You could put up a good argument that the aviation industry was turning out perfectly good commercial pilots before academia got involved and changed everything. For absolute sure, the quality was up to scratch, but constant fears of pilot shortages showed that perhaps the quantity was not.
Enter the tertiary education institutions; universities, TAFE colleges and Registered Training Organisations (RTO), with the pulling power and government funding to find and train pilot candidates en masse, often with the backing of the major airlines. Courses were defined; skills assigned module numbers. Students came in numbers.
But the ultimate decision of who is and isn’t a commercial pilot lies with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) and the flight examiners that test CPL candidates. Regardless of whether or not the student has studied a degree or a diploma, or done their training the old way through a Part 141 flying school, the CPL test is the same and so is the standard required.
Aspiring CPLs that choose the more structured qualification route through an academic institute has some decisions to make about the right path for them. They can choose
