Despite the initial reluctance by much of the aviation world to welcome a new training and licensing system for today’s airline pilots, the multi-crew pilot licence (MPL) looks as if it will survive its teething troubles and thrive.
But there are definitely teething troubles. Although early assessments of MPL graduates’ performance as airline first officers is generally good, according to feedback received by ICAO, experience at flight training organisations (FTO) suggests that modifications to the new courses will produce better results.
One of the most obvious facts about the early formulation of MPL courses by FTOs in different countries is that there is a considerable variation in the structure of the courses approved by the different national aviation authorities (NAA). But because MPL students are judged according to closely defined performance in every skill they are required to demonstrate – rather than just completing a prescribed series of exercises and taking a final test – theoretically, this does not matter. Nevertheless, the training world would like to identify best practice and work toward greater international commonality in the execution of the practical and academic components of the MPL course.
Simulation and training giant CAE says the main problem leading to differences between the structure of MPL courses in different states is the seemingly irresistible temptation to include existing components from traditional courses. Examples include inserting a requirement to gain a private pilot licence under the old criteria en route to the MPL, and adopting traditional theoretical tests “in lieu of mastery tests”, says CAE. The difference between the two is that theory tests are multiple choice tests of right/wrong propositions, while mastery tests require a demonstration of understanding. CAE also adds that the end-of-course requirement for base training in the actual type the graduates will fly on the line, including 12 take-offs and landings, is costly and puts many airlines off.
CAE
As an example of the potential for perfectly valid differences in the structure of MPL training courses, the UK Civil Aviation Authority points out that, even within its own jurisdiction, “each MPL course that we approve [at an ATO] has a different course footprint". It adds, however, that “as a rough guide” there is a total of about 13h solo training on each of the courses, none of them involve less than 240h of flying and/or time in a flight simulation training device (FSTD), and although there is no specific command time, each student will experience a split of about 50% as pilot flying (PF) and 50% pilot not flying (PNF).
CAE has distilled it down to a single sentence to show the two different objectives of the traditional commercial pilot licence (CPL) course compared with that of the MPL course. The traditional CPL course, says CAE, sets out “to meet the prescribed minimum skill, knowledge and prerequisite exposure times (not experience) needs of… the licence". On the other hand, the MPL objective, according to CAE, is “to meet the identified skill, knowledge, and attitudinal requirements to effectively perform… the job". If the pilot demonstrates he/she can perform all aspects of the job, he/she is awarded a licence.
Back in 2005 when the standards and methodology for the new MPL were defined at ICAO, it was agreed that there would be a validation process involving all the stakeholders that would start once MPL graduates had been working on the line for a year or more after completing their line acceptance checks. Airlines employing the new MPL graduates as working first officers would be required to provide feedback on the fledgling pilots’ progress. This would be backed up with input from individual NAAs that had the task of formulating the parameters for the approved MPL courses in each state, as well as feedback from the FTOs entrusted with training pilots according to this completely new philosophy.
The first milestone in the MPL validation process was ICAO’s MPL Symposium at its Montreal headquarters in December 2013. Presenters from NAAs, airlines, the IATA, the International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Associations (IFALPA), FTOs, flight simulator and aircraft manufacturers all over the world – and from ICAO itself – met to throw their experiences into the ring for the first time.
Operations chief at ICAO, Mitch Fox, reported from the Symposium that ICAO received 15 data sets from MPL programmes in different countries. Without exception, these states imposed a requirement for pre-selection procedures that were coordinated with the sponsoring airlines. Performance evaluators at the approved training organisations (ATO) had to meet performance requirements themselves, and for the theoretical knowledge test, nine of the states required it to be conducted by the NAA, while the remainder allowed the ATO to conduct it.
The feedback provided complete but de-identified data on 586 students who completed their course successfully. The success rate at most ATOs was 100%, with the lowest rate at 98%. All the states believe the MPL concept is a sound one, Fox told the Symposium, and from the data it has reviewed, ICAO believes the concept has shown to be sound. He also remarked that the large variations between MPL training programmes was “to be expected” for competency-based training courses, because demonstrated performance is the only objective, and laying down a prescriptive number of instructional hours is not what it is about.
The general verdict of the Symposium was that many lessons have been learned in the process of turning the written objectives into a viable training syllabus and the system to deliver it. The symposium agreed that, at present, the execution of the new MPL is far from perfect, but apart from the pilots’ associations who still have some definite reservations about the way the MPL is currently delivered, no-one suggested that it could not be made to work as intended. And, says ICAO, those lessons must be shared internationally, and changes made where necessary.
ICAO air navigation commissioner Jim Dow told the symposium that – gradually – best practices will be identified and incorporated into guidance documents like ICAO’s PANS Training. That way, training to prepare aspiring pilots for today’s very different kind of airline piloting tasks will slowly improve and, at the same time, the process will be standardised globally, putting to an end to the pointless differences inherent in the present nationally-based pilot licensing system, whether for the traditional CPL/airline transport pilot licence (ATPL) or the MPL/ATPL.
The delegates to the ICAO symposium learned that the early MPL courses had their weaknesses because of the steep learning curve that FTOs and NAAs had to undergo in applying the new concepts, both in the delivery of instruction and the assessment of student competency levels. Several ATOs in different countries had the same story to tell. CAE reported: “Total training time is continuously moving to an optimised total.” In other words, experience with teaching for MPL is demonstrating how much time most students need to gain the required competencies and to have them measured, rather than how long it takes – in theory – to expose the students to all the syllabus boxes they have to tick before being presented with a CPL handling test.
Transport Canada said: “It has to be recognised that course length and number of training hours are not meaningful criteria to measure the quality or the success of a competency-based training scheme.” Fair enough, but FTOs are finding out that, on average, it takes a certain amount of instructional and practice time for students to be able to acquire and demonstrate the skills they need.
Feedback from all parties indicates that the delivery of MPL training is a more exacting task than delivery of CPL training, because of the higher quality-control outcome standards that are built into the MPL. Instructors on MPL courses have to be more empathetic in delivery, and more skilled in accurate competency assessment and the recording of it. Originally ICAO did not require special training for MPL instructors, but now it has been persuaded by IATA and IFALPA to specify it. And instructor training for MPL delivery is competency-based, not qualification-based, but EASA has nevertheless chosen to require it to be qualification-based.
European Flight Training
MPL is under the microscope in a way that CPL is not. But all the pilot errors or misjudgements that have led to disaster in the past 20 years have been made by pilots who did their basic training under the old system, not the MPL. Many in the industry blame basic – or ab-initio – pilot training for an alleged degradation in skills, but actually FTO-provided ab initio training for CPL/ATPL is much the same as it has always been, so there is a strong argument that the skills degradation issue is all about automation-related loss of skills on the line, and that would imply that any inadequacy lies in recurrent and refresher training.
One of the potentially desirable results of the introduction of performance-based training via MPL will be that the same degree of scrutiny, plus competency-based measurement of performance, will be applied also to the CPL, which has the potential to improve the output quality. This will probably result in training programmes for the two licences converging, with the only remaining difference being that a CPL pilot’s final test is about proving that he/she has the skills to manage an aircraft alone and the MPL pilot is groomed almost from the start in crew resource management, and has to demonstrate teamwork skills as well as flying skills. If the CPL student wants a job on a multi-crew flight deck he/she has to take an additional course in crew cooperation skills just as an MPL pilot would have to prove he/she had solo skills if he/she wanted to take up a single-piloting job in general aviation.
The outcome of the Symposium, as summarised by ICAO's Dow, is that the MPL is a living programme, a work in progress, and that the validation process should continue to enable it to improve and mature. IATA stated that it formally backs MPL implementation. The ICAO Secretariat provided a long list of areas where improvement is required and greater harmonisation between nations and regions in the implementation of the course is desirable. Basic areas that should be kept under review as judged by the student performance outcomes are the ideal ratio of actual flying to FSTD-based instruction, and the need for raw data instrument flying practice.
The message is that MPL is here to stay, but its delivery system needs improvement and so does the traditional CPL. The industry and regulators – but particularly the airlines – have to decide what skills they want future pilots to have, and how these are best delivered and sustained.
Source: Flight International
