OK I will. I am not involved with marketing or promoting a cadet pilot program in any way. I am a graduate of an airline cadet program who is now currently flying in Australia. To be honest I am a little sick of the cadet bashing which seems to go on in some internet forums. The complexities and nuances of training and building up experiences as a cadet gets boiled down to an argument that we are a bunch of incompetent autopilot babysitters who couldn't save ourselves if the automation failed. Sure there are some "cadets" who get employed through nepotism, who are pushed through a "fly by night" training course and would have real trouble if the proverbial hit the fan. There are also some "cadets", like my colleagues who have conducted a comprehensive training course, and have built up experiences in the type of regional area flying I described in my previous post. Flying in turboprops in regional airlines in bad weather, around uncontrolled aerodromes and high terrain was one of the best preparations I could have had for a jet airline career.
As a learning area, the regionals are excellent. Probably one of the best places to come from, for a later career in larger aircraft. Trouble is that isn't where all of the cadets go. Many start out in the right hand seat of an A320. In that seat they will never learn the lessons you will learn in the regional operation.
Well that's a sign that airlines need to improve their training in high altitude manual flight, unusual attitudes and stall recovery. And maybe give lower time pilots a bit of time flying light aircraft in their downtime for the first couple of years whilst flying airlines to build up their manual handling skills and confidence.
No, that's a sign that pilots need to actually know how to fly. Recovery from a stall at FL300 is not inherently different to doing so at lower levels.
I've only seen about a dozen auto lands in about a decade of flying, most on longhaul aircraft. I've lost count of the amount of times that I've disconnected the automation and hand flown because the (relatively simple) automated system wasn't doing what I wanted. And even with the A/P in there is still a lot to think about when planning and undertaking an approach, it just takes away the problem of maintaining a flightpath.
Given that Oz isn't overwhelmed with auto land capable runways, perhaps that's not a surprise. You'll note though, that I said automated approaches, not automatic landings. There is a difference.
As a generalisation (and not knowing just what aircraft you're talking about), most of the time when someone disconnects because the automation isn't doing what they want, it's actually because they a)don't know how to make it do what they want using the automatics, or b)simply select the wrong mode/switch/dial, and can't correct their mistake whilst keeping the system engaged. That applies pretty evenly across both Boeing and Airbus types.
Maybe there's not many decisions to be made in long haul operations, but come to a regional or a short haul carrier and you'll be making them everyday to keep the show on the road. And first officers are fully involved in fuel and operational decision making. The Captains make the final decision, but we collaboratively discuss each aspect which goes into a decision.
I have flown many thousands of hours of short haul jet operations. I know what decisions are made. In general there is more flying practice, and way less management. Long haul is the opposite.
Do you want me to list all the airliner crashes that have occurred from poor decisions and mistakes made by ex-military pilots? No one would ever suggest that the poor actions of these (extremely few) pilots would indicate that recruitment of former military pilots in airlines would be a bad idea, and nor should they. But to paint all "cadets" as being unable to fly a visual approach on a CAVOK day (we manually fly these everyday) isn't accurate.
Perhaps we should list the saves the ex military have made. It would be equally invalid. The upshot is that the military, and GA, have been the main sources of pilots for many years...they outnumber cadets (especially the modern version) by a very large percentage...so of course they also can be credited with plenty of screw ups.
The 1500hr rule was bought in, in the US because of the Colgan Air 3407 disaster. Both pilots had experience in General Aviation before being employed with Colgan to fly the Q400, so this legislation would have not prevented that incident. They had issues with their recurrent training, and two severely fatigued pilots because of other issues like low starting pay.
No, it probably wouldn't not have stopped it, but it was an attempt to make it less likely. Pay issues are endemic, and do nothing to help safety.
Like I said, the safety record of some carriers speak for themselves. Lufthansa puts their cadets (all their pilots are recruited as ab-initio cadets) through an intensive 30 month program, and I don't see their planes crashing all over the globe?
Lufthansa is about the best around, but I'd be rather surprised if they don't have an avenue to take ex Luftwaffe pilots. They certainly are not an LCC though, and that is where much of the angst starts...where minimally qualified cadets, work for very little to no money, and in so doing devalue the entire job.
I've said before that the best overall recruitment strategy for any airline will involve sourcing their pilots from all of the available avenues (military, other airline, GA, cadets). That provides a rounded group, and not one that feeds on self congratulation. The first three sources are disappearing....