Surely this is an easy one to define lads.

A quality pilot is one that has 35k to pay to fly.

Or

Is prepared to sign a financial training bond that puts all the risk on them and not the airline.

:ugh:

Quality Training?
 

Airline pilot training revolution needed



"Resilience is not being delivered by today's normal training systems, the RAeS conference heard. The only pilots who have this quality tend to either have a military background or have been employed by an airline which has a selection procedure and recurrent training *regime that goes well beyond the legal *requirement - which most do not.


The crash of a Colgan Air Bombardier Q400 in Buffalo, New York, was an example of a loss-of-control *accident

Robert Scott, of Scott Consulting, says the problem is built into the training system. The standard training template is set by pilot licensing and training regulations, which have not changed in their fundamentals since the 1950s. In addition, pilot attitudes to their employment are conditioned by a relatively new phenomenon - a broad-based Western airline withdrawal from accepting any part of the *financial responsibility for the provision of a sustainable supply of quality pilots to fly their aircraft. Anthony Petteford, of Oxford Aviation Academy, recognises this as a major influence both on the kind of applicants for pilot training - those with access to funds - and the output from the training industry - pilots saddled with stressful levels of debt.

But there are also many causal factors for the reduction in crew competency, Scott argues, and some are cultural and societal. That starts with the "educational norm" in schools of "teaching young people to tests, instead of teaching them to competency", and this links seamlessly with the new Western pilot training norm, in which aspiring pilots self-select and self-finance for training to licence level - and in many cases purchase their type rating.

SOFT SKILLS FOCUS

"The intellectual and physical skills once *required of the pilot have largely been replaced by an emphasis on 'soft skills' and *automation management," Scott says. "The pilot who once cynically challenged sources of information now readily accepts information from a variety of sources, many computer-generated, without question." This system delivers ready-cooked, *apparently cost-free ab initio flight crew with licences and ratings."

Amen to that PJ.................... I seem to be flying with cardboard cut-outs a lot of the time!!!!

DR? Never heard of it!
Map reading? What?
Line up behind the 727! What's a 727?
You wanne fly a visual? A What???????????

Aviation is a job! Flying (on the other hand) is a skill and vocation........

Re: The Colgan crash mentioned above, it's probably worth mentioning that the C/A was a former "20th passenger" (ie. He had paid for the position of "first officer" flying a 1900 for Gulfstream International). As, IMS, were the pilots in several other recent crashes in the US.

I'm afraid we aren't so different over here...PIC time and real world experience is no longer at all the thing. More emphasis every year on "advanced simulator training" and/or having attended some sort of puppymill which will make the doormat buttonpusher to order!