BA Service Pilots
 

Does BA continue to recruit RAF Pilots on the scheme that they have setup to take them as DEP's into BA?

Service pilots are welcome in civil aviation as long as there is a level playing field, no nudge, nudge about squadrons or getting ahead because they flew upside down and the rest of us have to keep the blue bit on top.

When a large number arrive together in an airline disaster looms. Especially if they all move into training and/or management.

Otherwise good luck.

not at the moment from what i gather.

if you previously applied under the managed path (and are still serving) i think you can continue to send them updates regarding eligible exit dates.

else wait until it opens up again. not sure about managed path but for DEPs sounds like 2014 at the moment.

Is managed path still something that happens at BA?

Personally, when I'm flying as SLF I'd be quite happy (read relieved) to have someone who knows how to fly with the brown bit on top, without crashing, in the right hand seat. Probably have fewer confidence inspiring incidents like that at Smartlynx a few days ago, if we did! And I'm sorry, the management comment is simply ludicrous, could I take the time to introduce you to some of our civil managers?. I'm not ex-forces either!

People can only speak from their personal experiences, & that doesn't make their opinion due to those experiences invalid or "ludicrous". Unless you are in the same company at the same time you are comparing apples with oranges. Of the relatively small number of former military pilots I have encountered I have a spectrum of opinions, some good, some not so good but theres no point in me broadcasting them here as such a small sample cannot be representative of their "breed" as a whole. I must agree that there is a touch of the old boys network with them though. Its probably an extension of the cameraderie instilled in service life and to be fair "who you know" happens everywhere, its human nature to trust & help one of your own "tribe". Only other point I would make is that I expected some of them to be a bit more knowledgeable, sharper and faster learners somehow considering all those fancy selection procedures they went through and the £2million a pop (or whatever it is now) that was spent on their training. Maybe I expect too much of them.

I wonder how this thread would have developed if there had been similar sweeping generalisations made about female pilots..??

Good point. I suspect it would have elicited comment in something less than the 5 years these ones have.

Might be vacancies also down at Squadron 89 :}

A fair synopsis.

Am I the only one who read the Title of this Thread with an agricultural stock-keeping theme in mind?

Nope.

Depending on emphasis to my mind it could have seemed BA pilots were getting rogered..again

Somebody clearly failed Air Force selection :rolleyes:

They haven't recruited via managed path for some years. There was a rumour (originating from BA recruitment) around the time of the last DEP recruitment that managed path would open. That clearly didn't happen/wasn't needed, and most RAF entries seem to have been through DEP recruitment, assuming the pilot had the required time/type.

I wouldn't be surprised if the new agreement with L3 for white-tail cadets would potentially put managed path way down the priority list...

That one again! :rolleyes: Not everyone wants to join an air force. Not everyone wants to be 'Serviced'! ;)

But many have tried and failed only to be be hired by airlines later on

Not everyone wants to be bullied, told exactly what to do and when. Not everyone wants to be Govenment property.

There is no elite in the servies. Services do the dirty work, for the elite.

Sorry to burst your bubble but "somebody" never tried it. "Somebody" has however been in this game over 20 years and has seen many instances of ex service types getting a head start on all of us poor saps simply because they were buggered by Badger in the mess in 1986 or they used to fly with Squiffy Fart-Blenkinsop back in the day. No great surprise really, people do stick with their own, just good old fashioned tribalism as we see every day in most forms of human endeavour.

With the benefit of hindsight I probably would have had a far easier time in this game if I had been in the services but there you go, I chose my path many years ago for better or worse.

Despite what some might think, nobody is born as an air force pilot. That is purely a matter of choice. Being a female pilot, the only choice available was to be a pilot, the other half of that situation was an 'accident of birth'. However, if this Thread had been the way wiggy had suggested, the agricultural aspect of it would have been of far more concern!!

I understand BA recruited a number of service pilots (FJ and Multis) via the ‘Managed Path’ scheme in 2016/17.

1500hrs and a frozen ATPL was the requirement.

Was it a success and will manage path happen in the future?