Topic: Seneca College Pilot Program ( CEOTP )

[Good2Golf]

From my experience as a civilian flight instructor I can state that this is not correct.  I've seen a number of people who just could not learn to fly an aircraft.  I've seen an even greater number that could figure out how to fly an aircraft, but only during daylight and good weather and God help them if they had system failure.  Not everyone can be a professional pilot.

So the same as drivers on the road?

Cheers
G2G

[Journeyman]

I've seen a number of people who just could not learn to fly an aircraft.

They probably could if they went to Seneca; apparently those folks are awesome.   



Since we've obviously given up any pretense of discussing RMC regulations and leadership, in favour of Pilot Personality Disorder.

[MAJONES]

As much as I would like to discuss pilot training and Seneca, that is a bit off topic for this thread.

[Journeyman]

As much as I would like to discuss pilot training and Seneca, that is a bit off topic for this thread.

Gee, ya think?

[Oldgateboatdriver]

To get back to the difference between Seneca graduates and MilCol graduates, however, Isn't it fair to say that, unless they pick up a Bachelor's degree along the way, you won't find too many Seneca graduate pilots above the rank of Major?

I suppose that's OK, because the RCAF probably expects that the Seneca graduate will do their 20 years then go fly for Air Canada or Westjet 

And Journeyman, when did you acquire a copy of my picture  

[Pusser]

The problem with every Tom, Dick and Harry having the opportunity to jump in front of the camera is that many of them are misinformed, uninformed, or just have an axe to grind. Think of the membership on this board. If we take a cross section of board membership and give them media privileges - do you think accurate information is going to get out? Or will it be contradictory, poorly researched, or possibly even inflammatory?

In the CFNIS, we deal with sensitive often serious cases. Often, media lines need to be drafted and the PAO in consultation with the case manager is the vetting authority for those lines. Would I want every MP with access to the information to be able to speak to it in front of the camera? Absolutely not. Often they aren't privy to all the available information in order to make an informed opinion. As I've seen here, too many people have an axe to grind and come out swinging without all the information, or choose to release selective information in order to influence opinion.

If the OCdts are truly unable to effect change - to whit - jeans, in their institution, and they feel they need to use the media as a cudgel, I would suggest they instead take their release and give themselves the privilege of wearing jeans all day, everyday.

Excellent points.  The CAF has nothing to hide when speaking to the media, but we really do need to keep media relations on a profession vice Trumpian level.

[BurmaShave]

To get back to the difference between Seneca graduates and MilCol graduates, however, Isn't it fair to say that, unless they pick up a Bachelor's degree along the way, you won't find too many Seneca graduate pilots above the rank of Major?

I suppose that's OK, because the RCAF probably expects that the Seneca graduate will do their 20 years then go fly for Air Canada or Westjet 

And Journeyman, when did you acquire a copy of my picture

Seneca pilots finish with a Bachelor's. A made up one, but you can still do a master's with it.

We're certainly less steeped in (edit: formal) discipline and leadership than the RMC guys (but so are the DEOs), and you won't find us on punishment parades for wearing jeans.

[meni0n]

Seneca pilots finish with a Bachelor's. A made up one, but you can still do a master's with it.

We're certainly less steeped in discipline and leadership than the RMC guys (but so are the DEOs), and you won't find us on punishment parades for wearing jeans.

That's because you can wear whatever you want on your time off?

Sent from my LG-H873 using Tapatalk

[MAJONES]

We're certainly less steeped in discipline and leadership than the RMC guys (but so are the DEOs),

I'm going to simply state that your statement does not mesh well with the reality that I have observed.

[BurmaShave]

Given the interest and confusion on the Seneca program in the RMC Jeans Debacle thread, I figured I'd summarize what I know over here.

Fair warning, I'm a 1st Year, and a 2Lt. My knowledge, experience, and seniority are all heavily limited.

• What is the Seneca Program?
  
  The Seneca Program, also at various times known as the CEOTP-Pilot or AEAD (air environment affiliated degree) program is a 4 year combined school and flying program, designed to produce winged, degreed captains in 4 years vs. the normal 7. It combines 5 semesters of dumbed-down engineering courses with 3 Phases of flight training (delivered by the RCAF). It operates in parallel to the civilian FPR program at Seneca for the first year -classes are mixed civilian and military- but diverges after that point.
  
  
• Entry into the Seneca Program:
  
  Entry into the program requires a high school degree, minimum 65% across the board. There are specific courses that you must have taken in high school; once you remind a recruiter of the program's existence, they should be able to look them up. Passing the CFAT and ACS is required, and exempts you from writing the Seneca entrance exam.
  
  
• Year 1:
  
  This program (ideally) begins in January of the year you enroll, and finishes in December 4 years later. Your first year, you will do basic training and be commissioned as a 2Lt, then proceed on Phase I flight training in Portage in the summer. After completion of Ph I, you'll be posted to Toronto and start school in September with all the civilian students. Any spare time (ie if you do basic earlier) you will be sent on OJT, preferably near where you live.
  
  When you get to Toronto, you'll be strongly encouraged to live in residence. Res is expensive, and there is not a proper cafeteria, but the 2Lt. pay covers it quite nicely; books and tuition are paid by the military. Seneca insists that the Aviation program be uniformed to maintain a professional appearance. For military, this means 3Bs Monday and Tuesday, and flight suits the other 3 days (it was originally 3Bs 4 days a week, but people kept thinking we were bus drivers).
  
  This program is pre-planned, there are no electives. Classes will include Calculus, Statics, Chemistry, and a basic French course. The quality of instruction is considerably lower than a proper university, and you will pass half your courses despite your profs, not because of them. Keep in mind, a pass in this program is 65%. About 1/3rd of the civilians will fail to meet this and go home; traditionally no military students fail.
  
  Another perk of the Seneca program (the best perk for me right now) is sim time. There is a B200 King Air simulator at the college, in the basement. It's a fixed-base, surround screen setup with a fully modeled cockpit. You will have free access to this throughout your time at the school (indeed, you will be required to do at least 1 hour per week), and you will also get 1 hour instruction a month from John and Adam, a pair of (downright excellent) Transat pilots. Conveniently, the King Air flies at effectively the same speeds as the Harvard, so it's fantastic practice. Seneca students start Ph II with 50 sim hours, which is huge when you've only got 20 hours from Ph I. You'll also have at least a foundation in IFR, radio chaos, terrible crosswinds, and just general "flying twice as fast"
  
  
• Year 2:
  
  Year 2 begins with the winter semester, which builds on the material learned in the Fall. It's more difficult, but not substantially more so. This will get you to April, at which point the civvies head to Peterborough to fly Cessnas, and you go to Moose Jaw for Phase II. Before you can do Ph II, you need to complete AMT (folks who started basic before January already had time for this). This is a 2 day course in Winnipeg, and includes cheesy videos of things burning, sensory illusions, and fun with hypoxia. This marks the end of what I'm qualified to comment on in detail right now. After AMT, Phase II starts in June, and runs till February.
  
  
• Year 3:
  
  At the beginning of Year 3, you'll be completing Ph II in Moose Jaw. At the end of Phase II, students are streamed 3 ways: Jets, Helo, and Multi. Before Phase III, everyone has to complete Land Survival and Sea Survival. All students then proceed on Ph III; Jets remain in Moose Jaw, Helo and Multi return to Portage. The Multi and Jets Ph IIIs are shorter (and ironically the jets one doesn't involve jets), while the Helo one is quite long. Upon completing your Ph III, you'll get your wings. Depending on timings, there may be time for follow-on courses (ie the Hawk conversion course), but you need to be done by December, for return to Seneca.
  
  
• Year 4:
  
  It's now Year 4 (2022 if you start in 2019), and you're all reunited at Seneca in January, ready to resume academics. The civs are nowhere to be found (they're still in Peterborough), and the classes are less demanding, relatively, than 1st year. By all accounts from the departing senior course, it's a victory lap. Year 4 is made of 3 semesters, done back-to-back-to-back. At the end of these 3 semesters, it is December, and you're graduating, ready to proceed to operational flying. 4 years for a degree and wings.
  
  
• Outcomes:
  
  This has to be one of the most heavily speculated things about the Seneca program: will it put a damper on your career advancement? The honest answer is "check back in a decade". Seneca graduates have just reached operational flying in the past two years, so there's no data. We're told that the program grants a bachelor's degree, and so it won't hold us back, but no-one knows. Give it 20 years, and we'll see if any graduates have made LCol.
  
  Certainly, it doesn't have SLT integrated with it. If you're after bilingualism, you'll have to do SLT after you're operational, or find some other means of exposure.
  
  The one outcome we do know, however, is Phase II performance. The majority of the preceding courses got the stream they wanted, and they generally outscored their peers. I can't say what drives that, but I'd wager the sim is instrumental.

This is just a rough summary of the program, E&OE. I'll try and update it as I see more.

[BurmaShave]

Let me rephrase that: we don't spend 4 years with RMC-esque restrictions, nor do we have the same structure. No obstacle courses, parade, drill competitions, or special uniforms. No FYOps, and no rings.

There's nothing in this program designed around "producing leadership" explicitly.

However, I was just referring to formal education. All the Seneca groups I've seen have been pretty switched on, while the RMC guys have had a certain reputation preceeding them. In Portage there were a few discipline issues that confirmed that reputation.

[Simian Turner]

**edit -someone beat me to it

I think you’re ill informed. Seneca occurs under the CEOTP entry. The deal is you go to basic as an OCDT and get commissioned as 2lt upon completion of basic. Then you do PFT. Then you do 1 year subsidized training at Seneca as a 2LT. Then you do more pilot training and then back to Seneca.

The time at Seneca is full salary as a 2LT.  It is pensionable and you can network with all the other pilots at Seneca.  It is a very quick way to become a qualified captain pilot. much sooner than an RMC pilot.

These Seneca guys are going to be the next generation of RCAF leaders. If you want to be a pilot Seneca is the way to go. 

From the RCAF website:

http://www.rcaf-arc.forces.gc.ca/en/article-template-standard.page?doc=rcaf-and-seneca-college-accelerate-military-pilot-training/hrhjdzop

You folks make it sound so easy, I think you need to look at the failure rate for pilot training, just because you enter via the RMC or Seneca programs does not mean you will ever fly an operational mission in a CAF aircraft.  I have been surrounded by pilot-training failures as an Artillery Officer and a Health Care Administrator.

[Good2Golf]

BurmaShave, thanks - great info!  If the cross-section of Seneca mil students is reasonably similar to general human personality distributions, there will likely be a solid core-cadre goo at what they  do, a smaller group who also inherently have potential to be great leaders a well (and should be able to do so if enabled with applicable means along the progression of their careers), and of course, some folks who may inherently 'align less with the institution' than the other folks.  As you noted, (a fair bit of) time will tell how the Seneca stream fits into the career progression path.  Even today, there is a notably non-homogenous blend of degreed officers, comprising ROTP (Military College(s) [3 of them, in fact]), ROTP CivU, DEO, OCTP, CEOTP, CFR, BMAS, etc., so I am wary of anyone who throws out 'ROTP has better potential to lead than a DEO/CEOTP'...as there would be at least three separate Mil Cols and many CivUs from which an 'ROTP' officer could have come.

Cheers,
G2G

[winnipegoo7]

You folks make it sound so easy, I think you need to look at the failure rate for pilot training, just because you enter via the RMC or Seneca programs does not mean you will ever fly an operational mission in a CAF aircraft.  I have been surrounded by pilot-training failures as an Artillery Officer and a Health Care Administrator.

I don't see what your point is? That some people aren't successful in their training?

Also, would you please tell me the current pilot training failure rate? Because, my understanding is that it has been greatly reduced, but perhaps I'm wrong?

[MAJONES]

Also, would you please tell me the current pilot training failure rate? Because, my understanding is that it has been greatly reduced, but perhaps I'm wrong?

About 30 percent.

[Simian Turner]

I don't see what your point is? That some people aren't successful in their training?

Also, would you please tell me the current pilot training failure rate? Because, my understanding is that it has been greatly reduced, but perhaps I'm wrong?

My point is just because you enroll at RMC or Seneca does not mean you will ever fly an operational mission.  I work with folks who spent several years as 2Lt/OCdts due to injuries which lead to a change in their medical categories.  It took some time to sort out the what next.  So on top of the 30% failure rate add a few more % for re-classifications.

[Loachman]

About 30 percent.

Through the whole process, or per stage?

[winnipegoo7]

My point is just because you enroll at RMC or Seneca does not mean you will ever fly an operational mission.  I work with folks who spent several years as 2Lt/OCdts due to injuries which lead to a change in their medical categories.  It took some time to sort out the what next.  So on top of the 30% failure rate add a few more % for re-classifications.

And what does that have to do with my explanation of how the Seneca program works?

[Downhiller229]

Through the whole process, or per stage?

It's almost impossible to drop people once they are in the NFTC program. Anecdotally I would say 2 max 3 people get cease trained in ph 2 per year. Thats out of 8 courses of 16 on average.

Ph3 Harvard and multi have basically nonexistent fail rates. I heard the helo ph3 has a bit higher rate. 

I think most of the cutting is done at aircrew selection and phase 1. After that once they get their wings they might fail the OTU but they remain pilots, just sent to another stream.

[winnipegoo7]

About 30 percent.

With all due respect, are you guessing or are you an instructor/quoting an official report? I ask because it appears that you did your phase training years ago and as Downhiller229 has pointed out, there appears to be very, very few training failures after aircrew selection (at the present time). 

Also, I haven't heard of anyone failing phase I (I know some who did not pass due to medical or personal issues though). My suspicion is that aircrew selection is better now (weed out people lacking the necessary aptitude earlier) and that the CAF is short pilots so maybe they give more second chances.

Also, I found this document from 2012 (from before we switched to the new aircrew selection program - RAF style) that states,  "The RCAF pilot training success rate from selection (after testing at CFASC) to “wings” graduation is approximately 59 percent compared to 85 percent for the Royal Air Force (RAF) which has an age limit of 23 for pilot candidates.[7]"

So I do believe that "back in the old days" there was a 30% failure rate, but I have trouble believing that now.



http://www.crs-csex.forces.gc.ca/reports-rapports/2012/187p0940-eng.aspx

edited - bad grammar and to improve clarity

[Griffon]

Glad to see speculation is still rampant here! For the uninformed: failures still can and do occur both in Portage and Moose Jaw. On average you’ll see 1-3 people CT’d per course in Moose Jaw, I can’t speak to the stats in Portage. It’s just a fact of life, and not something one should really be focused on. Just go for it, put it all on the table, pick yourself up when things don’t go ideally, and let the chips fall where they may. Don’t worry about the stats, they’re just numbers.

[Downhiller229]

On average you’ll see 1-3 people CT’d per course in Moose Jaw

Not that this is what we are debating but... there's no way in a thousand years they fail 2-3 people per course in MJ I would say 5 CTs a year max.

[Lumber]

Not that this is what we are debating but... there's no way in a thousand years they fail 2-3 people per course in MJ I would say 5 CTs a year max.

Umm.. Did you just actually just disagree with someone who actually works for 2CFFTS?

[Downhiller229]

Umm.. Did you just actually just disagree with someone who actually works for 2CFFTS?

Umm.. yes, I just did? What evidence do you have that I don't also work for 2CFFTS? Or at the very least have spent a relatively long portion of time there doing stats for that exact kind of thing? Unless something went catastrophically wrong in the last 18 months I stand by my statement.

By the way I do agree that it's not a number people should care about. There's other things to worry about out during ph2

[Good2Golf]

Unless something went catastrophically wrong in the last 18 months I stand by my statement.

How much less than 'catastrophically' would things have to go wrong for you to consider that you might not have the most recent and accurate information about the goings on at The Big 2?   

G2G