Originally Posted by Elevation

Our training has not been adjusted for our hiring practices. There's a lot of basic stuff that we used to assume people know. That's stuff which we don't teach. Once they are in a learning deficit, offering extra sims and extra trips only allows them to build confidence; It doesn't fill in fundamental gaps in learning. So it's natural that candidates who meet the basic assumptions that are made in our FOTM will perform better than candidates that don't. Adjusting our course material is long term project, and I've griped about that issue before.

Any candidate needs to be able to look at our training, break down how all the blocks fit together and see where they need to build themselves up. Sure we can teach you everything, but only if you meet the basic assumptions that are built into our training program. Those basic assumptions are not spelled out in words, but you can read them in what we don't teach (meteorology, for example). This is why there's debate about whether it's good to read ahead. It's good to know if you have to learn something to get through, but it's not helpful to obsess over momentary vs. alternate action switches. The other thing any candidate needs is the ability to recover from being rattled. Something, sometime is going to get under your skin. Having the ability to re-center yourself and avoid a doubt-fixation-performance loop is critical. That's something you have to be able to do on your own.

This is why, over the years, we've heard that regional pilots, corporate pilots, prop pilots, 135 backgounds, or whatever other candidate profile simply won't make it through training. That's nonsense. What we do is teachable, and no special skills or intellect are required. As long as a candidate is honest with themselves about those 2 skills, they'll make it. When we hire from other airlines we're dealing with people who have already done this type of thing once. When we hire from CFIs, we're the first time they've had "real consequnces" instruction. It's natural that we're going to see different success rates. Nobody should be surprised. I like the CFI candidated we bring aboard. I'm happy to take them across to Europe in the 767. That means at least something is going right in hiring and training right now.