SGS233

In searching the forums, it doesn't appear as if this has been discussed anywhere... and I *completely understand* that this is just one person recounting their experience at PSA.

http://dontflyforpsa.com

I have no connection, association, nor affiliation with whomever authored this... just wondering if anyone that has recent experience with PSA's training program experienced anything similar?

Contex: I'm in the process of deciding between PSA and Envoy.

Many thanks.

saltbae

Well at PSA get used to auditing your pay each month and them underpaying you from time to time unless you catch it and correct it. Min day rules, sick time, etc. or open time pick ups. So that’s annoying and unprofessional.

Mike4Foxtrot

A poster on here sent me the same link and am also curious about it as I'm in a similar position as the OP. The work rules don't bother me as much, but definitely not looking to be vulnerable to training failures that would be much less likely at another regional. I've read somewhere that a lot of pilots at PSA fail for items that would be a standard debrief anywhere else. Anymore insight would be greatly appreciated!

afterburner12

A year and some months FO here. That person obviously is very unhappy with their experience at PSA - enough to create a website and to update it just a few days ago. Plenty of people (myself included) with no 121 time made it through. Mock oral - 1 attempt pass. KV - 1 attempt pass. MV - 1 attempt pass. LOE - 1 attempt pass (with one item that had to be redone - which is allowed).
Yes you have multiple SIM instructors - kind of weird to me but at least there are more eyes on you and it's not one person teaching you possibly incorrect things. Obviously some people fail training for one reason or another. It's possible some people were done wrong by the company/examiner, but it's more likely that they were deficient on certain areas. On the MV you have 2 hours to complete it and you can fail multiple tasks (no limitation) and as long as you are deemed proficient on them in those 2 hours, you've passed. As far as the LOE you can screw up (and repeat as long as you have time) 4 things and still pass!

PSA gives you the information needed to pass - it's not like they're hiding it or anything. My experience was the polar opposite of the person on the website.

ASAP

There’s a ring of truth to it for sure. I made it through with no extra training or failures, but he’s right that luck plays a part in that.
The stories I’ve heard of Cress and sometimes the stupid stuff he’s busted a student for have made my blood boil. And the author is right- with the previous arrests, Cress shouldn’t be anywhere near being an APD.
That said, for the most part if you apply yourself and study you’ll be fine.
But truthfully if anyone sees JC on the sim ride, call out sick. He’s a piece of work.

TallFlyer

7.5 years at PSA, now at AA. I know and have had training events with everyone mentioned, even prior to AQP, never a failure.

If you do the work you’ll be fine. My opinion only, and I’m no super pilot.


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Rock Bass

Most of the stuff on that website is not true. The failure rate is nowhere nearly as high as the person says. This person probably just couldn't hack it and washed out. Good riddance. The instructors he says are bitter about not having opportunities back in the day (who make it hard now out of spite or whatever the person thinks) are making a CRAPTON of money now, more than they would make at a legacy for the same work, so that line of thought is BS.

Assuming your actual flying skills are at least average for an instrument commercial pilot: study, do what the training department tells you to do, own your mistakes if you make them, keep your ego contained, and BE TRAINABLE, and you should pass.

Apejackson

I was at PSA before and after AQP was implemented. Nobody in my new-hire class failed out of training under the old style. We had a couple that failed their initial checkride but that was more them getting their first strike and not being able to recover. We even had a lot of rotor guys with the minimum amount of fixed wing time and they were all ok. The AQP made it feel so much easier. I had KVs and MVs with many of the people that were “out to get people” and I never got that impression what I felt was they were really trying to teach more info and dig deep and some people take that as antagonistic.

Anyways, I always felt like the training was good. Rushed, yes. There’s a lot to cover in a very short amount of time but all the instructors I ever had were really trying to teach as much as they could and really enjoyed what they were doing.

Cleared4appch

While I can’t speak to the character of the person who created that website, nor can I speak to their attitude and personality, I gotta say, I do agree with some of what the person is saying about the lack of standards, lack of consistency between instructors, among other things. Like some posters above, I too got through training with no issues. Passed all events on the first go. Yes, you certainly do have to study, without question. It is brutal at times. But, even though I did pass on the first go with all sim events, I did not like the experience, nor did I like the attitudes of some of the instructors I had. Some of them were unprofessional, with one instructor in Dayton in the sips who was a royal pain in the padded a&£. I’m sure others here might know who I’m talking about as he’s pretty well known, and not in a good way. I am the type of person that just bites my tongue and powers through something, even when it’s very unpleasant. I usually don’t go over someone’s head unless I see something extremely unprofessional going on, or if they are teaching me that it’s ok to violate company standards, SOP’s, or FAR’s deliberately.

I can most certainly agree with the person’s distaste of ‘lifers’ in regional training departments. There is a lot of truth to what this person is saying, and they aren’t exaggerating with their complaints about it. The same bullXxxx can be seen outside of aviation. I’ve seen it firsthand. ‘Lifers’ create problems that are quite toxic for companies, oftentimes costing them millions of dollars a year. I got the impression from the sip instructor in Dayton that he’s not happy with the fact that there are so many opportunities available to (mostly) young new FO’s now. Unlike when he was up and coming, there is almost a night and day difference between now and the 1990’s and prior with the industry and how to break into it and how to navigate it. He certainly seems to be taking his frustrations out on new FO’s that are entering their first jet job. Didn’t really learn much from other than how to not be the captain or FO that NOBODY likes or wants to go on a 4 day with. Was a total di$$. I cannot speak to the negative experiences of others that have failed training events at PSA, because after all, I wasn’t there. But I know an unprofessional, arrogant, insecure, dip#### of an instructor when I see one. I didn’t come from a general aviation CFI background before here. I worked for a professional, world class training organization in this industry before coming to PSA. And I can say that there was a huge difference in standardization between PSA and my previous company. PSA instructor are for the most part great, but there is a lot of room for improvement. The ones who are as I described above, especially APD’s, need to be removed from the organization, immediately. They know who they are, the training managers know who they are, and line pilots know who they are. Many other instructors can still use some improvement, like, getting on the same page together in terms of what they’re teaching. It’s extremely frustrating when one person tells you do this and teaching techniques as if they were procedures, then the next guy says no no no don’t do that. You can’t do that. That is my biggest pet peeve in aviation training.

In my opinion, and regional pilots are especially guilty of this, myself included, but we regional pilots tend to bite our tongues more than we should and take it up the rear end and put up with far more bullshxx than we should all in the name of getting ahead. And it’s understandable because we don’t want to raise eyebrows and cause waves, we just want to take the bullsxxx and be on our merry way and be done with it. More than anything I believe this teaches us of who NOT to be like when we become captains. These lifers that are in these highly influential positions in regional training departments KNOW this, and they eat it up. Some of them are sadistic. In my opinion, and this is my opinion only, but, some of them are losers. Like what the website owner pointed out, they probably had training failures in their past and they are bitter about it, or were turned down by a major or 3 in the past, and they’re bitter about it. So in turn they take it out on new FO’s today. All too often in flight training we deal with students using defense mechanisms, namely projection. Very often the topic of students showing projection comes up. But what you rarely hear is the idea of instructors projecting. Instructors project too, and good God is this a problem with psa instructors.

For those who might think that I’m complaining a little too much, I once heard an LCA tell me, of all people, that this company used to have some bad apples of APD’s. Told me all kinds of things that basically validates the rumors about this place. I think this does lend some credibility to the owner of that site we are talking about here. So when it’s coming from an LCA who has been with PSA for 5+ years, I’m gonna believe him.

FlannelDaddy

Wow. Thank god they washed out this idi0t. A whiny little wimp doxing another pilot on the internet.I can't believe there's someone stupid enough to put it online. This might even open up the owner of the website to slander. I've never done a ride with the LCA that gets slandered in the website, but a close friend of mine did and had no bad things to say.

Yes procedure phase is hard. That's where 90% of people struggle, it's a lot for a pilot who's never flown jets. It's not supposed to be easy. You're not going to be perfect, but people get by. Cooperate to graduate. What the ******* does "AQP not like republic " even mean? AQP is AQP. You get re-dos on your MV, you're even allowed to re-do things on your LOE. This person has no credibility and has no clue about what they're talking about.

PSA training has been more than fair to me in my time there. Initial, multiple recurrent training events, upgrade, countless line checks. Checkrides in CLT, CVG, DAY you name it. Sounds like there's a lot more to the story than this pilot is leading on about. PSA doesn't ask people to resign after a single LOE failure, but eventually they will ask you to resign just like any company will.

Disregard this bitter, childish rant website. There are reasons to not pick PSA, but training isn't one of them.