APS MCC or MCC JOC ?

Before you complete your first multi-crew aircraft type rating, you must complete at least an MCC (Multi Crew Cooperation) course.

MCC courses

An MCC course must consist of no less than 20 hours of flight or simulator training, or 15 hours if forming part of an Integrated ATPL course, and some associated theory training. It is usual for half of the hours to be acting as Pilot Flying (PF) and half as Pilot Monitoring (PM).

JOC and MCC JOC courses

The airline industry has for decades argued that 15 or 20 hours in a simulator is not enough to prepare a pilot, who has until that point been trained to operate as a single pilot, for their first multi-crew type rating. As a result, MCC courses were expanded beyond the minimum hours and things such as the differences between prop-driven and turbojet aircraft handling were covered.

To differentiate these from MCC courses, the term Jet Orientation Course (JOC) became widely accepted, although there has never been any regulatory definition or recognition of JOC courses. Sometimes these courses were stand-alone JOC courses, sometimes combined with an MCC course, hence the MCC JOC acronym.

APS MCC Courses

The challenge with JOC courses was the lack of fixed standards, which meant content and quality varied widely. Some courses consisted of just one day of training and a single simulator session, while others doubled the size and content of a basic MCC course. A few were even conducted on turboprop simulators, which were somewhat at odds with the course title. Consequently, the airline industry continued to raise concerns.

In response to industry pressure, EASA essentially said “if you don’t like it, come up with proposals to fix it!” And so, an EASA working group was formed, consisting of industry representatives and chaired by the Head of Training and Standards from Ryanair, Captain Andy O’Shea.

The working group proposed a new MCC course standard, which was adopted by EASA as the Airline Pilot Standard MCC Course (APS MCC). This regulation formalised best practices for MCC JOC courses.

The Wings Alliance course was aligned with the new standard even before the regulation was published. Alongside Ryanair’s type-rated course, it became one of the first in Europe to fully comply with APS MCC requirements.

Choosing between APS MCC and MCC JOC

1. Not completing an MCC course can prevent you from applying to many airlines, as an MCC course is often a specified requirement in their hiring criteria.
2. A basic MCC course may meet the minimum requirements for some employers, so it could be a cost-saving option if budget is your main concern. However, few major airlines accept basic MCC courses, as the industry’s original concern remains: the training is often inadequate.
3. With the widespread adoption of the APS MCC, the number of traditional MCC JOC courses has decreased. Many of the older courses were of inconsistent quality and may no longer be respected by employers.
4. The APS MCC is now the industry standard. It provides superior training, is recognised by all major employers, and even those airlines that might technically accept a basic MCC tend to prefer applicants who have completed an APS MCC. For instance, Ryanair explicitly states that “preference will be given to applicants who have completed an APS MCC course.”

Your training serves two purposes:

1. To make you acceptable to a potential employer
2. To provide a professional foundation for your career.

Do you really want to build your career on shaky foundations?

How to choose an APS MCC course

The standards of APS MCC courses are far better than some of the more dubious MCC or MCC JOC courses of the past. However, there are some features that you should look out for:

• Aircraft type. Unless combined with a type rating, MCC courses are not type-specific; rather, the simulator is required to represent the class of aircraft. In the case of an APS MCC, this must be a twin turbojet aircraft of no less than 50 seats. Boeing 737 variants are widely accepted as very suitable; later versions, such as 737NG and 737 Max mean you will be exposed to the latest equipment. Sometimes A320 sims are used.
  
  Some say they are less suitable because of the lack of a ‘thrust-pitch couple’, which is when the aircraft trim changes as the thrust is varied (on the Airbus family, this effect is taken out by the flight control system) and sidestick controls. Other aircraft types are used, but not widely.
  
  
• Simulator approval level. The minimum requirement is FNPT II MCC. FNPT stands for Flight and Navigation Procedures Trainer.  The next level is FTD 1 or FTD 2 (Flight Training Device), and thereafter FSS, which stands for Full-Flight Simulator.  Collectively, these classes of simulators are called Synthetic Flight Training Devices (SFTD). The differences are:
  
  
  • FNPT II MCC are officially ‘generic’ rather than type-specific, but this may just be because the simulator manufacturer has not paid the aircraft manufacturer for a certified copy of the flight characteristic data. In other words, the simulator may be identical to an FTD but not certified as one.
  • FTDs are type-specific as they may be used for some of the hours of a type rating. They are widely used for MCC courses as well.
  • Both FNPT II MCC and FTD machines may be ‘fixed base’, in other words, have no motion platform. However, an FSS must be in full motion. It adds to the cost of the machine greatly, and motion is only useful as part of a type rating, so not worth paying extra for an MCC course.

From your viewpoint, there is not much difference between a simulator that is approved as an FNPT II MCC and an FTD except that the latter is guaranteed to be quite ‘true to type’ whereas the former could be type-specific or generic.  It’s probably not worth paying extra for a FFS.

• Number of simulator hours – the minimum requirement for an APS MCC course is 40 hours, which will usually be split 20 hr PF and 20 hr PM. There are some really good courses consisting of 40 hours, so more is probably not worth paying for.
• Instructors – are they current or recently current airline pilots or long retired?
• Reputation – previous trainees are unlikely to have any benchmark to compare their course against, so endorsements should be judged in this light, but you wouldn’t want to spend your money on a course which produced dissatisfied customers.
• What do the employers think? You could try asking, but in the absence of direct feedback from potential employers, try and find out how many graduates get jobs with the sort of employer you are interested in.
• Extras – does the course include help getting a first job? Is accommodation available?
• Customer Service – how responsive is the provider? How much information is on their website, how helpful are they on the phone, etc?

An APS MCC course is the final stage of training before you apply for a job and will have a big influence on your preparation for your first type rating and your attractiveness to potential employers. The course can be great fun, hard work, but a steep and rewarding learning curve and much more representative of the sort of thing you’ll do in your first job than anything you have come across before in your pilot training.

 

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