I am an AWAC Sim instructor; We do not have a 50% failure rate. We do have a good number of additional training students. Additional training students are students who do not finish on the scheduled footprint, and need to come back for additional training. This is not a failure. Failure is someone who the instructor thought was ready and signed them off and then that student fails that actual check ride. Currently our footprint is 5 days of CPT and 8 full lesson sim training events, a loft and then a check ride (10 total sessions). Most are doing 9 sessions (skipping the loft) and then day 10 is used as an evaluation to see how many more days you need. Usually it's around 4. So the student then gets a number of days off, comes back, gets extra time and hopefully gets signed off and passes.

A few months ago at an instructor meeting. I was told our actual failure rate is industry standard, around 18-20%. If you are not ready we won't sign you off and we will recommend additional training to make sure that you meet OUR standards.

 

For heavens sake they're giving guys up to 24 sim sessions and 100 hours of ioe. Even if the instruction was **** poor you should be able to figure it out blind folded by then. Fact remains some people can't cut it in the 121 world. Believe it or not we're skilled and should be compensated as such. There are a number of reasons why this new generation of new hires are having a hard time. It's not just limited to one factor. The majority of their problems aren't due to our training department. The new standards may be hard for most guys to nail it in 8 or 9 sim sessions like the rest of us did, but 15-20 is MORE than enough time. 2 cents.

 

Hint: standards are the same, required tasks are different...

 

Wow 24 Sims and 100 hours ioe and they want first year pay increase, bull.
Most of us had 10 Sims and 25 hours ioe, we should get the raise in pay. The people above just dried up the bank account. Maybe they should go back to their Microsoft simulator and play

 

Does Air Wisconsin use First Officers for sim instructors?

 

They use first officers for pretty much all aspects of training from ground school to your sim training. Rare to find captains that do it.

 

What's going on with the new AAG Travel???

 

Just the usual erosion of travel benefits that we all have been accustomed to witnessing over the years.

I'm surprised anyone can even hire Flight Attendants considering so many I know do it for the travel benefits. They used to be benefits then became perks and now have been reduced to a little extra something if you can manage to get a seat.

 

Yes non-rev'ing is a joke. I've been blessed never having to commute. which is Coming to an end soon so I'm so not looking forward to it.

 

We use qualified instructors. Being an FO is irrelevant. We have guys who were instructors and captains at Comair and other various part 121 operators who then became first officers at AWAC. There is no 1st time part 121 sim instructor who has been here less than a year if not less than 2 years.

People often think that a captain will do a better job as an instructor. This maybe true in some cases but not all. It's a case by case issue. Some instructors are better than others however the material is the same and it's the students job to trust but verify by their own studying means.

There are often cases where I recieve a student who says, "my last instructor said different". I then show them a page reference, clearly describing the correct way. I have also question those instructors who then say that they never said it that way. Many students mix things up as they are trying to learn a lot of information and a previous instructor is easy to blame as they are not there to defend themselves.

You are all supposed to be professionals. Read the material issued to you.

For full disclosure, I was an FO teaching in the Sim after being a previous instructor for multiple years in other various AWAC courses, I am now a captain teaching in the sim.