Who says AWAC has to OPERATE the airplanes? They could be positioning themselves to be the next ILFC for all we know.

 

I'm curious...what is pathetic about our training department? Things can be improved, but our standards are better than most.

Is it the materials? The instructors? The standards?

 

Had a deal. It ended when United rebid the AWAC feed and we ended up flying for US Airways through a craftily played move to help finance them out of BK.

There was specific language in United's contract* that allowed us to fly a certain number of aircraft outside of their scope clause. historically going back to when we were flying the BaE-146, got purchased by UAL (yeah, we were owned by then for a while) and then sold off. Their objective in purchasing AW was to get the ORD slots AW posessed. What was egested was bought by the present ownership and reorganized as Air Wisconsin Airlines Corp. and continued to fly as a United Express feeder until we were deemed "too expensive" a la Atlantic Coast Airlines.

* The aircraft were identified by tail numbers and I beileve there was language that allowed a one-for-one swap for an "equivalent" airframe.

 

I think our training department is pretty good myself.

 

The biggest one is the fact there is, basically, zero consistency between any of the sim instructors.

I will say it seems to have gotten somewhat better as we are getting real line pilots, not the dinosaurs (of which some need to clearly move on) that are doing some part time instruction. I have referred many people here in just the past two years and the consistency and is the biggest complaint. Also, even though I hear there is a syllabus, I never saw it once when I went through. That would certainly be nice to see.

Historically our washout rate is much higher than other regionals. It's not because they all suck and can't do it (for some that may be the case). I know of a number who have failed here and gone onto other airlines and have been successful. At some point you have to wonder why that is.

I get you do CPT, Indoc/Systems and aren't a lifer over there, but this place is far from perfect.

 

I've heard the same complaint about sim instructors and I don't have any further insight into that other than I agree the next wave of instructors has been much fresher and better.

As for people going elsewhere and doing well...some of that is on AWAC...a lot is on the standards at other airlines...passing our classroom is about learning the material...at other places it is much closer to teaching the test...who would you rather fly with?

Not to say we want to be Lord of the Flies...that is not fun...and to that end...recently (last six months) we have gone away from the numbers game...having to memorize obtuse and arcane numbers when lights trip off rather than understanding basic operation and you will learn more along the way.

Having taught the "new way" a couple of times...I think it has gone much better...classroom pass rates are up much higher, even though our classroom fail rate has always been low (once in a while)..but I think also because of the "new way", it's likely the pass rate in orals will improve.

One of the hard parts is for the instructors to downshift from what was "need to know" before to what it is now...and believe that it will be okay.

 

Speaking of training dept... Are we still required to know the entire IAC or just stared items? I'm hearing mixed reviews and have recurrent next month

 

As always...starred items...but that is the bare minimum...they will also be assessing your basic understanding of each procedure. So while you don't have to memorize the entire procedure...you shouldn't be clueless as to all the steps or why you are doing it. Don't make it appear as though you haven't looked at it in a year...because you should be doing it every month...otherwise they are no help to you in the airplane should you need it...

 

as always whatever pif may of come out of Appleton I would not recommend showing up without it down cold

 

What I figured. At this point I know the checklist so just wanted to know if it has changed