How does AQP work at your airline?
 

Any information appreciated, like:

What airline - Legacy/Major/LCC/Regional?
Duration of an AQP event?
Ground school portion? What does it consist of?
Simulator portion? What does it consist of?
What's maneuver validation?
Which day can you get credit for sim activities for the final ride? Eg, if you pass a maneuver on day 1 then you don't repeat it during the final check on day 2?
Unlike a PC, is it true AQP is non-jeopardy?

Just looking for any information on how an airline AQP works. Thank you.

Spirit - We don't have AQP.

How does AQP work at your airline?
 

We learned to pee often and pee clear.

How does AQP work at your airline?
 

Does Spirit have plans to get Aqp in the future?

Isn't AQP where you teach yourself the test question, take the test you learned all the answers to, get in the sim and do all the stuff you did in your old plane, and then a little while later some guy says you're done.

Just like Delta. ;)

I believe so and I believe it is becoming an FAA requirement to have it in addition to adoption of FOQA, LOSA, SMS, etc.

Spirit training is already AQP "light" and im told this will develop into full AQP.

does that mean quarterly or what not computer based training at home to come also?

Don't know what you mean by that. FO's do 1 PC check a year which is extremely canned and standardized.

I've been through AQP at a previous carrier and it in no way resembles the training done at NK. Did something change in the last month?

No, we do three full days of recurrent ground school in FLL. For those of us based elsewhere, that usually means a 5 day trip for this (read:$$).

Weve had AQP at my airline (supplemental 121) for almost 3 years now.


-we do recurrent every 12 months (other airlines may do every 9 mos), unless you fail then you get put on a special program to come back sooner.
-1 day of in-house recurrent GS, followed by 4 sim sessions. The rest of ground school is self study at home, 2x a year.
-first 2 sims (FL-first look and MT-maneuvers training) are real training, geared towards learning. lots of non-ils approaches, managed and unmanaged, and QRH stuff.
-3rd sim (Maneuvers Validation) is like a short PC. Its got your v1 cuts and such. Mostly train to proficiency, you can redo 2 maneuvers.
-4th sim (LOE) follows an open book oral, and its like a LOFT, but this is where you can get a real bust that will follow you around forever. The scenarios range from easy to very challenging.

Everything is graded on a scale of 1 thru 4. 1 is a failure and has to be corrected, a 4 is perfect. Most people get 2's and 3's. Its a little disheartening when you get your first gradesheet :)

I like the concept of AQP, but I personally would like to do a v1 cut in the sim more than once a year just to keep from getting lazy. I think 9 months is reasonable though.

CP has AQP

After your initial training (AQP) you have:

- 6 month training, which is one day. Completed in a procedures training then 1 hour each pilot in the sim. V1 cuts, non precision, etc.

- 9 month recurrent ground, 1 day with about 18 hrs of home study the month prior.

- 12 month, which is 2 days. Day 1 consists of an oral and manuevers validation ( like your typical PC, not really a jeopardy event but not trainng either). Day 2 is an LOE, which is what you could bust and is similar to a LOFT.

Initial is similar to the 12 month once you get through sims, atleast in regards to how you pass training.

Thank you. This is exactly what I was looking for!

Question about MV. Is this like the current PC system, in someone fails a certain portion of the ride, the ride is stopped with retraining, and then retaken and passed which then counts as a TTP for that event?

Question about LOE/LOFT. It sounds like in both cases above this is the main jeopardy event. Are scenarios reflective of real life incidents/events the particular airline has had? Or real life incidents of the same type airplane that another airline experienced? Or is it random things? Can you provide an example of a LOE scenario?

My old airline (QX) would look at FOQA data and gear the LOFT scenario towards that. The last LOFT scenario I had was SAN-MRY. Take off low vis, enroute there was a caution for oil temp. Pull out the checklist, says to monitor the temp. A few minutes later the temp shoots up, run the checklist and shut the engine down. Next figure out where to divert. End up going to LAX which was the best option even though it was CAT 3 (can't remember what the other options where). That was it, pretty straight forward.

MV - each maneuver is graded in succession. If you mess it up, they reset you, and you do it again. Then you move on to the next thing. If you mess it up twice, I think they stop the MV entirely, and the ride is over, and you do a remediation sim. New for AQP, you can fail as the PNF/PM, if you don't do your nonflying duties correctly. You can also fail as a crew, for CRM.

LOE - the scenarios range in difficulty, from things that have been pulled from FOQA, to things the FAA wants to emphasize, to things that you wonder where they came up with the scenario. Some LOE scenarios have compound problems. Meaning you start with a MEL/deferral, you get a subsequent failure of the backup system or another system enroute, and now youre down to min equipment, focing you to decide whether to continue, divert, or air turnback. Our LOE scenarios are guarded so I cant specifically mention them, but the concept should be the same at other airlines. If you fail something on the LOE, you can go back and repeat it at the end, time permitting. If you run out of time, you fail the LOE.

We've had AQP for several years.

-One sim a year (12 months)
-Quarterly online courses.

AQP, the cheapest training money can buy!

AQP is dumbed down to the lowest common denominator, and there is no such thing as busting a check ride. All whom come, shall pass…

Train to proficiency, and the proficiency requirement is ridiculously low.

The annual sim is based on one session of maneuvers; V-1 cuts, approaches, etc. the next session (considered the "check ride" but it really isn't) is a like a line check with some "event". It could be a fire, engine failure, or something stupid like a medical divert.

My last sim was a medical diversion….. Jesus, really??? What a waste of time.

AQP is about checking boxes as fast as possible on day 1, then as easy as a ride on day two to make sure no one needs any extra sim time (costs $$$).

Annual training is now simply a cost item, and has no bearing on any real training anymore.

Oh, but any crash that may come will quickly be blamed on pilot error, don't worry about that!!!

Its definitely cost driven. But AQP should also be a good thing for pilots, hence the "Advanced Qualification" part. Basically, it gives us all credit for being experienced and good at what we do. It collects trends of what people are messing up on the line, and turns them into training scenarios. Your medical diversion scenario probably is a LOE because pilots on the line messed it up for than a few times in real life (yes you can mess up a medical diversion).

AQP is an evolving program, its supposed to get better with time. I don't need to do steep turns every time I go back to the sim, but I would like to do managed and unmanaged non-ils approaches since most of us rarely do those on the line. That's what AQP allows us to do.

Piedmont was the first regional to became AQP. You could and can very much FAIL an AQP training event.

I'm new to this game, what are these?

99.9 percent sure I work at the same airline as Ghillis....

AQP can def be failed
Overall AQP can be a good thing

I recently changed fleet types and went thru our recently FAA certified AQP Full Qual course it was laid out as such

5 days Home study..... i.e., 18 CBTs to complete and submit testing for
Week 1
Days 1-3, 4 hour in the morning in classroom, 4 hours in afternoon in FTD or SIM with GS instructor called "system Integration"
Day 4- 2 Hour one on one Oral exam with check airman, NOT open book
Day 5 - misc req videos and door and emergency equip training
Weekend off
Week 2
Days 1-4, 4 hour FTD sessions with instructor major emphasis on checklist usage, flows, profiles etc...
Day 5 is a PV = Procedures Validation given by check airman
Weekend off
Week 3
Days 1-4, 4 hours SIM sessions with instructor, all the normal stuff, V1 or V2 cuts, EPs, approaches, etc...
Day 5 is a MV = Manuevers Validation (like an old style PC)
Weekend Off
Week 4
Day 1 - Flight Operations Brief , various req topics, Bulletins, emphasis areas, etc, 8 hours in classroom
Day 2, 3 and 4 are LOFT sessions treated as real flights with all the paperwork and required company and ATC calls etc... various issues will arise
Day 5 is a LOE (Line Oriented Evaluation) - Basically a graded LOFT and the end of which your type certificate is issued.

Of note: FOs are fully PIC typed, Nearly all of the FO training is done from the right seat EXCEPT you must do a graded V1 cut from the left seat and taxi the aircraft from the left seat AND LOFT 2 the FO acts as PIC and flys the entire sim session from the left seat. The only eval that is a "pink" is the final LOE, but other validation or eval failures are still considered for internal purposes training failures.

Its an ongoing process which has potential.

Oh...someone above asked about managed and non managed NON-ILS approaches....

These are what we would have called NON precision approaches in the past yet because we have VNAV capability are now called NON ILS..

How does AQP work at your airline?
 

Definitely can be failed. The LOE is less about technical ability and more about threat and error management. How well do you deal with distractions and threats? Do you know what resources are available? Do you play nice in the sandbox?

The MV is technical ability. Stick and rudder skills.

Very informativeHercDriver130, thanks. The area that draws my attention is whether or not the crewmembers going through training are provided an opportunity to see, attempt, be corrected if warranted, and eventually feel comfortable with understanding and actually performing all the in-flight tasks (“maneuvers,” if you will) in the regulations or testing standards, such that everyone is ready to go out and do it “for real?” And then, I'd have the same questions on the same issues throughout recurrent and transition training sessions. As for specifics, I know that there were some AQP operators who did not require crewmembers to be "exposed" (trained or tested) to Approaches to Stalls and Recoveries from same ... at all, and instead focused on Windshear Exposures. When asked directly, the instructors answered that “…it requires essentially the same kind of control application, so it is a legitimate substitution.” It seems to me that “substituting” one in-flight task for another in-flight task on the basis of having “essentially the same kind of control applications” is a bit “wishy-washy” (uh … that’s a technical term, in case you were wondering). Is this typical? Do you see that kind of thing at your carrier, or other carriers?

Are any of you Line operations quality evaluation auditors? My (UK)airline is implementing this and I would be interested to talk to anybody performing this role.