated that single pilot ops with an observer is safe then that is what will happen. The great unwashed are driven by cost and safety.


If anything the main pilots renumeration could go up while the observers goes down.The downward movement of FO's terms seems to indicate that people are prepared to price themselves quite cheaply.

Re my post 85.Heart & mindfelt apologies to our worthy Mods. My post was printed elsewhere.Cripes, only retired days ago & I am rapidly declining into a gibbering wreck. Keep up the great work Mods and..SOREEE.......... !

Oh and on thread, "So You Want To Be a Pilot?"; Please do not invest thousands of your own money on what has degenerated into a damn awful career. We had the best of the best in the 70's & 80's. It went downhill very rapidly after the cost-effective Accountants took the batton. My last few years were my unhappiest & I was laughed out of the Boardroom when I suggested to my employers that we start a proper, fully sponsored pilot Training programme where quality control would be back on the agenda.

Ok,must try & hit the "Submit reply" button rather than "Delete", "Reply to Mods", "Become a Mod"...........Aaaaah, bring back stick & rudder.

Going back to page 1 and the posts about P2F and self-funded TR's...I completely disagree with both.

If people refused to pay for a TR, then airlines would have to fund it. Unfortunately there are too many people who are so desperate for a job in the right-hand seat, they stump up the cash because they just have no patience or quite simply have too much spare cash.

From what I have seen working at an Airport, a large number of the Pilot's that have paid for a TR appear to be daddy's little rich boys, so obviously paying £30,000 for a TR to get little Johnny his dream job is no problem.

I am of the opinion that airlines should pay for TR's and pay for you to go to work, not the other way round.

How many other jobs do you have to pay money up-front for your training, which is specific to that job? - Not any job i've had that's for sure!

As long as people keep queuing up to part with £100k with no employment guarantees and knowing full well the downward trend in T&Cs, there is nothing that can be done to stop, let alone reverse, the current T&Cs.

Re Hamble - I wouldn't use a Hamble cadet and a CTC cadet in the same sentence; you're comparing night & day.

That's the heart of the problem. As for a solution, well it's there above in black and white. Unfortunately pilots will screw other pilots and the bean counters love it.

Just because it's your point, it doesn't make it any less false. Failures properly handled by the crew vastly outnumber those which were turned into catastrophe by inappropriate crews' response. Give Avherald a try, while remembering it is still a bit biased as it will miss a lot of action going out there but none of the accidents.

Do you have any idea what was involved in QF32 accident? Do you understand that no one was injured in it, let alone killed?

Not everyone passes CTC.

Almost all of the sim instructors at CTC are ex Hamble/BEA/BOAC/BA/Cathay Terrific/ex-GB/Monarch Fleet Managers and RAF.

Some of the best and most experienced trainers worldwide are teaching these cadets.

It's probably the best possible start if you get on jets early enough.

The original poster fairly eloquently and openly described how how was suckered into the profession and concluded with a warning to others. I don't think he deserves some of the vitriol splashed across this thread. Some of you lads clearly paid for the ten minute argument when five minutes would suffice. ;)

I have also gone public, to a certain extent, with how I enter the profession and my concerns for my future within its hallowed ranks. I've taken flak but accept that much of it is fairly fired in my direction. Some of it is not.

I started training in late 2006 after carefully researching the profession by way of the Internet, by attending roadshows and, most importantly, by speaking to pilots flying the line. I spoke in depth with Captains and FOs at BA, Monarch, Thomson, Thomas Cook, Globespan, Titan, Ryanair, Cathay and others before I committed myself to any training. I am still friends with many of them.

Some of these guys were involved in management, one or two close to retirement, and included in this mix were both people who had funded their own training after other careers and ex-Hamble cadets. All these gentlemen were positive about joining the profession. All supported my final decision to join Ryanair in 2009 when the recession had both started and bitten hard (though it was the last resort and I'm not proud of it).

As a result, while I have been personally blamed for the downward spiral in T&Cs throughout the worldwide aviation industry, at least I did all the research before I spent any money and I don't feel that I had many realistic options. I chose to ignore the sales patter from CTC, OAA and their ilk even though the employment statistics reflected the general feeling within the industry. I didn't want to risk so much money and at the time I just wanted to fly 'aeroplanes' rather than only settling for 'shiny jets'.

However, I could take this altruistic and rather romantic attitude because I had spent 7 years in another highly-trained and lucrative profession before making the step. I was financially sound and am married to a professional lady. I was not risking my family's house. I was not risking my future.

As it turns out, I don't know whether I was lucky or not to get a job with Ryanair within months of leaving my FTO with my ticket. It is a poisoned chalice to be linked to that outfit! But I have earned a reasonable wage despite the awful T&Cs that MOL shoves down our throats. I also have enough hours for command. Yet I really pity anybody joining this company, or indeed profession, these days. I nevertheless see some talented and very personable cadets. Maybe they wouldn't all have passed Hamble selection, but modern jets are easy to fly to a reasonable standard and airmanship is primarily learned through experience. Some of the most experiences Captains with whom I fly still haven't 'got it'.

Had I done my research anytime post 2007 I would NOT have joined the aviation profession. I think the original poster's warning and the contributions of many on this thread should be included in the outside of any FTO brochure much as the cigarette industry must now warn of the dangers of their addictive product.

Clandestino

Sorry got my QF32 and my AF447 mixed up my apologies.

MikeHotel
Thank you for your moral support in the first paragraph, and AMEN to the last one! :ok:

MikeHotel: Something like this perhaps?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ *
* ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ W A R N I N G ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ *
* ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ *
* ~ ~ ~THIS ORGANISATION, ITS ~ ~ ~ *
* ~ ~ ASSOCIATES, SUBSIDIARIES, ~ ~ *
* ~ ~ ~ PARTENERS & AFFILATES,~ ~ ~ *
* ~ ~COULD DO SERIOUS LONG-TERM ~ ~ *
* ~ ~ ~ DAMAGE TO YOUR WEALTH ~ ~ ~ *
* ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

At the end of the day it all comes down to money. What is cheaper for a cargo airline? Buying a costly all new developed unmanned cargo plane, that needs changes in the international ATC system, ground guidance, international law issues, regulations etc. OR buying an old crappy 757 and putting in 2 underpayed despaired pilots. I don't even need a calculator for this one. Pilot income are peanuts in an airline system.