Originally Posted by
89Pistons
Some of you can't see that this is a trial balloon. Take a look at the Company wish list. There is this item below...
--Discuss Instructor/Evaluators (e.g., permit retired Pilots to be Instructors), modify
Instructor/Evaluator reassignment and release rules and introduce line flying flex--
Try to look past this month of May offer. They don't want to do this to increase the number of PI's in the building. They want to be able to reduce the number of PI's in the future. And I think they want to be able to have one instructor run the sim and do your seat support at the same time. They basically want to hire FTI's to not only do your FTDA's but your FTDB's and sim training too.
Call me stupid. I'm not able to draw the same conclusion, much less the concept of allowing a single PI both run the sim and do seat support in a sim. And I seriously doubt that United's FAA POI would ever sign off on that. Same goes with FTIs doing FTDBs.
There are some things that United can unilaterally change in the way it trains pilots. Most stuff, however, is dictated by the FAA and would require their permission for United to alter our Ops Specs. If it sounds the least bit nuts (single PI both running a sim and being seat support), it's extremely unlikely to get past the FAA POI.
Now, just to close the loop. Do you know of any US certificated airline that's permitted to use other than line pilots for simulator training? I don't have the answer, but I'd be surprised if that's permitted for any US carrier.