T
wenty years ago the route to the
airlines took a detour from the
established, single-point flying schools
and aero clubs to the major aviation
academies and universities. Dreamers
now become pilots within a few years,
theoretically ready for the right seat of
a regional airline cockpit.
That presumes, of course, that
unoccupied right seats are available,
which is not always the case. New
CPLs can work hard for a couple of
years and shell out a small fortune,
often funded by loans from parents
or the government, and then have
to sell themselves to airlines in
competition for the few First Officer
(FO) spots up for grabs.
Not even a cadetship with Qantas or
Rex secures you a job; that’s completely
at the discretion of the airline. But there
is an exception: Victorian regional
Sharp Airlines. Sharp’s cadetship leads
directly in to a right-seat on regional
sectors. No entering the FO draft pool
or hawking yourself to every airline in
town; if you pass, you get a job.
By their own admission, Sharp
Airlines is probably the smallest
regional airline in Australia, so
why would they go to all the bother
of setting up their own academy
when they could just follow the
proven practice of poaching charter
pilots and flying instructors from
smaller operators?
The answer is a blend of
practicality and altruism.A bit of history
In the late 1980s, Mal Sharp set up
his own flying operation based in
Hamilton, western Victoria. The
town has deep aviation heritage as
the spiritual home of Ansett Airlines,
which flew its first passengers between
Hamilton and Melbourne in 1936.
Fifteen years ago, Sharp revived air
services between the two towns,
setting up Sharp Airlines with long-
time confederate Peter Sobey.
Initially, the company pressed
workhorse Piper Chieftains into
service, but the taxing demands
of regular public transport
wore them down quickly, so the
company converted to 19-seat
Metroliners. Today the Metros
are run on Adelaide-Port Augusta,
Essendon-Warrnambool-Portland
and Northern Tasmania-Bass
Strait Islands routes.
With two pilots needed for the
Metroliners, Mal and Pete went
on the recruitment trail, but were
not satisfied with the harvest of
potential air crew.
Sobey recalls “We had to employ
Captains and First Officers back
then. After several interviews, one
of the most disappointing things
we found in the industry was that
the qualifications were there, but
the pilots didn’t really understand
what regional airline flying was
all about, even though they had aCPL and instrument rating. So I
said ‘let’s take our flying training to
another level’ and we developed the
first flying cadetship in Australia.
“The idea was to take fresh
young men and women from
school and then train them–or
‘Sharpenise’ them as we call
it–through to their instrument
rating, and then through to the
Metroliner. Two areas shone out:
we could no longer complain about
the quality of the training because
we were doing it ourselves, and also
we knew what standard we needed
to get our pilots to so they could
make the jump from the C172 and
Seneca to the Metroliner.
“It’s a pretty big jump, unless
you’re aware of it right back at their
ab-initio training, so we lifted the
standard of training right from Day
One, so that meant we got them to
the end and there wasn’t such a huge
jump into the Metroliner.”Flight Training STEVE HITCHEN
One Victorian
regional airline
trains its own
cadets, then
guarantees them
a job when they
graduate. Steve
Hitchen visited
Sharp Airlines to
find out how this
unique system
works.
68
AUSTRALIAN FLYING January - February 2015Sharp
Sharp Airlines upgraded to
Metroliners after Chieftains proved
unable to cope with RPT workloads.The
Edge