Originally Posted by
dovic91
The pay and work rules at C5 are well known, or at least they should be by now. There are other little gems that don't get discovered until one gets in the door though. Training is not AQP, but they say they are working on it. To say that the training is poor would be generous. To be fair, there are some great instructors, but they are hampered by a poor syllabus written mostly by people who never flew jets before. "It's how we did it on the Dash" is a common answer when asking why things are done a certain way. They advance pilots to be LCPs with only 100 hours of PIC time in the aircraft they fly. The base chief pilots all have little time in the 145. One isn't a captain yet, and one doesn't even have a type rating in the only airplane the company flies. Pilots from other now closed airlines have moved to C5 in the past year and have tried to bring their knowledge base along. It's like pulling teeth to get the legacy C5ers to learn. All of the whining and complaining when procedures were introduced that prohibited the use of pitch mode on initial climb was very indicitive of the low skill level of many. Equally as telling was the uproar over a recent change requiring the pilot flying to guard the flight controls when below 10,000 ft with the autopilot on. Don't ask anyone who hasn't been trained somewhere else how to fly an RNAV arrival. They quite simply don't teach anyone how to use the FMS at C5 and consequently nobody "trusts" the VPI because they don't know how to set up the FMS. Fortunately, I was able to move along a short time ago, with my certificate intact. So yeah, there are more reasons besides rock bottom pay and a joke of a contract.
They've been 'working on AQP" for years. The question of LCPs is a tough one---On one hand, they prefer captains to have at least a year on the 145, on the other, with the mass exodus, it's hard to find willing candidates with the time. I'm not even sure more pay for LCPs would help.
Some of the instructors are good guys with decent personalities..But some have been there a few years already and refuse to buckle down and learn the SOPs and aircraft specifics (especially instructors that worked other RJs). This is why there is so much inconsistency in initial training.
The base CP situation is beyond ridiculous. One busted their initial at an LCC and is back, approving your operational extensions.
Regarding PIT mode, it was a good option for those of us who can fly, and we had decent AOM guidance on it (for once).
The <10,000' control guarding has been in the books since the jet was brought online. It's more of the case of someone just discovered it and started making a big deal.
The whole FMS issue at the company could fill another thread. The entire attitude of the training department is, "they'll learn it online," which is the place to sharpen skills, not become initially acquainted. This stems from the excessive and increasing amount of sim activities to check off without increasing the sim block or dividing the sims into different sessions.