Exactly on point.

Filler

 

Couldn't have said it better

 

1) Guy asks question
2) APC forum insults him.

The end.

 

Eh... I dunno about that. If this was ones first aviation job, and one has never been through the type of training before. Has no idea what to expect, only heard rumors, and is aware of the possible difficulty, mostly due to ones own unknowing. It might honestly be anxiety inducing.

 

Its a fair question since if a place had an absurdly high washout rate and an average safety record then you would be wise to avoid the risk of going to such a place. The market for pilots at regionals being what it is right now, I doubt that you'll have trouble passing at any of them. As to how quality the training is in terms of actually preparing you for line flying, all I can say is that my employer seems to be very good. I've consistently heard negative things about Mesa training, but that's hearsay of course.

To say that an applicant should not care or research things like the quality of training at an airline seems like nonsense to be. Who wants to work for a ****ty company?

 

I think this may have been a valid question a few years back when there were stacks of resumes of 500 hour pilots looking for work. There were regionals throwing the minimum required training at pilots, and if they couldn't hack it they were done. Almost like they were intentionally using the training process to weed people out at some places.

There isn't a regional around today that can afford that approach. Most will get you some extra one on one time to help you pass an oral, or 1 or 2 or 5 extra sim sessions if you need it. Nobody is trying to fail pilots in this current atmosphere. There are definitely cases people washing out of training. The airlines can only hold pilots hands so long. When I was at training someone had hit upwards of 25 Sim sessions before the company let them go, and someone else who failed the oral 3 times. At a point they have to cut these people loose. There are some people either not ready or not cut out for 121 flying. Those people are likely the pilots that wouldn't have made it through the interview process 3 or 4 years ago, but now that regionals are scraping the bottom of the barrel, they are giving those people a chance at training now.

 

I think this may have been a valid question a few years back when there were stacks of resumes of 500 hour pilots looking for work. There were regionals throwing the minimum required training at pilots, and if they couldn't hack it they were done. Almost like they were intentionally using the training process to weed people out at some places.

There isn't a regional around today that can afford that approach. Most will get you some extra one on one time to help you pass an oral, or 1 or 2 or 5 extra sim sessions if you need it. Nobody is trying to fail pilots in this current atmosphere. There are definitely cases people washing out of training. The airlines can only hold pilots hands so long. When I was at training someone had hit upwards of 25 Sim sessions before the company let them go, and someone else who failed the oral 3 times. At a point they have to cut these people loose. There are some people either not ready or not cut out for 121 flying. Those people are likely the pilots that wouldn't have made it through the interview process 3 or 4 years ago, but now that regionals are scraping the bottom of the barrel, they are giving those people a chance at training now.

 

Pretty much every airline, major or regional, is going to have their select few instructors/check airman who are arrogant, self-righteous a-holes. I've come across a select few in my 8 years in the industry, but far and away I have been very impressed with all the pilots I have interacted with in the training environment. As was echoed earlier no regional today is developing a training program to crush new hires coming through. In fact, quite the opposite is true as most programs are tailored to a 500-1000 hour CFI with no jet experience. That said, at some point no training program can make up for a lack of drive, hard work, ATTITUDE, and pilot skills, and they have to cut someone loose.

 

If anything, the regionals are being negligent for passing along marginal pilots who honestly should have been washed out, but were instead given far too many chances until they finally passed.

In this day and age, if you flunk out of initial at a regional you truly earned it.


Mesa's training dept was great about helping the handful of low timers in my class along. A few of us had to cover turbine engine 101 with a couple of 1000 hr Florida CFIs at the hotel after class because they had no experience with turbine engines. I was happy to help out a fellow classmate who was moving up from a C-172.

 

I think most failures come in the simulator portion, and it really comes down to how many extra sessions an airline is willing to give someone. Here at PSA the syllabus calls for 8 and the company is generally willing to go up to 12 as long as progress is being made. How many sessions are airlines like Mesa and Gojets giving?