Would you be kind enough to summarize the process you went through when you undertook command training? I imagine some of it would’ve been rather unpleasant.
Historically, getting to a command slot in QF is a fairly slow trip, with the average probably being in the order of 20 years. I was fortunate enough to join when the 767s had just been purchased, and there was a lot of training happening. Once they'd burnt through the people who had been there waiting for 15-20 years, the wait time started to reduce dramatically, with it reaching 7 years at the shortest. Of that 7 years, some would have been as an SO, so basically they were getting to people who had been in the right hand seat of a large jet for only 3-4 years.
If you fly these aircraft, in any seat, for a long time, you learn a lot from what amounts to osmosis. You may not have been in charge, but you've seen just about everything. You will have also seen a lot of what seemed like good ideas go bad...and a lot of both good and bad decisions. That should have shaped your own thinking, with the result that your own decisions should be pretty much within a predictable 'ballpark'. Flying wise, you need to change seats, but that isn't a large hurdle. So, the training was about 20 sims, to get you converted to the left seat, and up to speed on those things that the FOs don't do, and then about 20 sectors to show that you could do it in the real world. The training was mostly polishing what was expected to be almost up to the standard anyway.
But, with the advent of the short term people the failure rate initially went up dramatically. This was compounded by the fact that most people were simultaneously converting from the 747 Classic to the 767 (which can be an unforgiving aircraft), and doing command training at the same time. As the bar to pass was not going to be lowered, they did the opposite, and raised the bar to getting onto the course in the first place. In large part, this had the desired effect...those who were going to pass anyway were allowed to start, whilst others were given more time for the osmosis to take effect.
Whilst our captains do operate to different limits than the FOs, there's not much between them in the flying requirements. Someone who flies well as an FO will have no trouble with the flying. But, the biggest issue has always been that of decision making. Some people will always have issues when the buck stops with them. Chief Pilots want people who will make predictable and sensible decisions. If your decisions come from left field, you're going to leave them scratching their heads. The upshot of that is that whilst the sim exercises with cover all of the flying items, they are also strongly biased towards exercises working on the decision making skills. The line flying is just that...you deal with whatever you're handed. Everyone is handed a book at the start of training, which lists a hundred or so discussion items. All will have to be signed of by the end of the sectors.
During the course, you'll spend your time in the books, basically trying to absorb everything. I'm told by someone who has done both the flying and medical training that it's about the same intensity...though only for 6 months per course, not the 6 years or so of medicine.
