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The Sharp way

Every year, Sobey and his wife Helen
sift through about 200 applications
for the cadetship, of which around
30 are invited to Hamilton for an
interview. Of those, 14 will be taken
into the cadet program where they
will spend 15 months learning to fly
up to CPL level with an MECIR and
Metroliner endorsement.
All cadets live in shared houses
with other cadets in the town, and
train on C172s and a Piper Seneca
V. The training is rounded-out with
a Metro endorsement done largely
on the Ansett Aviation Training
simulator in Melbourne. From
there they spend nine months as an
FO before being sent out into the
aviation world with a swag of multi-
engine turbine time.
A Sharp cadetship may be the
fast way into a Metroliner, but it’s
not necessarily an easy way. Sobey

and his instructors are meticulous

in their training and work the

cadets fairly hard and often within

awkward hours. After all, when you

guarantee them a job at the end, the

onus is on you to make sure they’re

up to scratch.

“I don’t start every day with the

students at the same time. Some

mornings we’ll start at 0530, some days

at 0800 and some nights we’ll stop

at 2100 and others at 1530. They’ve

got to learn what shift work and pilot

work is all about. We work weekends,

sometimes we don’t work Friday. It’s

important for them to understand that

their job is at anytime.

“It takes 15 months to get these

people skills developed properly, and

part of the training is that they have

to get on with one another, they have

to go to the hangar as a group, as part

of a team to get a plane out, when

they’re refuelling an aircraft, when

the paperwork ’s being done; right

through their exams.

“I have 14 students in there and the

worst they hear me raise my voice is

when I see they’ve let one fall behind.

I’ll say ‘what do you think you’re doing?

They’re part of the team, and the 13 of

you have let yourselves down and you’ve

let Sharp Airlines down. You’ve let this

one fall behind, now pick them up and

take them along with us.’”

Such is the value of a Sharp

cadet that several airlines around

Australia get in first and claim the

FOs before they even have a chance

to type up their CVs.

One of the factors that make

Sharp’s FOs so attractive is that the

cadets are taught much more that

just how to fly an aeroplane; they are

trained in how to be a regional pilot.

“The other side of their training–

which is a little bit away from the

CASA course–is to turn them

into good people pilots,” Sobey

explains. “It’s all very well to have

the commercial attributes as

far as running through the day

VFR syllabus and developing

all those skills in flying, but we

needed people who could relate to

our passengers and clients. Our

students all do baggage handling,

aircraft starting, ticketing; we’re

teaching them to deal with people,

rather than just aircraft all the time.

“I believe that in commercial

training in this country, most if not

all flying schools do a pretty good

australianflying.com.au 69

January - February 2015 AUSTRALIAN FLYING

I’d much rather fly than study

for the next three years.