Originally Posted by
snackysmores
I believe there was a large upswing in Q400 fails when the company switched to their Brad Lambert approved SuperSaver(tm) CBT course they just tossed at the new hires and shortened the ground school to 4 DAYS. But look at the savings!
The training department was vehemently opposed to it but was told to go pound sand by management. They are an absolute group of rock stars with decades of experience on the dash8 (all models) and they were effectively hamstrung overnight.
In combination with that, we drastically lowered our hiring standards and would literally take anyone who was qualified on paper. We probably still do. "Just fill classes" were the orders given by BL. Well, some of the people we've hired can't even use an iPad correctly. The Q400 program at Horizon Air is the most challenging airplane and flight operation an airline pilot could ever experience in their career, and we threw these poor b@stards into the sea with cement shoes and expected them to tread water in a very short amount of time.
Another "perfect storm" summoned and facilitated by corporate greed.
The next perfect storm? Street captains on the Q400 with no experience paired with a new hire and flying on a really bad winter day.
Sooooo true. You can’t blame all of the failures on the QX instructors. It is common knowledge that the failure/re-train rate has been hovering around 50%. As the well for pilots runs dry, 70% should not be a surprise. The condensed Q400 course is a big challenge for even the most experienced and talented pilots.
QX instructors have asked many times for more sim and ground school. In the interest of corporate greed, Air Group continues to tell them “no”. Although instructors want candidates to be successful, they do have an obligation to the flying public to hold pilots to a high standard. I believe they do.