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Comment by hglaser | Hacker News Reader

-third, there is an American instructor who wrote at Pprune (a pilot forum) about how for Korean pilots (trained in Korea), the worst emergency they can suffer in a simulator is a visual approach ... I can not find the article right now, I think it was erased shortly after being posted.

Here's a reprint. It's very interesting: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3041469/posts

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> The Koreans are very very bright and smart so I was puzzled by their inability to fly an airplane well. They would show up on Day 1 of training (an hour before the scheduled briefing time, in a 3-piece suit, and shined shoes) with the entire contents of the FCOM and Flight Manual totally memorized. But, putting that information to actual use was many times impossible. Crosswind landings are also an unsolvable puzzle for most of them. I never did figure it out completely, but I think I did uncover a few clues. Here is my best guess. First off, their educational system emphasizes ROTE memorization from the first day of school as little kids. As you know, that is the lowest form of learning and they act like robots. They are also taught to NEVER challenge authority and in spite of the flight training heavily emphasizing CRM/CLR, it still exists either on the surface or very subtly. You just cant change 3000 years of culture.

I've experienced this throughout my professional career as an engineer, to the point where I am very reluctant to work with foreign born asians. I find that this trait is very cultural, as it is almost completely absent in asians that were born in the US.

holy crap that article scared the crap out of me, if what he says is true, I am not flying with pilots out of Korean flight school. What he says about the culture of rote memorization and lack of outside box thinking holds some merit before we all cry about how this has nothing to do with East Asian culture. I don't give a damn about culture but if it's preventing you from being able to pass a flying simulation test that is standard, it pretty much makes me NOT want to fly with that airline.

I don't care if American airlines offer crappy inflight customer service compared to Asiana airlines, I DEMAND a pilot that have the qualification to fly and land the airplane in all possible scenarios. If Asiana pilots can't even pass the flight sims, no way in hell I'm letting them fly the plane.

I'm just so angry after reading the article. How fucking hard can it be? I played Microsoft Flight Simulator since 4.5 since the DOS version. Of course the flight simulation is more difficult than a simulator on the computer but I am trying to illustrate how ridiculous the Korean pilots attitude is. It's like they treat it as some demeaning labor (Korean society judges a person a lot by their occupation if it's not a traditionally Confucius approved position like scholar, professor, lawyer, doctor, prosecutor). You are responsible for hundreds of peoples lives and you can't even land the fucking plane on a flight simulator via visual approach because you are afraid of screwing up or looking bad in front of your superior officer? You can't even say that the emperor is naked because someone above you says he isn't?

And why the hell did that Korean American pilot for Asiana or KAL get arrested and JAILED, for starting a union? Was he suspected of being a communist for wanting to be paid by the flight hour time?

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