Originally Posted by
vessbot
As far the competence, or safety, I disagree strongly that it doesn't take a lot of observation. It takes watching many repetitions, over a long time and under varying conditions, to reliably know that someone has something down. Seeing something once, only shows you that the person either got lucky, and/or that challenging conditions/distractions didn't knock them out of a tight groove for them to recover from. Seeing that once or twice and extrapolating that the person is A-OK? That's foolish naivete, and is only a fig leaf to satisfy the training record that it's been done, and that we can move on to the remaining checkboxes during the very expensive sim time and with a big queue of other trainees waiting their turn. Better not to run the risk of watching someone blow the maneuver and then having to repeat it multiple times.
Oh, and the number of times I was required to show that I can level off at an altitude, intercept a course, change flap setting or even change airspeed? Not one, but zero. How is this acceptable?
So, based on your training experience, I can see from where you're coming. I don't see that as the case, though.
When I went through initial in 2017, MT6 was almost exclusively handflown, including flying from altitude to touchdown using a non-precision approach. Half the IQLOE scenarios also included loss of autopilot enroute. There were ample opportunities for the training department to identify someone who couldn't competently hand-fly the plane.
We're also going to have to disagree that the training department is just checking boxes and pushing folks through to save money on the sims. Take a peek at Trim. People repeat lessons.