DC8DRIVER

What V says may be true, but Atlas has, in the recent past, had instructors/check airmen who would frequently bust people on check rides. Some of this was due to the fact that the training at Atlas was unlike ANY other airline that I have ever been at or heard of. Atlas is the ONLY airline that did not teach me systems or profiles. You have to teach yourself virtually everything. Group study helps, but is sometimes complicated by new hires who lead a group down an incorrect path due to previously learned (from other employers) methods or techniques. It is a real "fend for yourself" situation.

This was complicated by the fact that there are many, many different "techniques" within the Atlas schoolhouse that the check airmen could disagree with on a case-by-case basis.

Topping all of this off was the example of the check airman who was fired from the training center because he told a new hire, as they walked off of the sim after a failed check ride (paraphrasing here) "well I guess you can forget all about going to that Delta interview, now". This attitude was not unique to this particular guy, either.

While the overall attitude within the schoolhouse has improved a bit with the installment of the new director (and the direction from management to hire like crazy to mitigate the constant resignations), the pathetic training system has not. It is still up to the new hire to teach him or her self virtually everything.

Good luck and don't forget that there are still career destination airlines who have professional training centers where they aren't afraid to spend the extra few dollars to actually teach you what you need to know to bring you up to their standards. Just don't expect this from Atlas.

8

CaptainHvac

TRUTH! I felt it was a self taught 747 type rating. The "techscedures" once you get out on line are even worse than in the training environment. Its amazing what some Captains can invent for that days techscedure. I do believe the amount of techniques taught in the school house have become much much less.

captainv

For the record, he wasn't fired. (He voluntarily chose to return to line flying, in lieu of...) And he didn't get in trouble for what he might have said to the student after his bust. He got in trouble because he was giving rides that did not fall within PTS standards. Period. And it was pretty much isolated to that one class. I think our busts rates are otherwise uniform, but the training guys would know for sure.

But there absolutely is a wide, wide gap between how we train on the 747 and the 767. The 747 side was, to me, all evaluation and checking. You were given the basics in class, but had to do much if not all of the heavy lifting outside of class. The 767 started out like that when we were at Boeing, but changed once we got our own instructors. It's more of a here's what you need to know to be safe out there instead of a punitive, stump-the-dummy, build the airplane thing.

Treehorn

For the record, he did in fact say that.

Let the record also state that he was inventing these off the wall check rides purposefully to make it more difficult to reach the end of the ride unscathed.

Whale Driver

This is a fact! The 747 program is all about checking and inflating the egos of the CA check airmen. There are however a few FO instructors that are trying very hard to teach, but unfortunately the program was not written to be a good or even close to a teaching course.

The 767 is an excellent teaching program that closely follows most best practices of great airline training courses.

Literally, its like night and day.

DC8DRIVER

OK. He wasn't fired. Should have been ... He pulled the same crap on "a guy I know" and busted him on his first PC in 2011. Stuff well beyond the PTS. And he wasn't alone in this behavior. There are others.

I will say that the newer guys in the training department are trying to bring the quality of instruction up, but they're still stuck working under the same system, so any significant change is impossible.

8

HVYMETALDRVR

Do you guys have a pro standards committee?

captainv

What he said was irrelevant to his bosses and to the union. It was his behavior that lead to his "voluntary" retirement from the sim. I don't know the guy, but buddies had him prior to this and said he was vanilla. That's the real problem - everyone should be getting the exact same type of checkride, no matter who the instructor is.

Rumor has it there may be big changes coming to the TC. Location, potentially.

We have a pro standards committee and a training committee. I haven't worked with pro standards, but we all know a few names who must have files an inch or two thick, if they keep files.

I hate to speak badly of fellow volunteers, but I have yet to be impressed by the training committee's ability to listen/understand/fix problems that are brought to them. (Or perhaps their efforts just fall on deaf ears.) Hopefully others have had better luck.

744driver

Below is my opinion only...

Some of the Sim Check Airmen, DEs, and even instructors are company hacks...they feel that they are doing god's work (meaning the Atlas god!!) by sending guys to the line that are "worthy" of flying our 747s. (Are you freaking kidding me?)

They make up their own ****** in checkrides and until recently there was nobody to push back. I'd like to think the new head of our TC is cleaning house of that mentality. It seems to be going in the right direction.

But the disparity between training events and checking events is very real. And therein is the problem if a trainee (even highly experienced line pilots) cannot handle the curve balls that will surely be hurled at him/her in the 747 program.

Good luck to those making their way through the 747 program...it is NOT easy, and made complicated by the multiple instructor changes, and the resultant differences or gaps in the program.

Sailfish234

All of that aside. Like I have stated, Atlas Air is a bad slot machine that will never pay out. Use your head here people. Stay where you are at and go to another place that pays. Dont use Atlas as a stepping stone, stay where you are and move on to a company that gives a sh/t about you. Trust me after 9 years here our management doesnt give 2 sh/ts about you or your family...again, you have been warned......