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I believe Air France does their flight training completely different from the US. Here we have a healthy civilian flying culture (this really applies to the ame

I believe Air France does their flight training completely different from the US. Here we have a healthy civilian flying culture (this really applies to the americas in general). Lots of stick time with manual controls (vs fly by wire). The French get lots of simulator time and are taught flying is more of an exercise in supervising the flight computer.

markdown 5y ago
For now. The French are just ahead of the curve.
Aperocky 5y ago
> healthy civilian flying culture. I wonder if this is sustainable. The era of affordable general aviation aircraft is over, people are flying 50 year old planes because the new basic cessnas costs $400K each.
- simulate-me 5y ago
  That doesn't seem like that much if split with 4 people over 15 years.
  - throwanem 5y ago
    If four people need fifteen years, or one person needs to be a successful forty- or fifty-year-old neurosurgeon, to afford owning and operating a Cessna 172 - what effect do you think that has on the commercial pilot training funnel?
    - simulate-me 5y ago
      They don't need 15 years because they can get financing and take ownership of the plane for a 20% down payment.
      - ricardobeat 5y ago
        80k downpayment + $2200/month sounds just as inaccessible as a 400k lump sum. That’s before fuel, maintenance, storage and operation costs…
    - vkou 5y ago
      > what effect do you think that has on the commercial pilot training funnel? It'll be fine regardless, there'll be no shortage in the military -> commercial pilot funnel of the most militarized country in the world.
      - throwanem 5y ago
        That's fair. Too, I suppose it's not reasonable to assume we'll remain able to afford widespread civil aviation once we're no longer able to afford the world's most luxurious war machine. In that case, we won't need so many professional pilots anyway.
      - nradov 5y ago
        That has been true, but the military is rapidly drawing down their manned aircraft fleet. I would expect commercial airline pilots to increasingly come from private flight schools in the future. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/units-flying-f-15c-ds-may-get-no-replacement-fighter-at-all-with-f-15ex-cuts https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/units-flying-f-15c-ds-...
        throwanem 5y ago
        These aren't large numbers compared to stuff like transport, for both cargo and airmobile force components. You replace manned combat aircraft with remotely operated ones because you're at the point where that's the next thing you need to do to stay in the race, but that's not a race transport aircraft are running.
        vkou 5y ago
        The overwhelming majority of military aircraft aren't fighter jets, they are transport aircraft - and are also a better proxy for civilian aviation.
        nradov 5y ago
        No the Air Force has far more fighter jets than transport aircraft. https://www.airforcemag.com/article/2021-usaf-ussf-almanac-equipment/ https://www.airforcemag.com/article/2021-usaf-ussf-almanac-e...
    - electroly 5y ago
      I'd guess absolutely no effect at all; I don't think that kurupt213 was trying to suggest that commercial pilots commonly buy planes, and indeed I don't think it's true. I'd guess that the vast majority of commercial pilots have never owned a plane, and that small plane ownership is not at all a part of the commercial pilot training funnel. I actually think this whole subthread mistook "civilian flying culture" to be talking about general aviation when he was talking about commercial airlines (as opposed to the military).
      - throwanem 5y ago
        No, but I think you may have the arrow of time reversed here. The argument in its essence - not that I'm reading GP's mind, nor need to, as the argument is not novel - is that, with access to general aviation as narrow and difficult as it's become in the past five or so decades, commercial pilots will still learn the technical aspects of operating a commercial flight during their airline-provided training, but rarely have much opportunity to learn how to fly, that is, to develop the intuitive understanding of aerodynamics and aircraft behavior that can enable a pilot to react correctly and without excess need for thought in situations and circumstances where that can make the difference between life and death for everyone aboard their aircraft. Whether or not I fully buy the argument, I don't suppose I know. I do know that a lifetime of reading, study, and home simulation taken together taught me less about what an airplane does when it's flying than did one fifteen-minute discovery flight in a Piper Archer. It's different for professionals than for an aviation-nerd amateur, of course. But I see no reason in principle to assume there aren't things you only really learn from spending enough time flying a plane too small and simple to lie to you, and every reason from experience to assume that there are. (Having just seen your edit, I'm no longer sure this qualifies as a response on point, but I'm going to let it stand and finish my supper.)
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > If four people need fifteen years, or one person needs to be a successful forty- or fifty-year-old neurosurgeon, to afford owning and operating a Cessna 172 - what effect do you think that has on the commercial pilot training funnel? Little, because you don't have to own a plane to fly it; the commercial pilot funnel comes through private flight schools and military aviation (over time shifting from the former from the latter), not mainly from I-bought-a-plane-with-cash non-commercial private pilots.
      - throwanem 5y ago
        Yeah, but do I learn more from a program of study at a private flight school, or from that plus having grown up flying the plane my folks bought when I was five, because it was that or a speedboat and Mom doesn't trust the water? Not that this is me - if nothing else, you probably can't get my mom into an aircraft even at gunpoint - but it is more like the question that wants to be considered here.
        nradov 5y ago
        I'm not sure what you're asking? There are a few commercial airline pilots whose parents owned airplanes, but those are rare. Most got their required flight hours either in the military, or by training in private flight schools and then working as flight instructors themselves.
        d110af5ccf 5y ago
        > training in private flight schools and then working as flight instructors themselves Who attends those private flight schools? Unaffordable aircraft obviously won't improve things and seem quite likely to make things worse.
        throwanem 5y ago
        I believe the "bootcamp followed by effective indenture" model has been widely favored among the regional airlines that act as feeders for the big players, dating back well before the software industry first happened upon it. If I recall correctly, Patrick "Ask the Pilot" Smith has had some things to say based on his own experience here. In any case, whether or not that model is actively used today, I would be entirely unsurprised to see it spread widely in the next couple of decades, and maybe not only in the airline industry.
    - JimtheCoder 5y ago
      https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-23/u-s-airline-pilot-shortage-crimping-summer-route-ramp-up-plans https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-23/u-s-airli...
  - Aperocky 5y ago
    But the point of general aviation is that it should be affordable as a personal hobby for a significant amount of people. tbh, I've actually considered owning a plane but dropped the idea entirely after realizing the only really affordable option is 50 years old and I don't really want to fly something that old.
    - simulate-me 5y ago
      I see a listing here for a 50% ownership stake in a 2005 Cessna 182T Skylane for $180k. Financing is available for 20% down. With financing, the listed monthly price is < $2k. That seems somewhat reasonable to me. https://www.controller.com/listing/for-fractional-ownership/210143549/2005-cessna-182t-skylane-piston-single-aircraft https://www.controller.com/listing/for-fractional-ownership/...
      - dahfizz 5y ago
        This is a real HN comment. $2k a month for a hobby (before gas, garage, fees, ??) is nothing but a dream for most people.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        jeromegv 5y ago
        Yes but where is that idea coming from that flying needs to be cheap enough to be a hobby?
        na85 5y ago
        I think the point is that it used to be much more affordable than it is today, and GA is quickly becoming the exclusive domain of the 1%.
      - nilsbunger 5y ago
        That's not even the dominant cost -- the running costs are ~$150-200 per hour in addition. That covers fuel, maintenance, inspections, parking, insurance, prop overhauls, and accruing for an engine replacement every 2,000 hours.
- voldacar 5y ago
  >people are flying 50 year old planes because the new basic cessnas cost $400K each This wasn't always the case though. There's a chapter in the book Where is My Flying Car? that explains how this was a result of the early 70s explosion of product liability regulations + a FAA that was and continues to be completely apathetic to general aviation
- thetinguy 5y ago
  Most people that want a new aircraft for GA for less than 6 figures are kit building them. Also there’s the “sport” flying market and ultra-light market as well.
  - ddoolin 5y ago
    Building a kit airplane is probably not going to save you any money when you consider the space, time, and skill needed.
- AdamN 5y ago
  That's the same price as new 40' boat - which seems about right.
  - Aperocky 5y ago
    Yes, but if you can't afford a 40' boat you can always go with a 15' one, or a skipper with cost on par of a large vehicle. Jetskis are even cheaper.
KarlKemp 5y ago
Yeah, that’s the stereotype of the fighter jock or, as someone on HN once put it, „fixed-wing enthusiast“. A man (always), flying with enthusiasm, intuition, not too much alcohol, direct controls etc. It’s bullshit, of course. The archetype, if it ever existed, has been in decline since 1945 at the latest. Within that time, miles traveled have increased 15-fold, accidents have been reduced by 95 % (for a combined risk reduction of factor 300) while costs have come down by 80 %. The adrenaline junkie will get bored and kill everyone with carelessness or controlled-flight-into-terrain. Because the total number of exciting situation in your 30 year career is, to a near approximation, zero. A good pilot today is a bureaucrat, meticulously running through checklists day after day. There was at some point a philosophical split between Airbus and Boeing, the former going for fly-by-wire including automatic modification of pilot inputs etc., while Boeing was culturally invested that archetype of a pilot and preferring more direct controls. The outcome: no discernible difference in the safety records of these supposedly different approaches. Pilots from very different backgrounds? No difference. What matters for safety isn’t character, it’s process. And that’s great because processes scale, natural-born aviators don’t.
- nradov 5y ago
  Newer Boeing models including the 777 are also fly-by-wire.
bartvk 5y ago
> I believe Air France does their flight training completely different from the US Why do you believe so? Honest question.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
prmoustache 5y ago
No idea how true this can be. I know only one airfrance pilot but he did regular civilian flying school and flied for the french Army before applying for Air France training. Memory is blurry but I think at the time he needed some creds from previous flying experience to apply.
jimnotgym 5y ago
Hang on a second, are you suggesting that you can get a commercial licence in Europe by flying simulators? I don't know about France (but Europe tends to be aligned), but a basic commercial license in the UK requires 200 hours of flying experience. On top of that you would need a multi-crew rating, an instrument rating a multi-engine rating and a type rating on the plane you are going to fly. Enough to recognise that pushing the yoke left makes the plane bank left. My brother wanted to be a pilot and was looking at moving to the US because it is cheaper and has more consistent weather. He also told me the licences were easier to get than in Europe. I think you have fallen into the 'US is best trap'
- GuB-42 4y ago
  Indeed, to get a license in France, you actually need to fly, but I still think US pilots are among the best, but that's because the US has a stronger aviation culture. AFAIK, a typical path for a pilot in the US is to start taking lessons in a small plane, then, after getting the private license, make money flying, typically as a flight instructor, in order to pay for flight hours in bigger planes. The result is a lot of flight hours as a pilot in command. Hours as a flight instructor are particularly important because you have to cover for your student mistakes. In countries with a weaker aviation culture future pilots tend to go to flight schools where they do the required number of hours and pass the tests but nothing more. There is simply not enough demand for general aviation flight instructors. The number of flight hours may be significant and the tests hard, but they fly mostly as students, not as pilots in command. So while they may know the technique and procedures, they lack the experience of being in charge of the plane. I'd say that France is not the worst in that regard, we have many "aeroclubs", but not as good as the US.
  - jimnotgym 4y ago
    This is utter nonsense. In the US you can't become a flight instructor with a private pilots licence. You have to pass your commercial licence first. Just like in Europe. You have to do at least 100 of your hours as pilot in command in the UK to get your commercial license. You will have to finish that before you can be an instructor. You can't make money from flying until you have finished your commercial licence. To be an airline pilot you will need to have flown 1500hours in Europe or the US. Nobody gets there because of culture, they get there by flying 1500 hours The US has better flying weather so you can build his more quickly, is cheaper and because there are more trainees there are more opportunities to build hours at someone else's expense. But cheaper does not mean better.
traceroute66 5y ago
> I believe Air France does their flight training completely different from the US. Lots of stick time with manual controls (vs fly by wire). I'm sorry, but I call BS on what you are implying here. First, post 9/11, most European airlines killed off their Ab-Initio programmes. Therefore for most European airlines, the only route to getting a seat in the pointy end is the so-called "Direct Entry" route. This either requires pre-existing civilian qualifications and experience (i.e. unfrozen ATPL with real-life hours in the bag), or otherwise being ex-military with equivalent qualifications and experience in that world. For the few airlines that do offer Ab-Initio, then I'm afraid it's complete BS if you think ab-initio trainees for any European airline just get dumped in a simulator and trained how to follow the magenta line. They will follow the same route as anyone else, i.e. they will be sent off to the US or Australia (because of the consistent weather, not anything else) and will work their way through the usual route SEP -> MEP -> Hours building .... they will then come back to Europe and finish off by getting an EU license. Only once they've got their commercial qualifications and have built experience will they then start Line Training which is where things like MCC come in, and that's where sim time starts coming in. Simulators are expensive to run, even more expensive to buy, and there are not many of them around. They typically run 24x7 and are used for refreshers for existing crew as well as training new ones. To think there's enough spare capacity floating around to train green newbies from zero is a pipe dream. Finally, on a practical note the newbie in the right seat will always be paired with a more experienced captain in the left seat. You will never find two noobs up front.
- kurupt213 4y ago
  what i wrote was the reasoning given for the Air France Brasil to Paris flight. You remember, when they stalled a perfectly good AirBus 350 and dropped it from cruising altitude into the Atlantic.

markdown 5y ago

For now. The French are just ahead of the curve.

Aperocky 5y ago

> healthy civilian flying culture. I wonder if this is sustainable. The era of affordable general aviation aircraft is over, people are flying 50 year old planes because the new basic cessnas costs $400K each.

simulate-me 5y ago
That doesn't seem like that much if split with 4 people over 15 years.
- throwanem 5y ago
  If four people need fifteen years, or one person needs to be a successful forty- or fifty-year-old neurosurgeon, to afford owning and operating a Cessna 172 - what effect do you think that has on the commercial pilot training funnel?
  - simulate-me 5y ago
    They don't need 15 years because they can get financing and take ownership of the plane for a 20% down payment.
    - ricardobeat 5y ago
      80k downpayment + $2200/month sounds just as inaccessible as a 400k lump sum. That’s before fuel, maintenance, storage and operation costs…
  - vkou 5y ago
    > what effect do you think that has on the commercial pilot training funnel? It'll be fine regardless, there'll be no shortage in the military -> commercial pilot funnel of the most militarized country in the world.
    - throwanem 5y ago
      That's fair. Too, I suppose it's not reasonable to assume we'll remain able to afford widespread civil aviation once we're no longer able to afford the world's most luxurious war machine. In that case, we won't need so many professional pilots anyway.
    - nradov 5y ago
      That has been true, but the military is rapidly drawing down their manned aircraft fleet. I would expect commercial airline pilots to increasingly come from private flight schools in the future. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/units-flying-f-15c-ds-may-get-no-replacement-fighter-at-all-with-f-15ex-cuts https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/units-flying-f-15c-ds-...
      - throwanem 5y ago
        These aren't large numbers compared to stuff like transport, for both cargo and airmobile force components. You replace manned combat aircraft with remotely operated ones because you're at the point where that's the next thing you need to do to stay in the race, but that's not a race transport aircraft are running.
      - vkou 5y ago
        The overwhelming majority of military aircraft aren't fighter jets, they are transport aircraft - and are also a better proxy for civilian aviation.
        nradov 5y ago
        No the Air Force has far more fighter jets than transport aircraft. https://www.airforcemag.com/article/2021-usaf-ussf-almanac-equipment/ https://www.airforcemag.com/article/2021-usaf-ussf-almanac-e...
  - electroly 5y ago
    I'd guess absolutely no effect at all; I don't think that kurupt213 was trying to suggest that commercial pilots commonly buy planes, and indeed I don't think it's true. I'd guess that the vast majority of commercial pilots have never owned a plane, and that small plane ownership is not at all a part of the commercial pilot training funnel. I actually think this whole subthread mistook "civilian flying culture" to be talking about general aviation when he was talking about commercial airlines (as opposed to the military).
    - throwanem 5y ago
      No, but I think you may have the arrow of time reversed here. The argument in its essence - not that I'm reading GP's mind, nor need to, as the argument is not novel - is that, with access to general aviation as narrow and difficult as it's become in the past five or so decades, commercial pilots will still learn the technical aspects of operating a commercial flight during their airline-provided training, but rarely have much opportunity to learn how to fly, that is, to develop the intuitive understanding of aerodynamics and aircraft behavior that can enable a pilot to react correctly and without excess need for thought in situations and circumstances where that can make the difference between life and death for everyone aboard their aircraft. Whether or not I fully buy the argument, I don't suppose I know. I do know that a lifetime of reading, study, and home simulation taken together taught me less about what an airplane does when it's flying than did one fifteen-minute discovery flight in a Piper Archer. It's different for professionals than for an aviation-nerd amateur, of course. But I see no reason in principle to assume there aren't things you only really learn from spending enough time flying a plane too small and simple to lie to you, and every reason from experience to assume that there are. (Having just seen your edit, I'm no longer sure this qualifies as a response on point, but I'm going to let it stand and finish my supper.)
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > If four people need fifteen years, or one person needs to be a successful forty- or fifty-year-old neurosurgeon, to afford owning and operating a Cessna 172 - what effect do you think that has on the commercial pilot training funnel? Little, because you don't have to own a plane to fly it; the commercial pilot funnel comes through private flight schools and military aviation (over time shifting from the former from the latter), not mainly from I-bought-a-plane-with-cash non-commercial private pilots.
    - throwanem 5y ago
      Yeah, but do I learn more from a program of study at a private flight school, or from that plus having grown up flying the plane my folks bought when I was five, because it was that or a speedboat and Mom doesn't trust the water? Not that this is me - if nothing else, you probably can't get my mom into an aircraft even at gunpoint - but it is more like the question that wants to be considered here.
      - nradov 5y ago
        I'm not sure what you're asking? There are a few commercial airline pilots whose parents owned airplanes, but those are rare. Most got their required flight hours either in the military, or by training in private flight schools and then working as flight instructors themselves.
        d110af5ccf 5y ago
        > training in private flight schools and then working as flight instructors themselves Who attends those private flight schools? Unaffordable aircraft obviously won't improve things and seem quite likely to make things worse.
        throwanem 5y ago
        I believe the "bootcamp followed by effective indenture" model has been widely favored among the regional airlines that act as feeders for the big players, dating back well before the software industry first happened upon it. If I recall correctly, Patrick "Ask the Pilot" Smith has had some things to say based on his own experience here. In any case, whether or not that model is actively used today, I would be entirely unsurprised to see it spread widely in the next couple of decades, and maybe not only in the airline industry.
  - JimtheCoder 5y ago
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-23/u-s-airline-pilot-shortage-crimping-summer-route-ramp-up-plans https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-23/u-s-airli...
- Aperocky 5y ago
  But the point of general aviation is that it should be affordable as a personal hobby for a significant amount of people. tbh, I've actually considered owning a plane but dropped the idea entirely after realizing the only really affordable option is 50 years old and I don't really want to fly something that old.
  - simulate-me 5y ago
    I see a listing here for a 50% ownership stake in a 2005 Cessna 182T Skylane for $180k. Financing is available for 20% down. With financing, the listed monthly price is < $2k. That seems somewhat reasonable to me. https://www.controller.com/listing/for-fractional-ownership/210143549/2005-cessna-182t-skylane-piston-single-aircraft https://www.controller.com/listing/for-fractional-ownership/...
    - dahfizz 5y ago
      This is a real HN comment. $2k a month for a hobby (before gas, garage, fees, ??) is nothing but a dream for most people.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - jeromegv 5y ago
        Yes but where is that idea coming from that flying needs to be cheap enough to be a hobby?
        na85 5y ago
        I think the point is that it used to be much more affordable than it is today, and GA is quickly becoming the exclusive domain of the 1%.
    - nilsbunger 5y ago
      That's not even the dominant cost -- the running costs are ~$150-200 per hour in addition. That covers fuel, maintenance, inspections, parking, insurance, prop overhauls, and accruing for an engine replacement every 2,000 hours.
voldacar 5y ago
>people are flying 50 year old planes because the new basic cessnas cost $400K each This wasn't always the case though. There's a chapter in the book Where is My Flying Car? that explains how this was a result of the early 70s explosion of product liability regulations + a FAA that was and continues to be completely apathetic to general aviation
thetinguy 5y ago
Most people that want a new aircraft for GA for less than 6 figures are kit building them. Also there’s the “sport” flying market and ultra-light market as well.
- ddoolin 5y ago
  Building a kit airplane is probably not going to save you any money when you consider the space, time, and skill needed.
AdamN 5y ago
That's the same price as new 40' boat - which seems about right.
- Aperocky 5y ago
  Yes, but if you can't afford a 40' boat you can always go with a 15' one, or a skipper with cost on par of a large vehicle. Jetskis are even cheaper.

KarlKemp 5y ago

Yeah, that’s the stereotype of the fighter jock or, as someone on HN once put it, „fixed-wing enthusiast“. A man (always), flying with enthusiasm, intuition, not too much alcohol, direct controls etc. It’s bullshit, of course. The archetype, if it ever existed, has been in decline since 1945 at the latest. Within that time, miles traveled have increased 15-fold, accidents have been reduced by 95 % (for a combined risk reduction of factor 300) while costs have come down by 80 %. The adrenaline junkie will get bored and kill everyone with carelessness or controlled-flight-into-terrain. Because the total number of exciting situation in your 30 year career is, to a near approximation, zero. A good pilot today is a bureaucrat, meticulously running through checklists day after day. There was at some point a philosophical split between Airbus and Boeing, the former going for fly-by-wire including automatic modification of pilot inputs etc., while Boeing was culturally invested that archetype of a pilot and preferring more direct controls. The outcome: no discernible difference in the safety records of these supposedly different approaches. Pilots from very different backgrounds? No difference. What matters for safety isn’t character, it’s process. And that’s great because processes scale, natural-born aviators don’t.

nradov 5y ago
Newer Boeing models including the 777 are also fly-by-wire.

bartvk 5y ago

> I believe Air France does their flight training completely different from the US Why do you believe so? Honest question.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

prmoustache 5y ago

No idea how true this can be. I know only one airfrance pilot but he did regular civilian flying school and flied for the french Army before applying for Air France training. Memory is blurry but I think at the time he needed some creds from previous flying experience to apply.

jimnotgym 5y ago

Hang on a second, are you suggesting that you can get a commercial licence in Europe by flying simulators? I don't know about France (but Europe tends to be aligned), but a basic commercial license in the UK requires 200 hours of flying experience. On top of that you would need a multi-crew rating, an instrument rating a multi-engine rating and a type rating on the plane you are going to fly. Enough to recognise that pushing the yoke left makes the plane bank left. My brother wanted to be a pilot and was looking at moving to the US because it is cheaper and has more consistent weather. He also told me the licences were easier to get than in Europe. I think you have fallen into the 'US is best trap'

GuB-42 4y ago
Indeed, to get a license in France, you actually need to fly, but I still think US pilots are among the best, but that's because the US has a stronger aviation culture. AFAIK, a typical path for a pilot in the US is to start taking lessons in a small plane, then, after getting the private license, make money flying, typically as a flight instructor, in order to pay for flight hours in bigger planes. The result is a lot of flight hours as a pilot in command. Hours as a flight instructor are particularly important because you have to cover for your student mistakes. In countries with a weaker aviation culture future pilots tend to go to flight schools where they do the required number of hours and pass the tests but nothing more. There is simply not enough demand for general aviation flight instructors. The number of flight hours may be significant and the tests hard, but they fly mostly as students, not as pilots in command. So while they may know the technique and procedures, they lack the experience of being in charge of the plane. I'd say that France is not the worst in that regard, we have many "aeroclubs", but not as good as the US.
- jimnotgym 4y ago
  This is utter nonsense. In the US you can't become a flight instructor with a private pilots licence. You have to pass your commercial licence first. Just like in Europe. You have to do at least 100 of your hours as pilot in command in the UK to get your commercial license. You will have to finish that before you can be an instructor. You can't make money from flying until you have finished your commercial licence. To be an airline pilot you will need to have flown 1500hours in Europe or the US. Nobody gets there because of culture, they get there by flying 1500 hours The US has better flying weather so you can build his more quickly, is cheaper and because there are more trainees there are more opportunities to build hours at someone else's expense. But cheaper does not mean better.

traceroute66 5y ago

> I believe Air France does their flight training completely different from the US. Lots of stick time with manual controls (vs fly by wire). I'm sorry, but I call BS on what you are implying here. First, post 9/11, most European airlines killed off their Ab-Initio programmes. Therefore for most European airlines, the only route to getting a seat in the pointy end is the so-called "Direct Entry" route. This either requires pre-existing civilian qualifications and experience (i.e. unfrozen ATPL with real-life hours in the bag), or otherwise being ex-military with equivalent qualifications and experience in that world. For the few airlines that do offer Ab-Initio, then I'm afraid it's complete BS if you think ab-initio trainees for any European airline just get dumped in a simulator and trained how to follow the magenta line. They will follow the same route as anyone else, i.e. they will be sent off to the US or Australia (because of the consistent weather, not anything else) and will work their way through the usual route SEP -> MEP -> Hours building .... they will then come back to Europe and finish off by getting an EU license. Only once they've got their commercial qualifications and have built experience will they then start Line Training which is where things like MCC come in, and that's where sim time starts coming in. Simulators are expensive to run, even more expensive to buy, and there are not many of them around. They typically run 24x7 and are used for refreshers for existing crew as well as training new ones. To think there's enough spare capacity floating around to train green newbies from zero is a pipe dream. Finally, on a practical note the newbie in the right seat will always be paired with a more experienced captain in the left seat. You will never find two noobs up front.

kurupt213 4y ago
what i wrote was the reasoning given for the Air France Brasil to Paris flight. You remember, when they stalled a perfectly good AirBus 350 and dropped it from cruising altitude into the Atlantic.