Regional Pilots what would you do?

"neither do the airlines"

My 757 transition had two days of formal classroom. The rest was self study, computer based. The Airbus is the same way. Some say they need the structure of a formal ground school to excell. To each his own, I guess. For myself, I've always been able to study on my own and get the job done. The FAA thinks self study is equal to formal ground schools for all the ratings. Either way, you get out of it what you put into it.
 
That's great that aircraft transition courses are self-study, I've been through a few of those too. Computer Based Training is great and sometimes almost as effective as human instruction.

However, when you're talking about learning basic concepts like basic aviation theory or experience-drawn education, (ie. Private Pilot, IR) its best taught with a lot of instructor interaction.
 
"Computer Based Training is great and sometimes almost as effective as human instruction"

If it wasn't more effective than "human instruction", they wouldn't be doing it. For a self starter like me, it's MORE effective. For any self starter, formal grounds schools aren't really necessary for the FAA ratings.

By the way, if you were a new hire at UPS and ended up as an 757 or Airbus F/O, you'd not have a formal systems ground school. It's all computer based on those fleets, from square one.
 
I think my carrier is doing 100% CBT now as well. I think for initial qual there's a single classroom day, but I might be mistaken.

You've got to be self-starting and an easy learner else I hear it'll whip your butt.
 
ShoreFly said:
However, when you're talking about learning basic concepts like basic aviation theory or experience-drawn education, (ie. Private Pilot, IR) its best taught with a lot of instructor interaction.
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I'm thinking back to my private pilot days. The place I went had a large binder of reading material, written in house, as well as a 2-CD (this is in the days before DVD's). It was structured as lessons 1-19 or something, and before every "flight" lesson I would do the corresponding "ground" lesson which was reading material and CD work.

It actually worked well. The only formal "ground" instruction I had 1v1 with an instructor was during the cross country phase, where he showed me how to use the E6-B instead of the wind triangles I was trying to learn! It was lacking in some respects, and probably needed some tweaking to be more "all inclusive", but as a whole it got me through the oral.

However, I did feel I needed more instructor interaction, particulary (sp?) on more complex subjects as airspace and maybe having him go through the POH with me (as I remember those were my weak areas in the oral).

~wheelsup
 
mtsu_av8er said:
The Honorable Mr. Doug Taylor:sarcasm: (The Webmaster) is an FO at a major airline - is he finished?
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I'm not a regional pilot, my opinion doesn't matter in reference to the title of the thread! :)
 
Why in God's name would you go someplace you believe will result in questionable training? Knowingly do that and come to me for a reference, and I'll kick your head in before I throw your ass out the door.
 
Maybe if we knew what it was about the training that he thought was questionable, we could better answer the question? Is it the lack of structured ground school? There's a lot of Pt. 61 schools out there that don't have 'structured' ground school, but that are churning out excellent pilots. I went to ATP, where ground school is at an absolute minimum, but I still wouldn't call thier training questionable.
If it's the flight training that you consider questionable, then there's a problem. There's some schools out there that don't teach you how to fly at all- they teach you how to pass the checkride. Places like that invariably churn out instrument pilots that are afraid to fly an approach in actual (!) and CFI's who don't know how to instruct. See and Avoid, bro.
All the same, I'd still go for the multi time, based on simple arithmetic. If you're only going to get 10% multi, then when you're ATP qualified, you'll only have 150 hours ME. That's bad mojo!
 
Doug Taylor said:
Can someone define "questionable"?
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ques·tion·a·ble ([FONT=verdana, sans-serif] P [/FONT]) Pronunciation Key (kw
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s
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-n
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-b
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adj.
    1. <LI type=a>Open to doubt or challenge; problematic.
    2. Not yet determined or specified.
  2. Of dubious morality or respectability: a questionable reputation.
 
CapnJim said:
I went to ATP, where ground school is at an absolute minimum, but I still wouldn't call thier training questionable...

There's some schools out there that don't teach you how to fly at all- they teach you how to pass the checkride.
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I have a really good friend that instructed at the ATP location in Vegas. I talked to him at length about the way they do things. He was telling me that for the CFI checkrides (CFI, CFI-I, MEI) they practice the "profile" in the sim a few times and then go fly it. That sounds like teaching someone to pass a checkride to me :)!

~wheelsup
 
wheelsup said:
He was telling me that for the CFI checkrides (CFI, CFI-I, MEI) they practice the "profile" in the sim a few times and then go fly it. That sounds like teaching someone to pass a checkride to me :)!
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Sounds like just about every checkride I did at ATP.

Also sounds like my Beech FO ride, my initial CRJ FO ride, and my CA upgrade / ATP / type ride.

Yeah, it's a horrible thing to prep a student for an exam. Knowing the profile doesn't mean a damn thing. You still have to actually pass on your own.
 
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